"Knowing how we know" is the subject of this book. Its authors present a new view of cognition that has important social and ethical implications, for, they assert, the only world we humans can have is the one we create together through the actions of our coexistence. Written for a general audience as well as for students, scholars, and scientists and abundantly illustrated with examples from biology, linguistics, and new social and cultural phenomena, this revised edition includes a new afterword (...) by Dr. Varela, in which he discusses the effect the book has had in the years since its first publication. (shrink)

Our purpose in this essay is to introduce new concepts in a wide and recursive view of the systemic consequences of the following biological facts that I and we have presented that can be resumed as: that as living systems we human beings are molecular autopoietic system; that living systems live only as long as they find themselves in a medium that provides them with all the conditions that make the realization of their living possible, that is, in the continuous (...) conservation of their relation of adaptation to the circumstances in which they find themselves; that as a living system exists only in a relation of adaptation with the medium that operates as its ecological niche, its reproduction necessarily occurs as a process of systemic duplication or multiplication of the ecological organism-niche unity that it integrates; that the worlds of doings that we generate as languaging beings in our conversations, explanations, reflections and theories are part of our ecological niche; and that we human beings as living beings that exist in languaging, are biological–cultural beings in which our cultural and our biological manners of existences can be distinguished but cannot be separated. Of the systemic consequences of these biological facts that we consider in this essay, we wish to mention two as the principal: that the diversification of manners of living produced in biological evolution is the result of differential survival in a changing medium through the conservation of adaptation, and not through competitive survival of the best; and that we in our living as languaging human beings are the epistemological fundament of all that we do and know as such. (shrink)

El artículo explora las posiciones discursivas valorativas multimodales, es decir, que integran el modo verbal y el de la imagen por medio de ensambles, en un corpus conformado por ocho pósteres académicos del curso Biología Celular de una universidad estatal chilena, realizados por estudiantes de primer año entre 2016 y 2019. De cada cohorte, se seleccionaron los dos afiches que obtuvieron la calificación más alta. El objetivo es identificar, a través del marco conceptual de la Lingüística Sistémico Funcional (LSF) (Halliday, (...) 2004, 2014; Martin y White, 2005) y de la Semiótica Social (Kress y van Leeuwen, 2006; Martin, 2010, 2017; Unsworth, 2021), cómo se codifican los significados interpersonales multimodales en el corpus. A partir del análisis, se aporta evidencia para la caracterización de este género académico desde la perspectiva de las posiciones valorativas verbales del texto que se ensamblan con los recursos visuales para configurar el espacio semántico. Los resultados muestran juicios evocados a agentes elididos que dan cuenta de valoración, como una estrategia discursiva de los estudiantes frente a temas controversiales de la ciencia, tales como utilización de células madre y experimentación con animales. Los hallazgos también evidencian la necesidad de incluir un abordaje multimodal en procesos pedagógicos que consideren la literacidad de las ciencias en el género póster académico, ya que los significados verbales se ensamblan con los visuales para marcar posiciones valorativas. Finalmente, se proponen sugerencias para que los estudiantes adquieran las estrategias valorativas adecuadas al discurso académico científico. (shrink)

El artículo analiza los estereotipos de la cultura mapuche en la publicidad del turismo comunitario. El objetivo es describir los mecanismos cognitivos subyacentes a las expresiones estereotipadas para tomar conciencia de ellos y sugerir una conceptualización alternativa más fiel a la realidad y al objetivo de respeto cultural con que se define el turismo comunitario. El estudio tiene en consideración la realidad social chilena y la polémica sobre la función y el efecto del turismo comunitario. El marco teórico es el (...) de la Lingüística Cognitiva y el método empleado consiste en: a) la identificación de expresiones que manifiestan la oposición nosotros – ellos y de expresiones temporales y locativas que representan una visión estereotipada del mapuche como primitivo, y b) la descripción de los diversos mecanismos cognitivos subyacentes a la conceptualización estereotipada. La conclusión es que a las expresiones estereotipadas subyace una conceptualización metonímica, representativa y ahistórica, de entorno natural e idealizada, y que la identidad estereotipada podría evitarse por medio de una conceptualización que perfile la diversidad y la evolución de la cultura mapuche en el transcurso del tiempo. (shrink)

The phenomenon of size constancy is defined as the apparent perceptual invariance of the linear dimensions of a seen object as this approaches the eye or recedes from it. It has been interpreted as resulting from the application by the brain of a size correction, made possible by the subject's apprehension of distance cues present in the image. We present several observations which, by dissociating accommodation from distance of the seen object and by suppressing the optic effects of accommodation on (...) the visual image itself, show that this interpretation is incorrect, and that in fact the size correction of the visual image is a function of the central effort of accommodation, not of the distance of the seen object. (shrink)

Machines and Biology have been, since antiquity, closely related. From the zoological figures present in astronomical simulacra, through renaissance mechanical imitations of animals, through Decartes' wind pipe nerves, to present day discussions on the computer and the brain, runs a continuous thread. In fact, the very name of mechanism for an attitude of inquiry throughout the history of Biology reveals this at a philosophical level. More often than not, mechanism is mentioned in opposition to vitalism, as an assertion of the (...) validity of the objectivity principle in biology: there are no purposes in animal nature; its apparent purposefulness is similar to the purposefulness of machines. Yet, the fact that one picks machines as a set of objects comparable to living systems, deserves a closer look. What in machines makes it possible to establish such a connection? (shrink)

We propose that to understand the biological and neurophysiological processes that give rise to human mental phenomena it is necessary to consider them as behavioral relational phenomena. In particular, we propose that: a) these phenomena take place in the relational manner of living that human language constitutes, and b) that they arise as recursive operations in such behavioral domain. Accordingly, we maintain that these phenomena do not take place in the brain, nor are they the result of a unique operation (...) of a human brain, but arise with the participation of the brain as it generates the behavioral relational dynamics that constitutes language. (shrink)

Context: Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana worked closely together for several short episodes and wrote joint publications during the 1970s and 1980s. After that their respective paths in life diverged. Problem: What is the common ground and what are the differences between these two authors with respect to their lives and aims? Method: The author reconstructs their common history in the form of personal reflections and conversations with Varela. Results: The personal reflections reveal the intellectual path Maturana took (...) to develop his way of thinking, in particular his fascination with explanatory processes and the phenomenon of life. The conversations with Varela portray him as a man of great “cognitive autonomy,” whose career started with the intention to study “psychism in the universe.” For Varela it seemed possible, through meditation, to reach transcendental reality as something that exists externally to the living of human beings and that can be known as such. Maturana, by contrast, claims that there is no way to refer to such a universal truth. Rather, human beings generate all the worlds they live in. Implications: While the two men collaborated in both teaching and writing, they eventually created two different constructivist approaches driven by a different set of questions. Constructivist content: Both Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela have decisively contributed to constructivist approaches. (shrink)

I do not wish to deal with all the domains in which the word time enters as if it were referring to an obvious aspect of the world or worlds that we human live. Indeed, the very fact that time can be made an issue of reflection shows us that what the word time connotes changes with the circumstances in which it is used. This situation alone, however, would not constitute a problem inviting us to enter in deep reflections if (...) we just accepted that the context defined the meaning of the word in each case. But we do not do that, and we ask the question what is time? as if we thought that the word time referred to some independent entity or dimension of nature that could be properly disclosed or described if we tried hard enough, even if we could not the final essence of it. I consider, however, that the question what is time? is adequate because it implies from the start the view that time can be properly treated as some kind of independent entity or dimension of nature. And I consider that such a view is fully inadequate because I think that all that we human beings talk about are relations that arises in our operation in language as a closed domain of recursive consensual coordinations of behaviors. Let me explain what I say with a few words about living, language, and cognition, and then answer the question what distinctions do we make or connote when we talk of time? (shrink)

The answers to these two questions would have been obvious years ago: Human beings, of course, machines are instruments of human design! But now days when we speak so much of progress, science and technology as if progress, science and technology were in themselves values to be venerated, there are many people that think that machines as they become more and more complex and intelligent through human design, may in fact become alive so that they may supplant us as a (...) natural outcome of that very venerated progress and expansion of intelligence. Also many people seems to think that evolution is changing its nature so that technology is becoming the guiding force in the flow of the cosmic change in relation to us. I do not hold this view. I do not look at progress, science or technology as if they were values in themselves, nor do I think that biological or cosmic evolution is changing its nature or character. I think that the question that we human beings must face is that of what do we want to happen to us, not a question of knowledge or progress. The question that we must face is not about the relation of biology with technology, or about the relation between art and technology, nor about the relation between knowledge and reality, nor even about whether or not metadesign shapes our brains. I think that the question that we must face at this moment of our history is about our desires and about whether we want or not to be responsible of our desires. (shrink)

RESUMEN En el libro X de la Metafísica se trazan las líneas generales de una henología. La reconstrucción de la argumentación debe hacerse desde dos pilares fundamentales: (a) la guía de problemas o aporías que proporciona el libro iii y (b) el proyecto ontológico anunciado en el libro iv, donde se señala la relación entre ontología y henología. El rasgo fundamental de dicha henología sería su subordinación a la ontología. El artículo argumenta que para Aristóteles el rol de la henología (...) es ante todo destructivo, pues con dicha doctrina se pretende establecer -ante todo- la imposibilidad de considerar al "uno" (τὸ ἓν) como principio de los entes. ABSTRACT In the Metaphysics, especially in Book X, are drawn the general lines of a henology. For the proper understanding of this doctrine it is necessary to reconstruct its argumentation from two fundamental basis: (a) the guide of puzzles or aporias that book iii provides and (b) the ontological project announced in book IV where the relationship between ontology and henology is indicated. Once the explanations of Book X are framed a theory about unity (τὸ ἓν) can be systematically assembled, whose fundamental feature would be the following: henology as a science is a subordinate part of ontology. The role of henology is for Aristotle primarily destructive, that is, with this doctrine it is intended to establish the impossibility of considering the 'one' (τὸ ἓν) as a principle of the entities. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “The Autopoiesis of Social Systems and its Criticisms” by Hugo Cadenas & Marcelo Arnold. Upshot: I discuss the foundations of what I have said in my work as a biologist on autopoiesis, molecular autopoietic systems and social systems. I argue that the theme of sociology should be to understand how is it that we come out of the social manner of living that is the foundation of our origin as languaging and reflecting human beings.

editorial changes not yet reviewed by author Purpose My intent in this essay is to reflect on the history of some biological notions such as autopoiesis, structural coupling, and cognition, that I have developed since the early 1960’s as a result of my work on visual perception and the organization of the living. No doubt I shall repeat things that I have said in other publications (Maturana and Varela 1980 and 1988), and I shall present notions that once they (...) are said appear as obvious truisms. But the reader it is not invited to attend to the truisms, rather he or she is invited to attend to the consequences that they entail for the understanding of biological processes. After all, explanations or demonstrations always become self evident once they are understood and accepted. KEYWORDS Autopoiesis, structural coupling, cognition, explanations, self consciousness, 1. Autopoiesis 1.1 Origins of the notion In November 1960, a first year medical student asked me the question “What began three thousand eight hundred million years ago so that you can say now that living systems began then?” I realized that I could not properly answer that question, so I said “I cannot answer this question now, but if you come back next year I shall propose an answer then.” Thus I accepted the question of the student to be answered later, and as I did so, I accepted also the question for myself. I realized that to answer this question I had to create a living system, either conceptually or practically, because I had to be able to say what kind of systems were living system to be able to say how they began. While in the attempting to answer the dual questions of what kind of systems are living systems, and of how did they begin so that I could now speak of their origin, it became obvious to me that living systems exist as autonomous entities in the form of self contained closed molecular dynamics of self production, open to the flow of molecules through them. Indeed, one can say that living systems arose in the history of the earth in the moment in which some spontaneous networks of molecular autocatalytic processes became closed upon themselves.. (shrink)

Purpose: Reflecting on the propensity of our culture to think in local linear causality such as “genetic determination” by examining systems and their operation. Findings: The existence of a system is operational, and a system exists as such only as long as the operational conditions that constitute it prevail. As the observer distinguishes a system, he or she specifies with his or her operation of distinction the conditions that constitute the system. Since the adaptation between living systems and medium is (...) invariant, all that happens in their history must happen as a flow of structural congruent changes conserving their organization and adaptation. Therefore, the ontogenic phenotype is not genetically determined but arises in the process of epigenesis i.e., along a path of interactions starting from the initial structure of both system and medium, along the conservation of its living. Implications: Natural selection should not be considered as a directing pressure causing the differential survival of living systems but as its result. (shrink)

Purpose: To show how is it that that which we connote with notions of self and consciousness are configurations of sensorialities that arise in the flow of our living in recursive coordinations of doings which eventually they guide, and not entities independent of our doings. Approach: Following the consequences of our condition of structure determined systems that do not distinguish in the experience whether what they live is a perception or an illusion. Findings: That we human beings occur as relational (...) dynamics of recursive coordinations of feelings in which self and consciousness occur as configurations of sensorialities in the evanescent continuous present of the the changing flow of our living which they also guide. Practical Implications: Thinking, acting and reflecting in the awareness that self and consciousness are not physical entities or properties. (shrink)

This article addresses the question of the object of psychology in the context of recent attempts in philosophy of mind to restore the concept of the soul in the framework of a strong anthropological dualism. After an historical and philosophical explanation of the modern dismissal of the human soul as the object of psychology, this article provides a critical examination of the new turn to dualism by reference to an exemplary case. It is shown that apriorism and spiritualism are the (...) two fundamental problems that explain neodualism’s inefficacy to provide a convincing argument for the restoration of the substantial soul as the object of psychology. Finally, certain guidelines for a new approach to this question are proposed in rudimentary form. (shrink)

Der Mensch ist fähig zu erkennen. Diese Fähigkeit setzt allerdings seine bio logische Integrität (Ganzheit, Unversehrtheit) voraus. Der Mensch kann außerdem erkennen, daß er erkennt. Erkennen (Kognition) als basale psychologische und somit biologische Funktion steuert seine Handhabung der Welt, und Wissen gibt seinen Handlungen Sicherheit. Objektives Wissen scheint möglich, und die Welt erscheint dadurch planvoll und vorhersagbar. Und doch ist Wissen als Erfahrung etwas Persönliches und Privates, das nicht übertragen werden kann. Das, was man für übertragbar hält, nämlich objektives Wissen, (...) muß immer durch den Hörer geschaffen werden: Der Hörer versteht nur dann, und objektives Wissen erscheint nur dann übertragbar, wenn der Hörer zu verstehen (vor)bereit(et) ist. Kognition als biologische Funktion besteht darin, daß sich die Antwort auf die Frage Was ist Kognition? aus dem Verständnis des Erkennens bzw. des Erkennenden aufgrund der Fähigkeit des letzteren zu erkennen ergeben muß. Eben darin besteht meme Arbeit. Epistemologie Der zentrale Anspruch der Wissenschaft ist Objektivität: sie [die Wissenschaft] ist bestrebt, mit Hilfe einer wohldefinierten Methodologie Aussagen über die Welt zu machen. Gerade in der Basis dieses Anspruches liegt jedoch ihre Schwäche: die apriorische Annahme, daß objektives Wissen eine Beschreibung dessen darstellt, was man weiß. Eine solche Annahme erfordert die Klärung der Fragen Worin be steht Erkennen bzw. Wissen? und Wie erkennen und wissen wir? Biologie a) Das größte Hindernis für das Verständnis der Organisation des Lebendigen liegt darin, daß es nicht möglich ist, sie durch eine Aufzählung ihrer Eigen schaften zu erklären. Sie muß vielmehr als Einheit verstanden werden. (shrink)

Context: In 1974, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela published De Máquinas y Seres Vivos Autopoiesis: La organización de lo vivo in Santiago, Chile as a little book. A second edition of this publication was proposed in 1994, and the present document is a recent translation of Maturana’s reflections “twenty years after.” Problem: The book clearly enunciates what it means to say that living systems are molecular autopoietic systems, and this Preface reflects on the shift of understanding from earlier (...) notions of self-referred or auto-referred systems to the concept of autopoiesis. Implications: The Preface describes the systemic quality that is human living and human sense-making. It marks what we can retrospectively see as the bridge between the explicitly biological studies of Maturana (and Varela), and the later, more anthropological and therapeutic work of Maturana with Gerda Verden-Zöller between 1989 and 1994 and, especially, with Ximena Dávila Yáñez since the year 1999. Results: The underlying understanding implicit in this document outlines in great clarity the implications of Maturana’s fundamental insights. It presents both a logical and passionately argued case for mutual respect, grounded in scientific findings in biology. The Preface is a clear vision of why Maturana’s work has been so influential for reflexivity and constructivism. (shrink)

Context: At the conference “The Ethical Meaning of Francisco Varela’s Thought,” which took place on 28 May 2011 in Sassari, Italy, Humberto Maturana, Michel Bitbol, and Pier Luigi Luisi participated in two discussions. Purpose: In this edited transcription of the discussions, the participants talk about several aspects of autopoiesis, the observer, ontology, making distinctions and distinguishing different domains, perception and illusion, and transcendence. Results: The discussions shed light on how constructivist concepts are perceived by individual authors. Concepts such as (...) “transcendence” and “objectivity” are understood in different ways. Constructivist content: The concepts discussed are highly relevant for constructivist approaches. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the target article “How and Why the Brain Lays the Foundations for a Conscious Self” by Martin V. Butz. Excerpt: My reflections will be first, about how the brain operates in the generation of the adequate behavior of an organism in a changing medium, and second, about how self-consciousness appears in the course of the history of humanness.

La noción del Tao constituye una invitación a un vivir en el bien-estar psíquico y corporal, a un vivir sin esfuerzo en la unidad de toda la existencia en el hacer que surge del ver el presente cuando no hay prejuicio o expectativa. Como tal, la noción del Tao ha llevado a muchas personas a la reflexión y a la acción que busca encontrar o revelar la naturaleza de ese vivir en los ámbitos de la filosofía, la mística, y la (...) religión. ¿Con qué nos conecta ese vivir?, ¿con lo divino o lo biológico? Pensamos que el vivir al que la noción del Tao nos invita es el vivir fundamental del vivir del ser vivo en su naturaleza biológica que se da en el existir en un presente cambiante continuo. En nosotros, los seres humanos, ese vivir ocurre como un vivir en el lenguajear sin enajenarse en el explicar, vivir que surge cuando se vive en la ampliación del ver en el desapego que es la biología del amar. Por esto el camino del Tao es el camino del amar, y el camino del amar es la biología del Tao. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Lived Experience and Cognitive Science Reappraising Enactivism’s Jonasian Turn” by Mario Villalobos & Dave Ward. Upshot: I shall not address directly the article on which I am supposed to comment, and that I find very interesting, but I shall make four commentaries on the general subject of the confusion of domains in our reflection on biological and cultural phenomena.

Purpose: To consider the implications of the operation of the nervous system -- and of the constitution of cultures as closed networks of languaging and emotioning -- for how we understand and generate so-called "virtual realities." Findings: The nervous system is a detector of configurations within itself and thus cannot represent reality. The distinction between virtual and non-virtual realities does not apply to the operation of the nervous system; rather it pertains to the operation of the observer as a languaging (...) being. Our human existence has changed as virtual realities have become non-virtual through their systemic cultural inclusion in the realization of our biological human manner of living. Implications: Virtual realities are never trivial, because we always become transformed as we live them according to the emotioning of the psychic space that they bring about in our living, and this is so regardless of whether we like it or not. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Social Autopoiesis?” by Hugo Urrestarazu. Upshot: In my commentary I reflect on conceptual and epistemological questions. In particular, I challenge the idea of trying to define social systems. I also wonder whether in many cases autopoiesis is carelessly used as a mere synonym for self-organization.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Paradox of Education:A ConversationHumberto R. Maturana and Bernhard PoerksenResponsibility of the TeacherPoerksen: Immanuel Kant writes in his essay Über Pädagogik that the wide field of education is governed by a fundamental paradox. On the one hand, we want free and self-determined individuals to leave our schools; on the other, we impose a syllabus on the future individuals, force them to attend schools, punish their failures, and persecute (...) their noncompliance. There is, if we follow Kant, an inescapable relationship of tension between the goals and the means of educational efforts: They contradict each other. Would you agree?Maturana: No. Education, the commentary of an observer, is the process of transformation resulting from the co-existence with adults. We become the adults we have been living with. This means: If freedom and self-determined thinking are the goals of educational activity, then we have to live together in a way that is supported by the mutual respect for the autonomy of the other. In my view, the paradox formulated by Kant does not exist at all. The way of life, the manner of living together, shapes and transforms people. If you want to teach autonomy and reflection, you cannot use force as a method but must create an open space for communal reflection and action. There must be no contradiction between goals and means.Poerksen: Surely, there must also be constraints? It must be laid down when everybody has to be present, what the task is, who the teacher is, who has authority.Maturana: Compulsion will emerge if the teachers do not succeed in presenting their material in a thrilling way and in making school an attractive place of being together. Their failure will lead to force.Poerksen: The teacher is totally responsible for everything that may happen in school. Is this not an exaggerated claim?Maturana: No. If a teacher behaves respectfully, if he does not intimidate his pupils, if he listens, encourages cooperation and reflection, then a special form of interaction will emerge. The way of living practiced by the teacher, including the goals of teaching, will be the source of profitable learning for the pupils. This also implies that three questions and tasks must be sorted out cooperatively in education. First it seems necessary to me to debate the educational ideal to be chosen—what should the future adults be like when leaving the school one day? Should they be democratically minded and responsibly acting citizens? Or are they to be authoritarian and commandeering hierarchs, lords who feel superior to everyone else? It is then necessary to anchor a way of life in the school that permits acting and thinking according to that ideal. Finally, there is the essential task of preparing the teachers for their job in such a [End Page 25] way as to do justice to the desired goals—to enable them to live what they have to achieve.Poerksen: This would mean that teaching has nothing to do with the stepwise elimination of ignorance, as is commonly thought. The transmission of knowledge is secondary. The primary requirement is a way of life that corresponds with one's ideals, a particular form of living together, out of which the material topics will arise in due course.Maturana: Exactly. The children do not learn mathematics in school; they learn how to live together with a mathematics teacher. Perhaps they will one day carry on this enjoyable and exciting kind of being together independently—and become mathematics teachers or mathematicians themselves. Teachers do not simply transmit some content; they acquaint their pupils with a way of living. In the process, the rules of arithmetic, the laws of physics, or the grammar of a language will be acquired. My claim is: Pupils learn teachers.Poerksen: What about children who systematically refuse to cooperate? What is to be done with them? The classical answer is, of course: bad marks, relegation, exclusion from the winning circles.Maturana: The so-called difficult children about whom teachers keep complaining often only struggle to be seen and accepted, while the whole world expects them to behave in a calculable manner and to adapt to strange demands. Asking... (shrink)

Para la ejecución de este trabajo se entrevistaron a 122 adultos mayores de 60 años de la ciudad de Arica (52,5% hombres y 47,5% mujeres). A éstos se les administró un cuestionario de Satisfacción Vital SWLS (Diener, Emmons, Larsen y Griffin, 1985) junto con un cuestionario demográfico, para determinar cuáles de estas variables de contexto por si solas o en su conjunto, explican la Satisfacción Vital. El objetivo principal de este estudio es evidenciar cómo los indicadores de la Satisfacción Vital, (...) se ven influidas por la situación de pareja comparando las puntuaciones medias del cuestionario. (shrink)

El presente estudio busca determinar posibles diferencias por sexo en la aparición de variables asociadas al síndrome de Burnout medidos a través del clima y la satisfacción organizacional en una muestra de 233 trabajadores de la ciudad de Arica, pertenecientes a cinco diferentes actividades económicas (educación, salud, comercio de tangibles e intangibles, y administración pública).

La Educación Parvularia en Chile y principalmente su gestión pedagógica, se sitúa en un nuevo escenario que exige de los educadores competencias más humanas que de funcionalidad técnica para adaptarse a las impresiones, la emergencia, la incertidumbre y la complejidad de los procesos epistemológicos infantiles; comprender cómo aprenden los niños, cómo acceden al conocimiento y qué estrategias utilizan para hacerlo, es fundamental para contribuir a un sistema educativo de calidad. Si bien en Chile se han intentado algunas reformas e innovaciones (...) curriculares para la Educación Parvularia con el firme propósito de mejorar la calidad del sistema educativo, aún no está claro, qué es aquello que entorpece el logro de los aprendizajes y pone en peligro la calidad del sistema. En este contexto, resulta interesante centrar la mirada en los juegos infantiles, describir el tipo de interacciones sociales y con el entorno que se producen en estas dimensiones lúdicas e intentar descubrir los indicios epistemológicos que en ellas surjan; descubrir en los espacios de informalidad en que se desarrollan los juegos infantiles algunas aproximaciones que nos contextualicen epistemológicamente, nos permitirá comprender que las prácticas adultistas utilizadas en los espacios educativos formales no impactan significativamente los procesos de aprendizaje de los niños. (shrink)

Investigar a los buenos profesores es complejo porque se corre el riesgo de generalizar trivializando sus características, por lo mismo, es fundamental no caer en la tentación de pensar que son ideales, puesto que son seres humanos que viven su existencia al igual que cada uno de nosotros, sólo que con compromiso y amor por lo que hacen. Gracias a las historias de vida pudimos entender el proceso de la profesionalización docente, develar sus principales complejidades y señalar tendencias válidas para (...) cualquier profesor que pueden ajustarse con flexibilidad a esos patrones. La construcción analítica nos aportó luces para entender y explicar qué es lo que hace a un profesor un Buen Profesor. Esto es, la valoración del sentido común, la improvisación, la conciencia del cambio, la reflexión y la acción pedagógica. Sus características pueden ser intencionalmente promovidas en las distintas etapas de formación profesional porque tienen la cualidad de generar entusiasmo, contagio con un compromiso pedagógico, social y político por el trabajo bien hecho. (shrink)

An organism is a harmonious closed network of molecular and cellular interactions that produce molecular and cellular transformations and replacements in the continuous realization of its molecular autopoiesis. The processes that we call immunity are dynamics of recovery of that harmony when it is lost as a result of the appearance or intrusion of molecules that do not normally pertain to it, which destroy that harmony, giving rise to what is lived as a disease.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Why Maturana?Hans Ulrich GumbrechtWhy would a German scholar specializing in pedagogical thought travel thousands of miles to Santiago de Chile for an interview with a aging scientist who, it seems, has created for himself a solid reputation in the field of "biology of vision" without being hailed by his peers as a path-breaking innovator? In the German intellectual context, the answer to this question could be as laconic (...) as it would be superfluous: it consists in a deictic reference to the name and, implicitly, to the work of Niklas Luhmann. American readers, in contrast, may need some introductory explanation in order to understand the epistemological triangle between contemporary pedagogical thought, Maturana's biology, and Luhmann's philosophy—and, above all, in order to assess and even to appreciate its intellectual potential.Niklas Luhmann is certainly difficult to read, at least for starters, and to those who met him during his lifetime he invariably appeared to be a dead-serious person. But today, more than five years after Luhmann's death, we begin to discover traces of a sometimes uncanny irony—one may want to call it a "practical irony"—in his writing. One of the discursive gestures that characterized Luhmann's texts were references to academic authors who nobody had ever heard of (let alone read), presented with the same seriousness and with the same attitude of intellectual reverence that we normally reserve for the classics: for example, to the logician Gotthart Guenter, the philosopher Fritz Heider, the biologist Humberto Maturana, or the mathematician George Spencer Brown. There is no doubt that, in each case, a specific concept or a specific thought developed by one of these authors had turned out to be truly important within Luhmann's own work, and yet the "effects of authority" that his very serious quotes produced were nothing short of hilarious. For Luhmann's readers, with that self-flagellating attitude in which we academics so like to indulge, quite regularly attributed the experience that they had never heard of those seeming "authorities" to their own lack of intellectual cosmopolitanism. This is why, until the present day, some departments of sociology or philosophy in Germany have Spencer Brown or Guenter specialists on their payrolls, and this also explains why some of those authors have had moments of intense reception [End Page 22] in the world of the humanities and social sciences at German universities. Among them, Humberto Maturana, together with his co-author the late Francisco Varela, seem to be the exception confirming the rule that none of those Luhmann references had the intellectual power to survive Luhmann himself.Now why should one trust Luhmann's trust in Maturana? The debate about the importance of Luhmann's thought (he labeled it a "theory of social systems") in the larger context of contemporary Western philosophy has barely begun to become serious, and we are certainly many years away from a definitive consensual evaluation. But there are two—very different—features about Luhmann's work that make him fascinating at first glance. One lies in the simple fact that, probably, no other thinker since Hegel has managed to develop a restrained set of basic concepts and premises into a systematically coherent philosophical edifice of similar proportions. In this sense, entering the dimension of Luhmann's thought offers the patient reader a possibility to view many familiar positions and questions from sometimes radically different innovative angles. Less obvious, however, and more intriguing is Luhmann's intellectual bet to develop his systemic thought under strict avoidance of notions such as "subject," "subjecthood," or "agency." It was this very bet (about whose existential and political motivations he only left some rather vague remarks) that explains Luhmann's fascination for much theoretical thinking emerging from biological research, above all for Humberto Maturana's work. For from a biological perspective, subjecthood and agency are highly marginal attributes in the realm of living organisms. I believe that this (almost hidden) component in Luhmann's thinking can explain the particularly strong affinity of contemporary pedagogical thought in Germany with his work. Of course, such an affinity will not necessarily lead to a pedagogical theory that, in orthodox reliance on Luhmann, will... (shrink)

Context: Maturana’s views on cognitive processes and explaining have ethical implications. The aim of this paper is to link ethics and epistemology to facilitate thinking about how to promote respect between different viewpoints through mutual understanding. Method: Maturana’s views on ethics are outlined in three domains: the personal, the interpersonal, and the societal. Results: The ethical implications that emerge around the notion of reality with or without parenthesis, the concept of the legitimate other, and Maturana’s conjectures about (...) the origins of human social groups. Social groups in which cooperation is more important than competition are based on love in the sense that others are accepted as legitimate members of the community. An epistemology that responds to the biological origins of human cognition is one that is more open to cooperation, honesty, responsibility, and respect than an epistemology that takes reality as given and the task of human cognition to represent truth. Implications: This framework for thinking about cognitive processes provides a way of approaching disagreements so they become opportunities for discussion rather than for power assertion of one reality over another. In a world where strongly held viewpoints on ethics and reality lead to conflict, promoting viable models of cognitive process that link cognition and ethics may lead to insights that promote tolerance. Ideas from attribution theory in social psychology are presented as a means of facilitating the emergence of the concept of the legitimate other in discussion about disagreements. (shrink)

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 (...) class='Hi'>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. (shrink)

This paper is based on notes taken during a three day lecture given by Humberto Maturana in St Kilda, Victoria, August 7th - 9th, 1993. It was obvious from the participants that many non biologists have found Maturana's work to be influential in their thinking. The audience included immunologists, family therapists, academics, architects, agriculturalists and information technologists.

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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. (shrink)