Sevänen E. (2001) Art as an autopoietic sub-system of modern society: A critical analysis of the concepts of art and autopoietic systems in Luhmann’s late production. Theory, Culture & Society 18(1): 75–103. Fulltext at https://cepa.info/6271
This article is concerned with Niklas Luhmann’s theory of art which he formulated in the 1990s, based on his general theory of autopoietic systems. This theory regards modern society as a functionally differentiated formation whose sub-systems operate according to their inner principles of communication. According to this, the domain of art can also be seen as an operationally closed and self-referential communicative system. The basic problem in these notions lies in the way in which their description of the relationships existing between different systems is only in very narrow terms. Consequently they partially ignore the present process of de-differentiation which has noticeably changed the status of art in society. Instead, Luhmann’s ideas expressly emphasize that functional differentiation is an ongoing process. In order to describe the process of de-differentiation, social theory does not need to abandon the concept of autopoiesis, but it does need to understand social systems as interlaced formations which, to an increasing extent, contain common normative and organizational constituents. Because social systems are not altogether self-referential formations, the concept of autopoiesis can describe them only in part. This particular concept of system has been developed in particular by Richard Münch, and as such it forms a productive alternative to the theory of autopoietic social systems.
With reference to three seminal books on cybernetics, communication theory and the calculus of distinctions, this article discusses some main threads in Niklas Luhmann’s sociological systems theoretical thinking. It argues that the systems theory, despite its still lively reputation in some quarters of the humanities, is not technocracy’s last attempt to cope with the complexity of modern society. Rather, it is an inquiry into the improbability of communication and into its translation into social structure, or better, into social form.
In the target article, it was claimed that the enactive extended interpretation of the autopoietic theory (AT) of living beings is incorrect, and an embodied reformulation of AT (EAT) was put forward to remedy and prevent such an interpretation. In this general reply, I want to clarify the motivation, reach, philosophical commitments, and theoretical status of EAT. I do this, mainly, by explicating the notions of body and autopoiesis, and by reconstructing EAT, not as a conceptual definition of life but as a theoretical identity statement of living beings as a natural kind.
The extension of the organism into the environment, suggested by some interpretations of autopoiesis, can seem disconcerting. Yet we argue that Villalobos and Razeto-Barry’s attempt to reinscribe the organism inside the physical body, via the criterion of autopoietically produced material coherence, cannot account for the dynamical and highly changeable nature of life. A successful science of life must do justice not only to the life forms that enjoy clear boundaries but also to the squishy, the strange and the technologically modified.
The article is an introduction to a special section in TCS on the work of Niklas Luhmann. The first part of the article provides a general introduction to Luhmann’s work with an emphasis on the basic elements of Luhmann’s general systems theory, in particular Luhmann’s notions of autopoiesis and meaning, and the traditions on which it is based. The second part of the text is a presentation of the articles in the special section.
In his comment, McGann argues that in my “From Sensorimotor Dependencies to Perceptual Practices: Making Enactivism Social,” I have overlooked a group of enactivist theories that can be grouped under the participatory sense-making label. In this reply, I explain that the omission is due to the fact that such theories are not accounts of perception. It is argued that, unlike participatory sense-making, the approach of the “From Sensorimotor Dependencies to Perceptual Practices” article does not focus on the perceptual aspects of things social, but on the social aspects that are constitutive of perception in general. I conclude by underscoring the central argument of the original article: that the adequate notion to make enactivism about perception social is that of “perceptual practices,” a social practices-based notion of perception.
Agmon E. (2020) Deriving the bodily grounding of living beings with molecular autopoiesis. Adaptive Behavior 28(1): 35–36. Fulltext at https://cepa.info/6270
“Are living beings extended autopoietic systems? An embodied reply,” makes the case for grounding the autopoietic definition of living beings to the discrete bodies of organisms rather than to autopoietic systems that extend beyond the organisms into their environments. They attempt this grounding by amending a clause to the original formulation of autopoiesis that identifies living beings with their bodies, and then they explicitly define “bodies”. This commentary makes the case that bodily grounding can be derived from molecular autopoiesis by taking the molecular domain seriously, and no new amendment is required.
Chettiparamb A. (2018) Meta-operations, autopoiesis and neo-systems thinking: What significance for spatial planners? Planning Theory 17(4): 628–643. Fulltext at https://cepa.info/6261
This essay introduces the theory of legal autopoiesis to planning. It discusses the main tenets of neo-systems thinking and elaborates on select claims and concepts from legal autopoiesis for planners. The claims and concepts are then used to re-analyse a published case study describing the after-effects of the implementation of a Compulsory Purchase Order in the regeneration of the Docklands in Cardiff. The re-interpretation draws attention to the added insights brought into focus by the theory. The significance of neo-systems thinking for planning is then discussed. The article concludes that the new epistemological framings connects the universal to the particular with implications for current understandings of planning concepts such as public interest, consensus, situatedness, contingency and justice. Neo-systems thinking thus deconstructs ‘how to’ dilemmas for planners from a non-normative standpoint at a meta-operational level.
Villalobos and Razeto-Barry’s embodied reformulation of the autopoietic theory (AT) replaces AT’s reference to autopoietic ‘systems’ with a reference to autopoietic ‘bodies’ so as to prevent an extended enactivist reading of AT. I argue that the specific notions of ‘body’ and ‘embodiment’ invoked by Villalobos and Razeto-Barry appear to be in tension with AT and are problematic as such.
Alksnis N. (2016) Review of Radicalizing Enactivism by Daniel D. Hutto and Erik Myin. Philosophy in Review 36(3): 118–120. Fulltext at https://cepa.info/6257
Excerpt: In Radicalizing Enactivism (RE), Hutto and Myin present compelling arguments for why basic minds do not have content. In particular, they introduce the Hard Problem of Content (HPC), which states that ‘informational content is incompatible with explanatory naturalism’ (xv). By reviewing a range of theories, the pair demonstrate the futility of attempts to distinguish content from covariance (content is information within a system, whereas a covariant system can be explained purely by way of causal interactions).