Martina Roesner: Homo arbor inversa. Die philosophisch-theologische Ambivalenz der Metapher vom Menschen als ›umgekehrtem Baum‹ im mittelalterlichen Denken
In the domain of philosophical and theological anthropology, the question concerning human nature is usually dealt with on the basis of two classical definitions, i.e. the Aristotelian concept of man as “rational animal” and the Biblical description of man as being created “in the image and likeness of God”. The present paper intends to focus on the philosophical and theological tradition of a much less known definition that considers man as an “inverted tree” (arbor inversa). This metaphor can be traced back to Plato’s Timaios, where the human being is referred to as a “celestial plant”. Aristotle, by contrast, rejects this cosmological image and recognizes only that man is morphologically different to plants in that the latter absorb nutrients through their roots whereas the human being eats with the mouth, which is situated in the uppermost part of his body. During the Patristic era and the Middle Ages, this structural “inversion” of the human being is interpreted sometimes positively, i.e. as a sign of his “heavenly roots” – e.g. in Isaac of Stella –, sometimes negatively, i.e. as a sign of his sinful “perversion” and his overall earthly finitude – e.g. in Lothario dei Segni’s De miseria condicionis humanae and in Johannes von Tepl’s The Husbandman and Death. This last work proves to be of particular importance in that is has visibly influenced Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein̓s existential finitude and mortality in Being and Time. Instead of defining humanity through a particular quality or property (reason, imago Dei etc.), the metaphor of the “inverted tree” focuses more on a topological definition that puts the accent on the structure of the human being as a whole and on his moral and spiritual orientation within the framework of reality.
Keywords: philosophical/theological anthropology – human morphology – finitude – mortality – postmodern subjectivity