The Wisdom of Trees
Thinking Through Arboreality
Published on 2. December 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
472 pages
979-8-8558-0271-9 (ISBN)
Description
Pioneering essays that reveal the significance of new interdisciplinary understandings of trees and forests, especially in terms of their philosophical and ecological dimensions and their importance for addressing the climate emergency.
This is the first book to apply philosophical thinking to trees. Through a series of sixteen diverse essays by leading scholars and writers, along with an in-depth introduction to the key issues and ideas, it examines the new and emerging understanding of trees in science and society. Contributors show how these developments encourage a revisioning of philosophical thought and a more sustainable relationship with trees and forests-a reconceptualization with important ecological and social implications for responding to deforestation, the loss of biodiversity, and the climate emergency. The interdisciplinary contributions in this collection investigate the many interconnected dimensions of arboreality, focusing on subjects related to time, mind, truth, memory, being, beauty, goodness, silence, wisdom, personhood, and death. The volume engages in a conversation about why trees matter, how they can best be protected, our obligations to them, and even what or who they are. Most of the chapters are informed by natural history or ecological science and many share a particular emphasis on continental philosophy and the environmental humanities.
This is the first book to apply philosophical thinking to trees. Through a series of sixteen diverse essays by leading scholars and writers, along with an in-depth introduction to the key issues and ideas, it examines the new and emerging understanding of trees in science and society. Contributors show how these developments encourage a revisioning of philosophical thought and a more sustainable relationship with trees and forests-a reconceptualization with important ecological and social implications for responding to deforestation, the loss of biodiversity, and the climate emergency. The interdisciplinary contributions in this collection investigate the many interconnected dimensions of arboreality, focusing on subjects related to time, mind, truth, memory, being, beauty, goodness, silence, wisdom, personhood, and death. The volume engages in a conversation about why trees matter, how they can best be protected, our obligations to them, and even what or who they are. Most of the chapters are informed by natural history or ecological science and many share a particular emphasis on continental philosophy and the environmental humanities.
Reviews / Votes
"This richly varied collection offers a fascinating path through a forest of ruminations on trees from a wide range of perspectives. Replete with vivid insights into the arboreal universe, the disciplinary range of the contributions is remarkably broad and their topics even more so. This is a unique contribution." - Arnold Berleant, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, C. W. Post Center, Long Island UniversityMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Albany, NY
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
US School Grade: College Graduate Student and over
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
18 Illustrations, black and white; 11 Figures
Dimensions
Height: 150 mm
Width: 229 mm
Thickness: 31 mm
Weight
692 gr
ISBN-13
979-8-8558-0271-9 (9798855802719)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2025
State University of New York Press
€39.99
Available for download
Persons
David Macauley is Academy Professor and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Penn State University. Laura Pustarfi is a Lecturer in Philosophy and Religion as well as Director of the Certificate Program at the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Content
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Joan Maloof
Introduction: The Wisdom of Trees
David Macauley and Laura Pustarfi
Trees as Beings
Interstice: Redwood
1. Arboreality: Trees as Ontologically Valuable Beings
Laura Pustarfi
2. In the Beginning She Was a Redwood: Rethinking Ontology through an Ecofeminist Materialism
Kimberly Carfore
The Language of Trees
Interstice: The Forest
3. Speaking Trees: The Language of Nature and Arboreal Communication
Luke Fischer
4. The Silence of Primeval Forests
Daniel O'Dea Bradley
Thinking (Like) Trees
Interstice: Arborescence
5. Vegetal Imagination: Schelling and Whitehead as Exemplars of Marder's Plant-Thinking
Matthew David Segall
Trees and Time
Interstice: Rings
6. "Old Trees Hold Memory": Aboriginal Australian Perspectives on Memory, Trauma, and Witnessing in the Arboreal World
John Charles Ryan
7. Birth and Death in Trees
Alphonso Lingis
The Place and Ecology of Trees
Interstice: Banyan
8. The Place of Trees: Taking Trees over the Edge
Michael Marder and Edward S. Casey
9. Organisms and Environments: What Alexander von Humboldt Learned from Trees
Dalia Nassar
Trees and Aesthetics
Interstice: Cypress
10. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Tree: Appreciating the Beauty of the Arboreal World
David Macauley
11. Do Trees Sing?
David Rothenberg
Trees and Ethics
Interstice: Apple
12. The Ponderosa Pines of Gold Creek: Discerning Arboreal Values for an All-Too-Human World
James Hatley
13. Wise Trees: Exemplars in the Arts of East Asia
Mara Miller
Legal and Political Trees
Interstice: Eucalyptus
14. Philosophers with a Peculiarly Instructive Aversion toward Trees
Sam Mickey
15. Trees as Legal Persons
Eric W. Orts
Afterword: The Sequoia Archipelago
Don Hanlon Johnson
Suggestions for Further Reading
Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Joan Maloof
Introduction: The Wisdom of Trees
David Macauley and Laura Pustarfi
Trees as Beings
Interstice: Redwood
1. Arboreality: Trees as Ontologically Valuable Beings
Laura Pustarfi
2. In the Beginning She Was a Redwood: Rethinking Ontology through an Ecofeminist Materialism
Kimberly Carfore
The Language of Trees
Interstice: The Forest
3. Speaking Trees: The Language of Nature and Arboreal Communication
Luke Fischer
4. The Silence of Primeval Forests
Daniel O'Dea Bradley
Thinking (Like) Trees
Interstice: Arborescence
5. Vegetal Imagination: Schelling and Whitehead as Exemplars of Marder's Plant-Thinking
Matthew David Segall
Trees and Time
Interstice: Rings
6. "Old Trees Hold Memory": Aboriginal Australian Perspectives on Memory, Trauma, and Witnessing in the Arboreal World
John Charles Ryan
7. Birth and Death in Trees
Alphonso Lingis
The Place and Ecology of Trees
Interstice: Banyan
8. The Place of Trees: Taking Trees over the Edge
Michael Marder and Edward S. Casey
9. Organisms and Environments: What Alexander von Humboldt Learned from Trees
Dalia Nassar
Trees and Aesthetics
Interstice: Cypress
10. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Tree: Appreciating the Beauty of the Arboreal World
David Macauley
11. Do Trees Sing?
David Rothenberg
Trees and Ethics
Interstice: Apple
12. The Ponderosa Pines of Gold Creek: Discerning Arboreal Values for an All-Too-Human World
James Hatley
13. Wise Trees: Exemplars in the Arts of East Asia
Mara Miller
Legal and Political Trees
Interstice: Eucalyptus
14. Philosophers with a Peculiarly Instructive Aversion toward Trees
Sam Mickey
15. Trees as Legal Persons
Eric W. Orts
Afterword: The Sequoia Archipelago
Don Hanlon Johnson
Suggestions for Further Reading
Contributors
Index