Phenomenology

Phenomenology of A Biospheric Plant-Based Realism suggests an inquiry into how reality is encountered when life itself—not human preference, abstraction, or economic convention—is taken as the starting point, with plant-based living understood as a practical expression of that reality.

A possible starting conceptual formulation:

Biospheric Plant-Based Realism is the view that human beings exist within a living Biosphere whose other-than-human life is not merely an object of human use, but part of the material reality upon which human existence depends. Plant-based living therefore becomes not simply a diet or ethical preference, but a way of perceiving, inhabiting, and participating in the conditions of life.

And phenomenology adds another interesting dimension: rather than beginning with “What should humans believe?”, it asks:

• What do we actually encounter when we encounter another living being?
• What becomes visible when animals are encountered as living subjects rather than food commodities?
• How does a plant-based world appear differently from within a meat-centred food system?
• How do markets, streets, kitchens, bodies and landscapes shape our perception of life?
• What happens when Life itself becomes the horizon of experience?

This could become a substantial philosophical framework for the foods lovers: moving from veganism as a dietary category toward biospheric plant-based realism as a way of understanding and inhabiting reality, and fun :).

If you would like to share your thoughts on vegan and the Biosphere, please feel free to contact us.

VB Foods For Thoughts Project Team.