Life and Organism: Autopoiesis, Teleology, and Plessnerian Positionality
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15691/0718-5448Vol7Iss1a446Keywords:
Autopoiesis, Positionality, Teleology, Phe-nomenology, Jonasian TurnAbstract
In this paper, we argue that the Jonasian turn undergone by the Varelian autopoietic theory, which was intended to include a teleological complement to autopoiesis, can be replaced by the phenomenology of biology in the German philosopher Helmuth Plessner, which, unlike the Jonasian one, does not include anthropocentric existential assumptions in the consideration of living beings. The argument unfolds in four steps: a) first, we will develop the fundamental elements of the classical version of the autopoietic theory, elaborated by Maturana and Varela in the ‘70s, which, among other things, is decidedly anti-teleological; b) then, we will show that years later, Varela turns towards teleology in the so-called Jonasian turn, including within the autopoietic theory elements of existential phenomenology; c) subsequently, we will develop some of the most relevant arguments of Plessnerian biological phenomenology, especially those arguments in relation to the concept of positionality and which serve for this complementarity between the autopoietic and Plessnerian positions; d) finally, we will conclude that the autopoietic theory, due to the accusations it receives for having turned towards an existentialist philosophy, can migrate towards the Plessnerian biological phenomenology, which does not suffer from the anthropocentric problems attributed to the Jonasian phenomenology.
References
Di Paolo, Ezequiel. 2005. “Autopoiesis, Adaptivity, Teleology, Agency”. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 4, 429–452.
Gaitsch, Peter & Vörös, Sebastjan. 2016. “Husserl’s Somatology Reconsidered: Leib as a Methodological Guide for the Explication of (Plant) Life”. Phainomena, XXV, 203-228.
Grene, Marjorie. 1968. Approaches to a Philosophical Biology. Nueva York: Basic Books Publishers.
Hartmann, Nicolai. 2014. Studien zur Neuen Ontologie und Anthropologie. De Gruyter.
Husserl, Edmund. 1973. Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil. 1929-35. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
Husserl, Edmund. 2019. Textos breves. Salamanca: Ediciones Sígueme.
James Clark, Kelly. 2016. “Naturalism and its Discontents.” En The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism, editado por Kelly James Clark, 1–15. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
Kim, Jaegwon. 2003. “The American Origins of Philosophical Naturalism.” Journal of Philosophical Research, 28, 83-98.
Maturana, Humberto & Varela, Francisco. 1994. De máquinas y seres vivos. Santiago: Editorial Universitaria.
Maturana, Humberto. 2002. “Autopoiesis, Structural Coupling and Cognition: A History of These and Other Notions in the Biology of Cognition”. Cybernetics & Human Knowing 9 (3-5), 5-34.
Plessner, Helmuth. 1980. Anthropologie der Sinne. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.
Plessner, Helmuth. 1985. Schriften zur Philosophie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.
Plessner, Helmuth. 2022. Los grados de lo orgánico y el hombre. Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada.
Razeto-Barry, Pablo. 2012. “Autopoiesis 40 years Later. A Review and a Refor-mulation.” Orig Life Evol Biosph 42: 543–567.
Thompson, Evan. 2007. Mind in Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Varela, Francisco. 1979. Principles of Biological Autonomy. New York: North Holland.
Varela, Francisco. 2000. El fenómeno de la vida. Santiago: Dolmen Ediciones.
Varela, Francisco, Thompson, Evan & Rosch, Eleanor. 2017. The Embodied Mind. Second Edition. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Vendrell, Ingrid. 2015. „Die Funktion der realistischen Phänomenologie bei Scheler und Plessner.“ En Internationales Jahrbuch für Philosophische Anthropologie, editado por Bruno Accarino, Jos de Mul y Hans-Peter Krüger, 69–84. Berlín: De Gruyter.
Vidovič, Primož. 2021. “Between Boundaries: Defining Life in Autopoietic Theory and Plessner.” https://metanoia.si/2021/07/11/between-boundaries-defining-life-in-autopoietic-theory-and-plessner/
Villalobos, Mario & Ward, Dave. 2015. “Living Systems: Autonomy, Autopoiesis and Enaction.” Philos. Technol. 28: 225–239.
Villalobos, Mario, & Ward, Dave. 2016. “Lived Experience and Cognitive Science.” Constructivist Foundations, 11, 204 – 2012.
Weber, Andreas, & Varela, Francisco. 2002. “Life after Kant: Natural purposes and the autopoietic foundations of biological individuality.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1: 97–125.
Zahavi, Dan. 2013. “Naturalized Phenomenology: A Desideratum or a Category Mistake?” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 72, 23-42.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows the use, transformation, and distribution for any purpose, as long as the author is recognized, and in the event of changes or developements are made from it, the derivate work be shared under the same license.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book).
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
