Open peer commentary on the article “In Maturana’s Wake: The Biology of Cognition’s Legacy and its Prospects” by Randall Whitaker. Abstract: Influential texts are often long, complicated, dense, and difficult to read. While these texts have their place, it seems they are not utilized by the masses as frequently as content that is shorter, easier to understand, practical, and in a format that is more interactive. A proposal is made for practical applications of Maturana’s research to be presented in short videos to improve the understandability of his ideas while also increasing its popularity and value.

We very much appreciate that Maturana (2011) responded to our article, where we had made an attempt to excavate some of the hidden conceptual context in which the idea of autopoiesis had originally been formulated (Froese & Stewart, 2010). Our investigation was motivated by the growing interest in autopoiesis and related ideas among a new generations of researchers in cognitive science, driven by the increasing popularity of the enactive approach to cognitive science (Stewart, Gapenne, & Di Paolo, 2010). This enactive paradigm has been developed as an alternative to the traditional cognitivist-computationalist paradigm, and it is remarkable for its serious consideration of first-person experience and biological autonomy, two important domains of human existence that have so far been neglected in cognitive science.

Key words: Maturana, representation, embodiment

Open peer commentary on the article “In Maturana’s Wake: The Biology of Cognition’s Legacy and its Prospects” by Randall Whitaker. Abstract: Following Whitaker’s target article I have sought to understand, apply and extend Humberto Maturana’s biology of cognition (BoC. My approach has been to use a few key concepts pertinent to interpersonal ethical issues and so I avoided being enmeshed in BoC. This commentary is presented as an extension or application of BoC going beyond the details considered in the target article.

Against the background of the emerging holistic view of language based on physicalism (the embodiment of mind) and an understanding that language is a biological phenomenon rooted in semiosis as the experience of life, it is argued that a new philosophical framework for cognition and language is currently taking shape. This philosophy is best characterized as a synthesis of ideas developed in cognitive linguistics, semiotics and biology. These ideas bear directly on autopoiesis as the theory of the living which possesses a greater explanatory power as it assumes the experiential nature of language. Autopoiesis allows for deeper insights into the essence of language which is viewed as a kind of adaptive behavior of an organism involving a meaning system constituted by signs of signs, thus making unification of (humanistic) science an attainable goal.

Key words: cognition, semiotics, biology, experience, meaning, life.

This book is an attempt to re-evaluate some basic assumptions about language, communication, and cognition in the light of the new epistemology of autopoiesis as the theory of the living. Starting with a critique of common myths about language and communication, the author goes on to argue for a new understanding of language and cognition as functional adaptive activities in a consensual domain of interactions. He shows that such understanding is, in fact, what marks a variety of theoretical and empirical frameworks in contemporary non-Cartesian cognitive science; thus, cognitive science is in the process of working out new epistemological foundations for the study of language and cognition. In Part Two, the traditional concept of grammar is reassessed from the vantage point of autopoietic epistemology, and an analysis of specific grammatical phenomena in English and Russian is undertaken, revealing common cognitive mechanisms at work in linguistic categories.

Purpose: This paper demonstrates the conceptual relevance of Maturana’s biology of cognition for the theoretical foundations of the language sciences. Approach: Stuck in rationalizing, rather than naturalizing, language, modern orthodox linguistics is incapable of offering a comprehensible account of language as a species-specific, biologically grounded human feature. This predicament can be overcome by using Maturana’s theory to stress that lived experience gives language an epistemological “lining.” Findings: The key concepts of Maturana’s biology of cognition provide a more coherent theoretical framework for the study of language that can give new life to the language sciences by stressing languaging and the importance of connotation. Conclusion: Maturana’s concept of “languaging” allows the language sciences to depart from the view of language as a system of symbols. Instead, focus should be placed on how the relational dynamics of linguistic interactions trigger changes in the dynamics of the nervous system and the organism as a whole, and how their reciprocal causality is distinguished and described by the languaging observer in terms of mind, intelligence, reason, and self-consciousness.

Key words: linguistic orthodoxy, observer, consensual domain, languaging

It is argued that the difference in the rhetoric used by Russian presidents in their annual addresses and American presidents in their inauguration speeches reflects the difference between the Russian and American societies viewed as living systems in the theoretical framework of the biology of cognition. Relevance: The biology of cognition principles are applied in analyzing rhetoric as a reflection of orientational values in different societies as living systems.

Excerpt: The text network analysis methodology Dmitry Paranyushkin applies in his comparative analysis of Medvedev’s and Putin’s annual addresses to the Federal Assembly is an interesting attempt to identify and visualize a conceptual network that lies at the basis of a particular text, such as a presidential address in this case. Because the human brain thinks in language (Maturana, Mpodozis, & Letelier, 1995), this methodology, with its concept of “betweenness centrality” as a measure used to identify the keywords (which are not necessarily the most frequent words), may help to better understand the ways we think – including Russian (or American) president.

This column is a journey that considers both the failure of second-order cybernetics (SOC), radical constructivism (RC), and the biology of cognition (BoC) to achieve wide acceptance, particularly in science, and the opportunities for SOC, RC, and BoC in the social sciences and other disciplines. Relevance: This column is cited in New Horizons for Second-Order Cybernetics (2018) World Scientific in connection with the Kline-Martin Hypothesis – an examination of whether second-order cybernetics has succeeded or failed.

Key words: second-order cybernetics, radical constructivism, biology of cognition, paradigm of science

With a preface by Pier Luigi Luisi, this book sketches the complexity of Humberto Maturana’s life, through his early works, his studies in England, his doctoral thesis at Harvard, and leading towards the publication of “Biology of Cognition” in 1970. The author includes anecdotes and the poetry in Maturana’s works that contribute to the development of his ideas. She presents the theoretical web he and his student and co-worker Francisco Varela were weaving. In particular, the book focusses on aspects of visual perception and the theory of knowledge designed in “dialogue,” including with classical philosophical authors such as Nietzsche. By anchoring itself in the turning points in his biography and by using the inherent redundancies in Maturana’s language, the book wraps in on itself again in a way that reveals the inescapable circularities of living.