The aim of this article is a critical revision of the dominant philosophical conceptualization of plants. The author deconstructs the tradition of describing plants in metaphysical and anthropocentric categories by deploying a set of tropes and strategies from the toolkit of deconstruction and phenomenology. While considering the 'plant-being', he formulates an alternative concept of 'plant-thinking', whose distinctive features are non-identity, voicelessness, non-essentionality and existence outside any symbol system. Conceptualized in these categories the plant not only defies the received discourse of metaphysics but also becomes a stepping stone and a most important figure of post-metaphysical thought.

Roman Ingarden’s work is widely taken as promoting a philosophical anthropology in which considerations from philosophy of ecology, that is, ecophilosophy, have no secure place. I think this contention is too hasty, even though Ingarden himself did not undertake reflections on the responsibility of humans for their natural environment. It is true that here and there he was giving explicit expression to his conviction of the unimportance of biological origins of humans, and was putting a strong emphasis on culture and other intentional creatures of humanity. In my paper I have tried to trace and describe Ingardenian understanding of humans in relation to their environment, and especially to nature. I have made an attempt to show how free human actions are possible, which in turn enforces on humans some responsibility for their actions, including those that impinge upon the nature around them.