Three central themes of Maturana’s work – autopoiesis, the biology of cognition, and cybernetic ontology – are examined. Evidence is offered that Maturana’s treatment of these themes is either unoriginal or flawed. The uncritical acceptance of Maturana’s work by family therapists raises questions about the maturity of their discipline, especially in so far as many practitioners claim an understanding of cybernetics.

This short paper will seek to highlight some problems in this debate that arise, in my opinion, from a failure to differentiate clearly between two levels: 1) the level of things and events; and 2) the meanings placed upon them. It will also argue an anarchistic position that, on the one hand, even if there were an absolute reality, it would be best not to believe in it, and, on the other hand, any view of reality, however apparently absurd, might be worth believing in at some time or other. In other words, we should believe nothing and anything, both at the same time. To do any less can lead to the many absurd positions that we see taken around us in our seemingly crazy and suicidal world.

This article is a critical analysis of Maturana’s recent works as applied to the social and behavioral sciences. It proposes that there is a major contradiction in Maturana’s “structure determinism” which prevents a consistent epistemological and ontological perspective. The concept of change is viewed as crucial to understanding Maturana’s work and to extending his ideas to form a consistent philosophical viewpoint, which is defined as the third epistemology for the social and behavioral sciences. Accordingly, the idea of structure is abdicated. It is proposed that the new perspective on Maturana’s work has practical application to the social and behavioral sciences, in general, and family therapy, in particular.

In recent years the work of Humberto Maturana, a research biologist and neurophysiologist from the University of Santiago, Chile, has come to the forefront of dialogue between several well-known family therapists. This paper introduces the reader to some of his original ideas and shows its connection with family therapy through linkages between it and some of the theoretical underpinnings of the Milan School.

I consider that none of the criticisms that Birch makes of my work applies. Moreover, I consider that Birch makes a confusion of conceptual domains. He, in a philosophical mood, wants to save the notion of objectivity as an ontological notion, and, as he does so, he unavoidably distorts, abandons or neglects experience. I, in a scientific mood, want to explain the observer and observing as biological phenomena, and as I do so I find that I have to leave out or abandon reality as an ontological notion, and replace it by reality as an explanatory proposition. After recognizing that there is this fundamental difference between Birch and myself, it is obvious that nothing of what I say will satisfy him, and nothing of what he says will satisfy me.