A plant does not seem to have much in common with animals. Yet naturalists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries attempted to study plants as if they were animals: they set out, for example, to find an equivalent to the circulatory or respiratory systems. Why did they feel the need to resort to analogical reasoning? What results did they obtain? And more generally, what is the value of this type of reasoning?

On the agenda

Tuesday, May 5, 2026

12:15 PM – Welcome and light lunch

1:30 PM – Introductory remarks

Thibault De Meyer (University of Namur): Why Analogy?

2:15 PM – Session 1: Theory and Practice - Cristiana Oghina-Pavie (University of Angers): The analogy of pragmatic knowledge: actions and transactions in 19th-century horticulture and Quentin Hiernaux (FNRS / Free University of Brussels): The plant-animal analogy employed by A.-P. de Candolle’s physiology in addressing the issue of the sensitivity of living beings

3:45 PM – Coffee break

4:15 PM – Plenary Session 1 - Thierry Hoquet (University of Paris Nanterre): Is the plant/animal analogy valid?

5:45 PM – End of the first day

7:00 PM – Conference dinner

Wednesday, May 6, 2026

9:00 AM – Welcome

9:15 AM – Session 2: Relationships and Boundaries of the Living - Dario Galvão (University of Namur): Analogy and the Faculties of the Living: Animal Reason and Plant Sensibility in the Enlightenment and Ugo Batini (University of Poitiers): Understanding Humanity Through Plants: Analogy and the Metaphysics of the Living in Schopenhauer

10:45 AM – Coffee break

11:15 AM – Plenary Lecture 2 – Pascal Duris (University of Bordeaux): Plants as Humans. Analogy in Linnaeus and the Linneans

12:45 PM – Lunch break

2:00 PM – Toward New Disciplines - Vera Staetmanns (Ruhr University Bochum): Do Plants Think? Analogy in the Plant Psychology of Raoul Heinrich Francé (1874–1943) and Matthieu Amat (University of Rouen Normandy): Analogy and Homology: Transfers from the Life Sciences to the Cultural Sciences in the 19th Century

3:30 PM – Coffee break

4:00 PM – Plenary Session 3 - Aliènor Bertrand (CNRS / ENS de Lyon): “Les œufs du vent” and Their Descendants

5:30 PM – Closing of the conference

5:45 PM – End of the day

Contact: Dario Galvao - dario.galvao@unamur.be