Four of the papers in this issue belong with a set, still in progress, of papers devoted to the implications of the work of Humberto Maturana. Imoto reviews the philosophical nature of Maturana’s work and concludes that Maturana has provided a renewed view of objectivity based on our human biology of cognition. Russell and Ison, as well as Bilson consider the implications of assuming a constitutive ontology in two different domains of praxis, namely in stakeholder involved research, and in addressing the vexed issue of power in social service programs, respectively. Bond addresses the concerns of a runaway technology, and offers a reconciliation between technology and art, suggesting an escape from the demands of technology through generating and participating in networks of conversations as works of art, in what I see as an aesthetic composition of a world to live forth.

Context: Humberto Maturana has generated a coherent and extensive explicatory matrix that encompasses his research in neurophysiology, cognition, language, emotion, and love. Purpose: Can we formulate a map of Maturana’s work in a manner that is consistent with the systemic matrix it represents and that serves as an aid for understanding Maturana’s philosophy without reifying its representation? Method: Our arguments are based on experience gained from teaching and presentations. Results: We present a map that that represents Maturana’s main contributions as clusters of notions clustered according to how we see them to be related to each other as a projection of a matrix of ideas onto a two-dimensional space. We claim that there are many paths through these clusters of ideas. Though ideas relevant to individuals are obtained from various partial perspectives, a deep understanding of any element is dependent on an understanding of the whole matrix. Furthermore, we summarize the contributions to this special issue on Maturana.

Key words: generative process, matrix of concepts, systemic, conceptual map, pedagogy

The notion of mechanistic explanation is given a very specific meaning by Maturana. Does it influence research in human sciences? In this article an attempt is made to answer this question.

George A. Kelly, a psychologist born in Kansas, began to elaborate personal construct theory in the first half of the twentieth century; Humberto R. Maturana, a Chilean biologist, started to conceive his theory of autopoiesis during the second half of the same century. The two were unknown to each other, yet their theories show striking similarities. Though the focus of convenience of personal construct theory is psychotherapy whereas the theory of autopoiesis is a biological theory of knowledge, Kelly’s ingenious ideas can be enriched by the way in which Maturana deals with features common to both theories.

Criticizes H. R. Maturana and F. J. Varela’s (1980) proposition that the passion to change others is not just ethically wrong but essentially impossible. Maturana argued that since reality is observer-dependent, no knowledge about an objective reality is possible. Maturana also stated that the behavior of people is not a purposeful accommodation to the environment but a manifestation of internal structure. It is suggested that Maturana’s distinction between organization and structure is not incompatible with the idea that the therapist may purposefully structure the therapeutic environment to encourage a family to change in a given direction. It is concluded that the passion to change others is intrinsically constitutive of the therapist and that even Maturana is a closeted agent of change in his effort to shift the thinking of family therapists.

Excerpt: Humberto Maturana‘s contributions to the world of linguistics allow us to reflect on the role of language in society and how the concept of reality is constructed in it. The importance that the author gives to the very act of conversing, as the possibility of including different world views and social groups, illuminates current problems about the discourse and the different actors that make it up. Reference will be made to some of the main concepts proposed by Maturana in the field of linguistics and their relationship with social issues – which the same author evidenced in many of his texts – and which are still a source of discussion today in Chile and the world. [Curator’s translation]

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.

The article presents a synopsis of the fruitful relationship between Niklas Luhmann and Humberto Maturana. The Luhmannian theory is a conceptual structure whose dimensions include the understanding of the social as a whole. Notwithstanding the passing of the author in 1998, his posthumous writings are still being published and the influence of his thinking is gradually extended to several domains within social sciences. A core part of that complex thinking was developed with the benefit of concepts that Luhmann adapted from Humberto Maturana’s biology. This study explains the workings of such tie and its reach for understanding modern globalized society.

Key words: autopoiesis, emergence, operational closure, communication, structural coupling, self-reference