Project description
Roots of knowledge: reclaiming the floral paradigm
People often overlook the vital role of plants in our daily lives and education, a phenomenon called plant awareness disparity (PAD). Supported by the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions programme, the Lost Epistemologies and Awareness of Flora (LEAF) project argues that this invisibility is not just a bias, but a historical exclusion shaped by scientific frameworks that devalued plant life and female researchers. By recovering the contributions of figures such as Rosa Luxemburg, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, and Agnes Arber, the project aims to reposition plants as essential conceptual tools for understanding transformation and relation. Through a unique historical-philosophical methodology, the project seeks to challenge modern intellectual authority and provide a new paradigm for recognising marginalised forms of knowledge.
Objective
“Lost Epistemologies and Awareness of Flora” (LEAF) explores the historical and philosophical roots of Plant Awareness Disparity (PAD), a term describing the tendency to overlook plant life in education and everyday perception. Rather than treating PAD as a cognitive bias, LEAF theorises it as a form of epistemic exclusion shaped by classificatory systems that determined what counts as life and whose knowledge is recognised as legitimate. The project examines how late 19th- and early 20th-century scientific and philosophical frameworks—structured by anatomical hierarchies, gendered disciplinary boundaries, and the professionalisation of science—rendered plant life and its interpreters invisible to Philosophy. By recovering the contributions of Rosa Luxemburg, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, and Agnes Arber, LEAF repositions plants not as passive objects but as conceptual resources for thinking transformation, relation, and non-linear growth—categories sidelined in dominant epistemologies. The goal is to provide a new paradigm for understanding the double epistemic exclusion of both plant knowledge and the women who cultivated it, thereby clarifying how these entanglements continue to shape intellectual authority today. No systematic historical or philosophical study has yet theorised PAD as an epistemological construct or analysed its intersection with canon formation and gendered exclusions. LEAF fills this gap through an original methodology combining Cambridge School contextualism, Kuhnian paradigm analysis, Daston’s regimes of objectivity, and historical epistemology, enabling a reconstruction of the semantic, institutional, and epistemic structures that sustain plant invisibility in Philosophy.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
WC1E 7HU London
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.