The contents of consciousness are complex and dynamic and are embedded in perception and cognition. The study of consciousness and subjective experience has been central to philosophy for centuries. However, despite its relevance for understanding cognition and behaviour, the empirical study of consciousness is relatively new, embroiled by the seemingly opposing subjective and objective sources of data. Francisco Varela (1946–2001) pioneered the empirical study of consciousness by developing novel, naturalised and rich approaches in a non-reductive and comprehensive manner. In this article, we review the main conceptual distinctions and philosophical challenges of consciousness research and highlight the main contributions of Varela and his associates: the development of neurophenomenology as a methodological framework that builds a bridge between subjective and objective sources of data and the discovery of gamma-band phase synchronisation as a neural marker of perceptual awareness. Finally, we describe the work of Varela on time consciousness, his philosophical approach and the implementation of his neurophenomenological framework for its study by integrating subjective reports with neural measures.

Key words: consciousness, perception, neurophenomenology, philosophy of mind, francisco varela

Language has been well studied, since the middle of last century, in its biological and cognitive aspects, always in the context of a specifically human biology and cognition. Still, there are aspects of living and knowing that refer to living beings in general and not restricted to humans, which are crucial to address processes that generate language, that is, the recurrent and recursive relationships between two or more organisms (co-ontogeny) which establish shared experiences among them. For talking about these issues it is necessary to overcome the strictly objectivist discourse of science and pay attention to the role we, researchers and readers of academic material, play in describing linguistic behavior. Using the explanatory path of specific systems theories and reports of my contact with nonhuman great apes in Germany, I argue that the living and knowing of human and nonhuman organisms and our living and knowing as observers of these organisms are equally instrumental in explaining the recurring co-ontogenic relations and the phenomenon we call language.

Key words: language, cognition, coontogeny, great apes, biology of knowledge

In this essay, we propose to present and discuss the epistemology of the Chilean biologist Humberto Maturana, by means of the concepts of perception, autopoiesis and cognition and, accepting this explanatory path, comment on its implications for our understanding of three relational phenomena in the context of living: the domain of molecular interactions, in the scope of immunology, the domain of interspecific interactions, in the scope of domestication, and the domain of human relations, in the scope of education. While visiting these three relational domains, we reflect how the phenomenon of learning will inevitably arise, generated in the very dynamics of living, without the need to resort to the notion of instructive interactions, which we sometimes connote, at least in the context of human relations, as teaching.

Key words: humberto maturana. learning. immunology. domestication. education.

Excerpt: On November 4th, 2019, Hans-Georg Moeller delivered a presentation on systems theory at the Law School of the University of São Paulo and was interviewed about Niklas Luhmann’s theory of society, with emphasis on issues such as law, politics, and the history of philosophy. Professor Moeller is the author of important books such as Luhmann explained: From souls to systems (Moeller, 2006) and The radical Luhmann (Moeller, 2011), the latter also translated to Japanese and Italian. He also works on Chinese philosophy and is currently Full Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Macau, China. Throughout the interview, professor Moeller situated Luhmann in the philosophical tradition of German idealism and presented the shift to second-order observation as a crucial aspect of contemporary society, in religion and politics, science, economy and law. The interview was conducted partly in writing and partly in the form of a recorded and transcribed debate.

Any complete account of morality should be able to account for its characteristic normativity; we show that enactivism is able to do so while doing justice to the situated and interactive nature of morality. Moral normativity primarily arises in interpersonal interaction and is characterized by agents’ possibility of irrevocably changing each other’s autonomies, that is, the possibility of harming or expanding each other’s autonomy. We defend that moral normativity, as opposed to social and other forms of normativity, regulates and, in some cases, constitutes this very possibility. Agents are thus morally responsible for caring about their own and others’ autonomies in interaction. In our conception, moral normativity is embodied, situated, and deeply affective, and is constituted in social practices and maintained in interaction. We identify at least two necessary conditions for moral normativity to arise as a social practice. The first is our embodied constitution as living beings who are precarious and therefore vulnerable and in need of interaction with others and with the environment. The second is our sociolinguistic nature, which allows us to exponentially expand our possibilities for action and normatively distinguish among them. We finish by drawing a distinction between moral character and the moral content of interactions, which allows us to universally recognize the ethical dimensions of all human interaction while doing justice to the situated character of morals.

Key words: Moral normativity, ethics, cognition, autonomy, heteronomy, phenomenology

The world, as we perceive it, is our own invention, so we always invent and never discover realities. This main thesis is grounded on neurophysiological research. But how radical then is FOERSTER’s constructivism “really”? Is it not also an empirical as well as a social constructivism plus some realism in it, too? And what shall we do with such academic questions if “the way in which a question is asked determines the way in which an answer may be found”? The physicist and philosopher Heinz von FOERSTER and the journalist and communication scientist Bernhard PÖRKSEN talk about the sensual perception of human beings and the borders of our capacity for knowledge, communication and understanding. They debate about truth, objectivity and responsibility and discuss the connections between knowledge, ethics and practice. I have been enriched of some of the aphorisms, anecdotes and aporias, still, I am not able to answer the questions asked above conclusively. The book is interesting for people who love sophistic conversations, but it is not very helpful for qualitative social research. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs050330

Key words: constructivism, dialogue, labeling, communication, hermeneutics, culture, truth, objectivity, responsibility

In trying to study the idea of landscape (fukei) in Japanese waka-poetry, one may find oneself confronted with a great variety of concepts. All of these share commonalities in that they are not at all defined, that their meaning depends on personal usage (at the level of the producer, as well as of the researcher who often speaks the same language), and that they can be understood on a wide spectrum between the two extreme positions marked by fiction and reality (without, of course, any scientific concept about what fiction and reality might be). Although European traditions are coping with the concept of landscape in an aesthetical and philosophical way, there is no such comparable tradition in traditional Japanese literary history (kokubungaku). Because of this, there is no satisfactory way to conceptually understand waka-landscape, since the very basic key-term itself is not mutually accessible. European and Japanese concepts of landscape may not, therefore, be able to be brought together. To have an international scientific discussion on landscape (found in every culture historically and up to the present), it is necessary to develop a concept of landscape which is not only an issue of arts, aesthetics or philosophy, but also the subject of anthropological approaches and cultural studies. In this paper, I attempt to develop a concept of landscape, which is based on constructivism and the psychology of perception and memory. I will also show how constructivist thought has gained great popularity in German social and cultural studies.

In der Geographie haben sich konstruktivistische Positionen weitgehend durchge-setzt. In diesem Artikel soll gezeigt werden, dass es darunter ganz unterschiedliche wissenschaftliche Annäherungen an das Phänomen der gesellschaftlichen Risiko-konstruktion gibt. Der Artikel entwirft die fiktive Figur eines Forschers, der sichdie Erforschung der gesellschaftlichen Verhandlung der HIV-Ansteckungsgefahrim Zusammenhang mit Prostitution in Botswana zum Ziel gesetzt hat. Anhandder Situation dieses erdachten Forschers beschreibt der Artikel verschiedene er-kenntnistheoretische Grundhaltungen. Dabei werden die empirische Forschung, der Einfluss von Theorie auf die Empirie, und die dadurch entstehende Bedingtheit der Ergebnisse parallel beschrieben. Es geht also um die Frage: Welche Annahmen führen zu welcher Art von Forschung und erbringen welche Art von Ergebnis? Eszeigt sich, dass dies sehr stark davon abhängt, welches Bild sich ein Forscher von der menschlichen Fähigkeit zur Welterkenntnis macht. Es ist hier nicht das Ziel zu zeigen, dass die eine Position besser oder schlechter sei als die andere, sondern, dass sie vielmehr unterschiedliche Sichtweisen darstellen, über die verhandelt werdenmuss. In diesem Sinne steht die hier vertretene pragmatistische Position auch füreine Reflexion über die gesellschaftliche Aufgabe von Wissenschaft

Autopoiesis, form and observation – modern systems theory and its potential contribution to the integration of human and physical geography As it seems, geographers have based their concept and understanding of the world on the assumption that it consists of diverse systems – this is revealed by the way they refer to the earth system, ecosystems, economic systems, social systems etc. as a matter of course. In consequence, modern systems theory might serve as a kind of background theory for an integrating approach of both geographies. By focusing on three basic aspects of Niklas Luhmann’s theory – autopoiesis, form and observation –, it becomes evident that his social systems theory conforms to the systems theories employed by diverse natural sciences. The author briefly reflects on the consequences geography – as a science – must anticipate when adopting a systems theoretical perspective. Finally, some consideration is given to the strategies to be pursued by the geographies to enhance the success of integrative projects based on systems theories.

Excerpt: Der Radikale Konstruktivismus hat nur wenige Anhänger unter Philosophen, dafür aber zahlreiche in der Soziologie und der Kommunikationsforschung, der Neurologie und Kognitionswissenschaft. Im folgenden sollen einige der Thesen und Theorieentwürfe dargestellt werden, die für den Radikalen Konstruktivismus repräsentativ sind. Dabei lasse ich mich von der Darstellung von Siegfried J. Schmidt in seinem Einleitungsaufsatz zu dem von ihm herausgegebenen Sammelband Der Diskurs des Radikalen Konstruktivismus leiten, der entsprechende Anregungen in Überfülle präsentiert (Schmidt 1987b). Wir brauchen einen roten Pfaden durch dieses Theorien-Labyrinth, und ich habe mich für die Leitfrage entschieden: Wie konstruiert sich der Radikale Konstruktivismus? Dazu frage ich zunächst nach dessen Selbstverständnis und wende mich dann den Bausteinen Erkenntnistheorie, Kommunikationsmodell und Wissenschaftsauffassung zu. Abschließend werde ich einige Probleme des Radikalen Konstruktivismus diskutieren und damit gleichsam zu prüfen, wie stabil das Haus des Radikalen Konstruktivismus gebaut ist.