Our starting point has been the awareness that all knowing is an action by the knower, that is, that all knowing depends on the structure of the knower. And this starting point will be the signpost to our conceptual journey throughout these pages: how is knowledge brought forth in “doing”? What are the roots and mechanisms that make it operate in this way? In the light of these questions, the first step along our journey is as follows: knowing is the action of the knower; it is rooted in the very manner of his living being, in his organization. We hold that the biological roots of knowing cannot be understood only through examining the nervous system; we believe it is necessary to understand how these processes are rooted in the living being as a whole. Therefore, in this chapter we are going to discuss a few things about the organization of living things. This discussion will not be an ornament of biology or a kind of crash course for those who lack biological training. In this book it is a key feature to help us understand the phenomenon of cognition in all its facets.

Excerpt: If the reader has followed seriously what was said in these pages, he will be impelled to look at everything he does – smelling, seeing, building, preferring, rejecting, conversing – as a world brought forth in coexistence with other people through the mechanisms we have described. If we have lured our reader to see himself in the same way as these phenomena, this book will have achieved its first objective. Doing that, of course, will put us in a circular situation. It might leave us a bit dizzy, as though following the hands drawn by Escher. This dizziness results from our not having a fixed point of reference to which we can anchor our descriptions in order to affirm and defend their validity. In effect, if we presuppose the existence of an objective world, independent of us as observers and accessible to our knowledge through our nervous system, we cannot understand how our nervous system functions in its structural dynamics and still produce a representation of this independent || world. But if we do not presuppose an objective world independent of us as observers, it seems we are accepting that everything is relative and anything is possible in the denial of all lawfulness. Thus we confront the problem of understanding how our experience – the praxis of our living – is coupled to a surrounding world which appears filled with regularities that are at every instant the result of our biological and social histories.

This article applies Maturana’s theory of ‘bringing forth’ reality to the clinical domain. Many common features of therapy are redefined including the notions of ‘psychopathology’, languaging and conversations, the family, and cognition. New concepts are introduced, notably those of the multiversa and the placing of objectivity in parenthesis. The rôle of the socially sanctioned specialist (expert) is examined and criticised for pretending to have a privileged access to an objectively existing reality. The authors propose a radical change in epistemology, premised upon the changes in understanding which they propose in relation to the ontology of the phenomenon of cognition. Particular attention is given to the orthogonality of the therapist’s approach to interacting with families.

After introducing the problem and a short impression of the work of Humberto Maturana, I elaborate on his ideas concerning science and the scientific explanation (1.) and objectivity (2.). In an evaluation of these views I claim that we cannot accept some consequences of Maturana’s theory, because they leave no space for discussion (3.). I then turn to Bruno Latour, and after a short introduction (4.) proceed to claim that there are some interesting similarities between Latour and Maturana (5.), especially in their respective ideas on the praxis of explaining. I further claim that Latour’s idea of ‘infrareflexivity’ constitutes a way out of the problems with Maturana’s theory (6.). I conclude with a ‘plea for taking dialogue seriously’ (7.). Along the way, it turns out, I could show Latour a counterexample of his claim that systems theorists are not aware of their own role in creating ‘systems’.

Maturana and Varela have developed important theories about living systems (autopoiesis) and also about the brain/nervous system and cognition. These theories have strongly subjectivist implications leading to the view that our explanations and descriptions reflect the structure of the subject, rather than that of an objective world, and that we therefore construct the world which we experi¬ence. This paper analyzes Maturana’s ideas in terms of the main philosophical traditions – empiricism, idealism, and realism – showing that they are a blend of both realist and antirealist positions. It then provides a critique of Maturana’s radical subjectivism and argues that his theory is best seen as compatible with critical realism.

Key words: autopoiesis, cognition, epistemology, ontology, critical realism.

Maturana and Varela developed the concept of autopoiesis to explain the phenomena of living organisms. They went further and postulated theories concerning the nervous system and the development of cognition. These theories have radical conclusions concerning human thought, language, and social activity. This paper aims to introduce these ideas and to explore the main implications. It also discusses the application of these cognitive theories in three separate domains – computer systems design, family therapy, and the Law.

Key words: autopoiesis, cognition, language, law, nervous system, psychotherapy, systems design.

The theory of autopoiesis developed by Maturana and Varela to explain living systems has been applied in various ways to social systems. However, whether such an application can be more than an analogy or metaphor is highly debatable. Maturana himself has generally not claimed that social systems were themselves autopoietic, but were the medium within which autopoietic systems could interact and become structurally coupled. This paper contrasts autopoiesis, and Maturana’s social theory, with Giddens’ theory of structuration which, at first sight, appears quite similar. The conclusion is that whilst autopoiesis does not fit structuration theory, there are valuable complementarities with Maturana’s social theory.

Key words: autopoiesis, nomic, self-reference, socialtheory, structuration theory.

This paper presents a critical evaluation of the impact of Maturana’s constructivist approach to (systemic) family therapy. After an historical introduction and a brief description of the main ideas, a number of criticisms are considered. These concern the radical antirealist epistemology, and problems in dealing with the social context of the family, and power relations within the family

Key words: autopoiesis, constructivism, epistemology, systemic therapy, family therapy, feminism, power, social structure