According to the speaker's account of Aristotle, plants have the lowest of three kinds of soul: a vegetative soul that supports nurturing and growth but does not experience the world around it.

“Aristotle saw that the plants are relatively dumb. He basically said there are three levels of souls in nature, and he basically said that plants have the lowest one. There's this, this, uh, level that is vegetative, that is capable of nurturing and of growth, but it does not experience the world around us.”