Neurobiologia das Plantas: uma perspectiva interespecífica sobre o debate

Abstract

This dissertation is an attempt to approach the perspective of plants through the analysis of the scientific production identified with a line of research called Plant Neurobiology - PNB and the controversies established by it. In the first chapter, divided into two parts, I first present a balance of the debate caused by the ideas raised in the plant sciences with the advent of the PNB, highlighting the different controversies involved in the debate, from which three tensions arise. In the second part I try to demonstrate, from the description of my experience in Laboratório de Estudos de Plantas sob Estresse - LEPSE, how the first and second tension find resonances in the scientific practice and in the academic life of the researchers there. In the second chapter, I try to articulate the tensions I have described, highlighting the elements of what Hustak & Myers (2012) call a "richer narrative". I seek, therefore, a narrative that accounts for the way the plants express themselves and reveal the entanglements in which plants and scientists are involved. My hypothesis is that these tensions, alone or in combination, suggest ways of accessing and enunciate the perspective of plants. In the second part, somehow still supported by the idea of narrative, I try to demonstrate that the discussion about the intelligent behavior of plants and other contingent themes can be seen as a discussion of terms. These terms carry certain epistemological and ontological commitments, but more importantly, I try to reveal that, once the controversy has been mapped out, the positions of scientists derived from their arguments are not always diametrically opposed or absolute.