Plant Behaviour, Adaptive Plasticity and Evolution: Reassessing the Debate on Plant Intelligence

In recent decades, plant sciences have profoundly transformed our philosophical understanding of plants, moving beyond the traditional view of the plant organism as a passive, mechanical entity devoid of agency. Contemporary research into plant physiology, chemical communication and adaptive strategies has helped to outline a theoretical framework: plants emerge as complex systems, capable of environmental perception, signal integration, physiological memory and flexible responses to stimuli. Recent findings have stimulated an extensive interdisciplinary debate on whether plants should be attributed forms of cognition or even intelligence. This paper critically analyses the relationship between plant behaviour and evolutionism, examining the concepts of adaptation, communication and plant intelligence in the light of evolutionary biology, the philosophy of mind and the epistemology of the life sciences. This review examines how the case of plants helps to redefine traditional categories such as organisms, behaviours, subjectivities and cognition. It opens up new theoretical perspectives for a non-anthropocentric philosophy of life.