Excerpt: In summing up, what would we like to say is common to all living systems that could characterise them as living? Is it a vital force, or an organising principle, or what? Notwithstanding their diversity, living systems can be recognised as having a common organisation – which is what we have been principally concerned with here. Modern molecular biology has focussed attention on isolated components as if they somehow provide the organisational as well as the structural properties and this has led us to ignore whatever it is that makes the living system a whole, autonomous unity. We feel that this powerful branch of science which is molecular biology needs the company of its complementary science which is biological autonomy and autopoiesis – as they can be explained within our self-referential cognitive domain. This is needed to enrich the science of biology – to help equip it for grappling with ecological questions which presently baffle us completely. The mystery of how biological form arises from, but is not reducible to, molecular interactions; the complex patterns of animal behaviour which seem inexplicable in mechanistic terms; the examples of mutualism and symbiosis (rather than competition) in ecological interaction; and unaccountable taxonomic anomalies are all aspects of biology which we cannot seem to reach without an organismic, or system-organisational, perspective. We may not need to go outside biology to add or impose something different in order to construct our richer vision of life. The richness could be in the biological explanation itself. Brian Goodwin has argued strongly against the idea that organisms require some special principle such as a mind which can direct and shape organic forms on the grounds that this perpetuates the mind/body split which caused the problem in the first place. Instead he seeks a fundamental unity “in which becoming and knowing are inseparable; subject and object exist in mutual transformation which is what generates our knowledge in its creative interplay.” Perhaps this is also what Goethe described in his vision of organisms as dynamic forms, forever changing in order to be themselves.

Second-order cybernetics (also known as the cybernetics of cybernetics, and the New cybernetics ) was developed between 1968 and 1975 in recognition of the power and consequences of cybernetic examinations of circularity. It is cybernetics, when cybernetics is subjected to the critique and the understandings of cybernetics. It is the cybernetics in which the role of the observer is appreciated and acknowledged rather than disguised, as had become traditional in western science: and is thus the cybernetics that considers observing, rather than observed systems. In this article, the rationale from and through the application of which, second-order cybernetics was developed is explored, together with the contributions of the main precursors and protagonists. This is developed from an examination of the nature of feedback and the Black Box both seen as circular systems, where the circularity is taken seriously. The necessary presence of the observer doing the observing is established. The primacy of, for example, conversation over coding as a means of communication is arguedone example of circularity and interactivity in second-order cybernetic systems. Thus second-order cybernetics, understood as proposing an epistemology and (through autopoietic systems) an ontogenesis, is seen as connected to the philosophical position of Constructivism. Examples are given of the application of second-order cybernetics concepts in practice in studies of, and applications in, communication, society, learning and cognition, math and computation, management, and design. It is asserted that the relationship between theory and practice is not essentially one of application: rather they strengthen each other by building on each other in a circularity of their own: the presentation of one before the other results from the process of explanation rather than a necessary, structural dependency. Finally, the future of second-order cybernetics (and of cybernetics in general) is considered. The possibility of escalation from second to third and further orders is considered, as is the notion that second-order cybernetics is, effectively, a conscience for cybernetics. And the popular use of “cyber-” as a prefix is discussed.

Key words: Autopoiesis, communication, control conversation, distinction, epistemology, goal, individual, knowing, memory, mutualism, purpose, reality, recursion, responsibility, time, variety, whole and part.

Ecological Psychology and Enactivism both challenge representationist cognitive science, but the two approaches have only begun to engage in dialogue. Further conceptual clarification is required in which differences are as important as common ground. This paper enters the dialogue by focusing on important differences. After a brief account of the parallel histories of Ecological Psychology and Enactivism, we cover incompatibility between them regarding their theories of sensation and perception. First, we show how and why in ecological theory perception is, crutially, not based on sensation. We elucidate this idea by examining the biological roots of work in the two fields, concentrating on Gibson and Varela and Maturana. We expound an ecological critique of any sensation based approach to perception by detailing two topics: classic retinal image theories and perception in single-celled organisms. The second main point emphasizes the importance of the idea of organism-environment mutuality and its difference from structural coupling of sensations and motor behavior. We point out how ecological – phenomenological methods of inquiry grow out of mutualism and compare Gibson’s idea of visual kinesthesis to Merleau-Ponty’s idea of the lived body. Third, we conclude that Ecological Psychology and varieties of Enactivism are laying down different paths to pursue related goals. Thus, convergence of Ecological Psychology and Enactivism is not possible given their conflicting assumptions, but cross-fertilization is possible and desirable.

Key words: direct perception, perception-action, sensorimotor theory, james gibson, organicism, varela

In this theoretical review article, our primary goal is to contribute to the post-cognitivist understanding of learning to perceive and perceiving as learning, by discussing a framework for perception and perceptual learning initiated by James J Gibson, and extended by Eleanor J Gibson and others. This Ecological Psychology has a coherent set of assumptions based on the concept of mutualism between the perceiving organism and its surroundings, and the idea of affordances as action possibilities of the surround that are perceptible by the organism. At the same time, Ecological Psychology, broadly construed, consists of different perspectives that take different routes to address questions related to the core concepts of perceptual learning. In this article, we focus on three theoretical stances within Ecological Psychology on the issue of perceptual learning: that of Eleanor J Gibson, the current theory of direct learning by Jacobs and Michaels, and the “organicist” approach based on ideas of organicist biology and developments in evolutionary biology. We consider perceptual learning as embedded in development and evolution, and we explore perceptual learning in more depth in the context of tool use and language development. We also discuss the relation between Ecological Psychology and Enactivism on the nature of perception. In conclusion, we summarize the benefits of Ecological Psychology, as a robust but still developing post-cognitivist framework, for the study of perceptual learning and cognitive science in general.

Key words: ecological psychology, enactivism, perceptual learning, direct learning, enactive cognitive science, tool use, language development, james j gibson, eleanor j gibson