Enactive Cognitive Science Andbiology of

Enactive Cognitive Science andBiology of Cognition:
A Response to Humberto Maturana

TomFroese
1,

2,

3
and John Stewart
4
Introduction
We very much appreciate that Maturana (2011) responded to our article, where we hadmade an attempt to excavate
some of the hidden conceptual context in which the ideaof autopoiesis had originally been formulated (Froese &
Stewart, 2010). Our investigation was motivated by the growing interest in autopoiesis and related ideasamong a new
generations of researchers in cognitive science, driven by the increasing popularity of the enactive approach to
cognitive science (Stewart, Gapenne, & DiPaolo, 2010). This enactive paradigm has been developed as an alternative
to thetraditional cognitivist-computationalist paradigm, and it is remarkable for its seriousconsideration of first-
person experience and biological autonomy, two importantdomains of human existence that have so far been
neglected in cognitive science. Some proponents of the enactive paradigm have proposed that the concept
of autopoiesis can serve as a potential explanatory link between the domains of phenomenological embodiment and
biological embodiment. As a part of this project,we have recognized a need to go beyond considering living merely in
abstract terms,such as an Ashbyan cybernetics of stability, and recognize that being alive essentiallentails a
precarious existence, or, as Maturana puts it, recognize “living beings as beings that die” (Maturana, 2011, p. 145).
Given that only autopoietic systems aresystems that can die, there is a possibility to ground the phenomenon of
subjectiveexistential concern in the objective process of autopoiesis (Weber & Varela, 2002).This is because only
mortal beings can be concerned about their existence andtherefore value its continuation and realization. Non-
autopoietic systems persist, butthey do not exist. In this way autopoiesis has provided the enactive paradigm with
auseful conceptual locus in order to overcome Cartesian mind-matter dualism in ascientifically respectable manner
(Thompson, 2007).However, it has slowly become evident that the way in which autopoiesis had been described,
following the primary literature of Maturana and Varela (1980), wasinadequate for its new role in enactive cognitive
science. For example, because
1.Departamento de Ciencias de la Computación, Instituto de Investigaciones en Matemáticas
Aplicadas y en Sistemas (IIMAS), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), México. Email:
[email protected] de Ciencias de la Complejidad (C3), Universidad Nacional Autónoma
de México (UNAM), México3.Ikegami Laboratory, Department of General Systems Studies,
University of Tokyo, Japan4.Cognitive Research and Enaction Design (CRED), Université de
Technologie de Compiègne, France

autopoiesis is usually taken to be an all-or-nothing class category, it left no conceptualroom for explaining the
possibility of gradations of adaptedness and varieties of concern (Di Paolo, 2005). For instance, sometimes we do
well at managing our livelihoods, sometimes we fail our goals; sometimes people are healthy, sometimesthey fall ill;
sometimes people are brimming with life, sometimes they are at the brink of death. We experience these different
kinds of existential situations faced withrelevant concerns that make specific demands on our ability to interact with
the world, but in all these cases we are equally autopoietic. Thus, there must be other processesgoing on inside the
organism that can help us to explain these phenomena. AsMaturana acknowledges, “The form of the relation of
adaptation changescontinuously in the realization of the living of the living being while its relation of adaptation is
conserved” (Maturana, 2011, p. 148, footnote 4). But what kind of internal process regulates the continuous changes
in the relation of adaptation suchthat the relation is conserved? How is their success evaluated such that we
feelaccordingly? Di Paolo (2005) proposed the concept of adaptivity to partially accountfor this process; living is no
longer only autopoiesis, but living is autopoiesis andadaptivity.Another related worry about the adequacy of the
traditional description of autopoiesis for the enactive paradigm relates to the notion of
precariousness
. Thisnotion, which derives from the existential biology of Jonas (2001), is in agreementwith Maturana’s observation
that living beings are beings that can die. In biologicalterms, dying is the process whereby an organism no longer
adequately regulates itsmaterial and energetic exchanges with its immediate environment, such that itsidentity
eventually disintegrates into the thermodynamic equilibrium. Conversely, wecan say that living is a process of
recursively maintaining one’s integrity as adissipative structure in far-from-equilibrium conditions (Bickhard, 2009).
Note thatthe autopoiesis of the living, which Maturana describes as “their continuous self production as discrete self
producing dynamically closed molecular entities”(Maturana, 2011, p. 148), follows directly from this thermodynamic
account of livingand dying. On this view, autopoiesis is necessarily a physical process, and this processcannot be
divorced from the adaptive regulation of material and thermodynamicinteractions with its environment (Barandiaran
& Moreno, 2008). In this way the enactive paradigm tries to clarify the concrete phenomenologicalimplications and
concrete biological realizations of autopoiesis. Varela (1995) hasreferred to this goal of returning to the phenomena
themselves as the re-enchantmentof the concrete. Given this project, the important point we tried to make in our
articlewas the following. Once we reject the traditional cybernetic conception of autopoiesis,which explicitly
abstracts autopoiesis from its material and energetic realization (whatwe called the Ashbyan interpretation), and
recognize that the concrete thermodynamicembodiment of the living is an essential aspect of autopoiesis, the
concept’s currentshortcomings for grounding our concrete phenomenological embodiment can beresolved. There is
no longer any need to supplement autopoiesis with a shopping listof other conditions, such as adaptivity or
precariousness. Similarly, there is no longer

Enactive Cognitive Science and Biology of Cognition63

any need for Maturana (2011, p. 144) to specify autopoiesis as “molecular autopoiesis,” as if to contrast it with non-
molecular autopoiesis, because on the viewwe are defending there is no other kind of autopoiesis than a physically
embodied one.Of course, on this view the concept of autopoiesis remains an observer’s abstraction of the specific
way in which living beings realize their living, but it is an abstraction thattakes more aspects of the biochemical
context into account as constitutive of the phenomenon of the living.Having briefly clarified the proposal of our
previous article, we welcome theopportunity to continue this dialogue with Maturana by offering some
further comments on various aspects of his response. Our aim is to highlight the possibilityfor developing a mutually
informative and supportive exchange between the biological tradition of Maturana and his colleagues with the
growing community of researchers interested in the paradigm of enaction. In particular, we try to show
howMaturana’s approach in many ways complements the enactive critique of thecognitivist-computationalist
paradigm of cognitive science, but we also point to someapparent differences. It remains to be seen whether these
differences are superficial, perhaps terminological issues, or whether they are symptoms of more
fundamentaldisagreements.
The Relevance of Biology of Cognition for Enactive Cognitive Science
The Rejection of the Transcendental Subject
Maturana makes the important point that we should not confuse our abstract theorieswith the concrete phenomena
they are meant to denote. We agree that we need to becareful so that we do not unwittingly project some of our
theoretical elements into theexperiential domain in which we happen to distinguish the phenomena. As Maturanasays,
the phenomenon of living as such does not need any theory to ensure itsexistence.
We human beings can make theories about the nature of life when we think that life is some propertyof living beings, but life is not a
property of living beings, the word life only evokes or names aninvented abstract entity that we claim that must be
there to sustain the living of a concrete singular living being. Living does not need any theory to occur; it is the
occurring of a molecular autopoieticsystem. (Maturana, 2011, p. 146)
This is of course a general claim that is not specific only to the process of living. Togive an example from physics,
planetary movement does not need Newton’s equationsof gravity to occur, it is the occurring of a gravitational
system. More specifically,although it is common practice to loosely talk about gravity constituting planetarymotion, it
would strictly speaking be more accurate to say that the concrete phenomenon, which we conventionally happen to
denote and describe by the abstractconcept of gravity, is what constitutes planetary motion. Similarly, we can say that
the phenomenon of living, which can be described as a molecular autopoietic system,does not need autopoietic theory
to occur. For most practical purposes it may well be

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Enactive Cognitive Science andBiology of Cognition:

A Response to Humberto Maturana

Enactive Cognitive Science and Biology of Cognition63

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