Andreas Weber and Francisco J. Varela (2002), Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1(2), 97–125 — DOI-10.1023/A:1020368120174
Key takeaways
Read in full; see NOTE-720.
- Kant as precursor. Organisms are natural purposes, “both cause and effect” of themselves, every part “an organ bringing forth the other parts” (KdU §§ 64–65). The authors read the KdU as non-reductive and credit Kant with the first modern use of “self-organization”.
- Self-production is purpose. “Bluntly stated self-production is already and inevitably a self-affirmation that shows the organism as involved in the fundamental purpose of maintaining its identity.” This is asserted, not argued.
- The definition. Quoted from Varela (1997): components that “continuously regenerate the network that is producing them” and “constitute the system as a distinguishable unity in the domain in which they exist”. The key terms are “the cellular metabolism and the surface membrane it produces”.
- The cell only. “A multicellular organism … is not in itself an autopoietic unit of second order”. Its autonomy is inherited through a “neural identity” the paper defers.
- Value for the organism. Self-maintenance sets up a world, as distinct from an environment, and a valence “dual at its basis: attraction or rejection”. Teleology is objective “not in an absolute sense, only insofar as an organism is a center that organizes matter into a living being and its Umwelt”. One paragraph goes further, to a “right to the pursuit of an undisturbed life”, by way of Apel and Habermas.
Standing in the record
For CLAIM-194: a definition of “produced”, without a test. The counter distinguishes a boundary a system produces from one imposed on it. The definition’s second clause is that distinction, and the cell making its membrane is the paper’s example. Two pendulums do not make the beam, so they fail it. But the reading found three limits, set out in NOTE-720:
- The paper gives no way to find out whether a boundary was produced, except where biochemistry already says so. It does not answer the counter’s “What would answer it”, and it does nothing toward THEORY-072’s promote_when.
- On this source, not even a multicellular organism produces its own boundary, so no combined form of the kind CLAIM-157 and CLAIM-174 test can. That makes the counter stronger than it states, and it leaves the record with no account of which combined forms come close.
- The difference from dissipative structures is put in “concern” and a “point of view”, not in the dynamics. The authors grant that the circle can be described “entirely from the outside”. THEORY-071’s individuality condition can cite the idea from here, but not a measure of it.
Smith and Varzi’s fiat/bona fide distinction (LIT-1024) is a different one, as this entry said before the reading.
For CLAIM-075: mostly on the permitted side. The value is value for the organism, and the paper quotes Jonas against persistence as the standard: “Not duration as such, but ‘duration of what?’ is the question.” But one paragraph (§ 3.1) does make the move CLAIM-075 disclaims. Life’s “Yes!” to itself is “the mother-value of all values”, and denying it would deny “a right to the pursuit of an undisturbed life”. The step is made by assertion, and its development is left to Hösle. The account covers living things only, and says nothing about an institution’s viability.
Di Paolo (2005; LIT-1017) is in part a correction of this paper. Valence here follows from autopoiesis with no further condition, and the LIT says adaptivity is what Di Paolo adds to supply it. Barandiaran, Di Paolo & Rohde (LIT-566) separate individuality from agency, which this paper does not. Mossio’s organisational account (LIT-570) is the neighbour already held, and it faces the candle flame that this paper does not discuss.