Introduction The Autopoiesis of Social Systems and its ... · The Autopoiesis of Social Systems and...

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Theory of Autopoiesis

The Autopoiesis of Social Systems and its CriticismsHugo Cadenas • University of Chile • hcadenas/at/uchile.clMarcelo Arnold • University of Chile • marnold/at/uchile.cl

> Context • Although the theory of autopoietic systems was originally formulated to explain the phenomenon of life from an operational and temporal perspective, sociologist Niklas Luhmann incorporated it later within his theory of social systems. Due to this adoption, there have been several discussions regarding the applicability of this concept beyond its biological origins. > Problem • This article addresses the conception of Luhman’s autopoietic social sys-tems, and confronts this vision with criticism both of the original authors of the concept of autopoiesis and of other social theorists in order to elucidate the main problems of this debate and its possible solutions. > Method • The ob-jectives of the article are reached by means of a theoretical reconstruction of the main issues of the debate on the concept of autopoiesis. The main method used for the research is the use of documentary sources to discuss the argu-ments. > Results • We claim that it is justified to extend the concept of autopoiesis from its biological origin to other disciplines, and to develop its interdisciplinary character, following the spirit of systems theory and constructivism. > Implications • Our results are useful for promoting the development of new interdisciplinary research in the field of systems theory and constructivism. Important changes to practice should be made, namely, the development of new research methods, new concepts and perspectives. > Constructivist content • The concept of autopoiesis is one of the fundamental concepts of the constructivist epistemology. The discussion proposes a radical understanding of this concept in order to realize all its explanatory potential. > Key words • Biological autopoiesis, social autopoiesis, systems theory, Niklas Luhmann.

Introduction

« 1 » Systems theory is characterized by a broad conceptual openness and, simulta-neously, by a constant discussion regarding the explanatory capacity of its observation tools (Rodríguez & Arnold 1991). This has had important consequences for the multi-disciplinary character of its research. While this theory is framed within a research para-digm focused on “systems,” permanent ex-amination of comparison points between perspectives of various kinds has become inevitable. Despite their different research praxes, the theories that deal with biologi-cal systems and those dedicated to the study of social systems have been intertwined on several occasions.

« 2 » From a historical perspective, it can be noticed that is almost impossible to detach the concept of system from its social and biological roots. The (proto) systems theory of Herbert Spencer (1887, 1912) was a proposal that used the same principles to

explain the evolution of biological and social systems. Half a century later, Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1950) insisted on developing a general systems theory based on the idea of open systems for biological and social sciences. Talcott Parsons (1951, 1961; Par-sons & Shils 1962) also developed a theory of open systems focused both on social and on biological systems, to which he added the individual personality and the culture as analog systems.1 Based on these and other developments, not only sociology but also the vast field of interest of systems theory was nurtured. Not surprisingly, therefore, the concepts used and discussed in systems theory may have both biological and socio-logical explanations.

« 3 » The concept of “autopoiesis” elabo-rated by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela (1980; Varela, Maturana & Uribe 1974) is an example of this. Designed ini-

1 | A broad overview of this tradition is in Rodríguez & Arnold (1991).

tially under the umbrella of a theory of bio-logical systems in order to explain the phe-nomenon of life, it was promptly adopted by the theory of social systems developed by Niklas Luhmann (1982a) to explain the self-constitutive character of social systems. The creators of the concept of autopoiesis in-sisted, however, on several occasions on the inadequacy of applying this term to social systems. This self-imposed restriction has been a subject of debate and controversy up to today.

« 4 » In contrast to other concepts broadly shared by theories of biological and social systems, the concept of autopoiesis has sparked a sterile debate leading interdis-ciplinary research to an otherwise inexplica-ble underdevelopment. While systemic so-ciology has not only continued applying the concept, but also extended its use to diverse areas of the social, the biological theory of autopoiesis has tried, with great difficulty, to develop a social systems theory without

TOCThe Autopoiesis of Social Systems

and its CriticismsIntroductionThe Autopoiesis of Social SystemsFrom self-reference to autopoiesis of social systemsApplications of autopoiesis to social systemsBiological criticismsSociological criticismsConclusionOpen Peer CommentariesWhat Is Sociology?Towards a Consistent Constructivist General Systems TheoryDoes Social Systems Theory Need Autopoiesis?Does Social Systems Theory Need a General Theory of Autopoiesis?Missing: The Socio-Political DimensionAutopoiesis Applies to Social Systems OnlyExplaining Social Systems without HumansCommunication is Meaning-based AutopoiesisThe Concept of Autopoiesis: Its Relevance and Consequences for SociologyThe Concept of AutopoiesisAuthors’ Response

On the Criticisms against the Autopoiesis of Social SystemsAuthors’ ResponseCombined References

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this concept. This cleavage has shown to be unproductive.

« 5 » In this article, we attempt to refo-cus the debate on the concept of autopoiesis for social systems research. We analyze not only the benefits shown by this concept in explaining social phenomena, but also the consequences for social systems theory de-rived from its restriction to a merely biologi-cal level. In the first section, we discuss the concept of autopoiesis in the theory of social systems, its relations with other concepts, and applications. In the second section, we address both criticism from the creators of the concept of autopoiesis of its use on social sciences and their proposal for a theory of social systems. In the third section, we ad-dress some criticisms from social sciences of the use of the concept of autopoiesis. Finally, we conclude with a diagnosis of the current state of the debate and projections for this perspective.

from self-reference to autopoiesis of social systems« 6 » In the 1980s Luhmann adopted

the concept of “autopoiesis” along with the development of a theory of “communica-tion.” Both are the result of a deepening of the ideas of “self-reference” and “action,” on which he had systematically worked since the sixties. The article “Autopoiesis, action and communicative understanding” (Luh-mann 1982a) is the link between the two stages of his theory.2 The concept of com-munication, however, has a longer develop-ment within his theory. Until his first major theoretical synthesis in Social systems (Luh-mann 1995), which clearly outlines the cen-trality of both concepts – communication and autopoiesis – Luhmann always wavered

2 | The monograph Soziale Systeme (1995 [1984]) is commonly pointed to as the definitive threshold of his theoretical development. Nev-ertheless, previously in 1981 Luhmann referred briefly to the benefits of the term “autopoiesis” for a theory of social systems. See Luhmann (1981a: 279f). Also in 1981, he opted for communication as a central component of social systems. See Luh-mann (1981b).

between a theory of social systems based on actions and one based on communications:

“ We can speak of a ‘social system’ whenever the actions of several persons are meaningfully inter-related and are thus, in their very interconnected-ness, marked off from an environment. As soon as any communication whatsoever takes place among individuals, social systems emerge.” (Luhmann 1982c: 70)

« 7 » The link between both ideas – ac-tion and communication – was given by the concept of “selection.” Since “meaning” is the unity of the difference between the “actual” and the “possible” and every social system is built on meaning, the social system itself is a “selection” between different possibili-ties that meaning offers (Luhmann 1982b). Every social system builds its own borders of meaning for itself based on processes of “self-selection” (Luhmann 1982c: 70). Thus, the difference between “system” and “envi-ronment” was seen as a problem for the so-cial system and its different ways of defining an “inside” from an “outside.” Communica-tion and action constituted, in this theoreti-cal period, two manifestations of the same process. Since social systems make visible their own selections as actions – although they arise as systems by means of commu-nication – they must be treated as action systems at the “empirical” level (Luhmann 1974: 39). When Luhmann (1981b) finally opts for “communication” as the constitu-tive element of social systems, this empiri-cal character of action only represents the capacity of those systems to communicate about themselves. The action is definitively moved into the background: “the elemen-tary unit, from which self-referential social systems are formed, is not action, but com-munication.” (Luhmann 1981b: 17). This shift has important theoretical implications.

« 8 » Unlike general systems theory and its concept of open systems (Bertalanffy 1950), Luhmann developed a theory of self-referential systems, that is to say, “systems that have the ability to establish relations with themselves and to differentiate these relations from relations with their environ-ment” (Luhmann 1995: 13). Self-reference stems from this dynamic character. Such systems are not stable units that should maintain this status, but dynamic units

composed of operations, i.e., systems differ-entiated from an environment by means of its own operations. Social systems are self-referential since their units are constituted from the difference with the environment, which can be only obtained through opera-tions of the system itself. Any exchange with the environment must be based on system operations and rejecting this conditioning leads to dissolution of its constitutive differ-ence3.

« 9 » Luhmann (1995: 443ff) distin-guishes three types of self-reference in social systems. The “basal” self-reference indicates the difference between element/relation. This self-reference occurs at the level of the operations of the system, i.e., communica-tion. The social system can only operate through communication and uses commu-nication to define its borders with the en-vironment. There are no system operations that could be imported from the environ-ment (Luhmann 2013b: 77), so the system must jump-start its own operations and face its own limits. other types of self-reference are “reflexivity,” i.e., the ability of communi-cation to communicate about itself, and “re-flection,” which considers the thematization of the system within the system. The “basal” self-reference, however, is the condition that characterizes the autopoiesis of the system (Luhmann 1982a: 369).

« 10 » Socio-autopoiesis means in this context the ability of a self-referential sys-tem to produce itself through communica-tion (Luhmann 2012: 42), which implies not only the differentiation of its elements and relations, but also that the unit of the system is obtained by means of its own op-

3 | Luhmann early noted the need to consid-er “self-reference” as a necessary starting point for interdisciplinary work. In an article published in 1983 as a revised version of a paper he presented at a US conference in 1981, Luhmann writes: “Bi-ologists with an interest in life, psychologists with an interest in consciousness, sociologists with an interest in social order, are at present and will per-haps remain exceptions rather than the rule. But they at least have to accept, despite many logical and methodological warnings, types of theory which imply self-reference. This leads to the con-struction of self-referential objects and commits them to seeing reality in terms of self-reference.” (Luhmann 1983: 995)

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erations. A self-referential system is not only autonomous at the level of its structures, which means “self-organized” (Luhmann 2013b: 70ff), but it is also autonomous at the level of its operations – that is, “autopoi-etic” (Luhmann 2012: 33). Social operations are communications and they involve three “selections” of meaning: information, utter-ance, and understanding (Luhmann 1992). Therefore, communication is not a trans-mission of meaning between persons, but an operation of distinction by a self-referential system – Maturana and Varela (1987: 196) agreed on this.

« 11 » Communication is the exclusive operation of social systems, which assumes human consciousness that irritates other human consciousness by means of language, human organisms that reproduce through their own operations, and environmental physical-chemical conditions that make all this possible. Nevertheless, the autopoiesis of society operates the autopoiesis of indi-viduals or the psychic autopoiesis of con-sciousness at a different level from the or-ganic level. only communication produces communication, and this is the determinant social operation (Luhmann 1986).

« 12 » This implies significant difficulties for a direct understanding of the concepts of communication and of the autopoiesis of social systems. The common understanding conceives communication as a tool for per-sons or animals to verbalize their thoughts or emotions, i.e., as a process of transmission (Shannon 1948) that is drivable through ac-tions and intentions. This interpretation is based on a communication model that seems to fit well with everyday interactions in which we deal with neighbors, colleagues or friends through face-to-face relation-ships. on this image of a routinized life-world stands not only the mathematical theory of information but also sociological phenomenology, from Alfred Schutz (1972) to Jürgen Habermas (1987). Nevertheless, as constructivism and second-order cybernet-ics have pointed out, this everyday normal-ity hides complex recursive networks, by means of which a reality is created (Foerster 1973). There is no direct relation between consciousness and communication, since each of these systems create independent re-alities and are reproduced through different operations.

« 13 » Whoever wants to influence com-munication has to leave the recursivity of his consciousness to inform and give-to-know (utterance). In doing so, he or she loses the control of further operations, and forces the observer to choose a position as alter or as ego, and attribute experiences or actions. There is no turning back. In this context we can understand the controversial phrase of Luhmann: “only communication can com-municate” (Luhmann 1992: 251). Whoever wants to communicate must submit him/herself to the selections of an autonomous system, whose operations involve further connections as well as other conscious-nesses, who in turn may understand or not understand and inform and give-to-know. Social systems belong neither to alter nor ego, they are systems that define positions in the communication for alter and ego. Com-munication systems can create memory structures to resume a conversation in an-other moment; they can define roles, com-municational limits, belongings or major symbolic generalizations. Communication does not enter into the consciousness and cells of persons to reproduce itself by chains of thoughts or metabolism, but creates its own autonomous relations network.

« 14 » Luhmann’s application of auto-poeisis moves the problem from the plane of the physical “space,” where life is constituted (Maturana & Varela 1980), to the “meaning,” where social systems emerge (Luhmann 1995: 59ff). Communication is not a spatial phenomenon but one of meaning: it could be irritated through sound waves, by char-acters on blank paper or electronic screens, or other spatial phenomena, but it emerges as the unit of information and utterance within the meaning of communication and not in space. The silent voice of our thoughts is a manifestation of this coupling between communication and consciousness, precise-ly because it is a voice that has no sound in an external space, but meaning in the con-sciousness. A communicated idea acquires meaning in the communication and one can keep thinking without interrupting commu-nication. Both realms remain operationally separated but structurally coupled. Mean-ing, which is the medium of consciousness and communication, defines these two auto-poietic systems.

Applications of autopoiesis to social systems« 15 » There have been several applica-

tions of these ideas in sociological research. In the sociology of law, for example, an im-portant tradition of studies on legal autopoi-esis based on the ideas of Luhmann (2004) has been established. The jurist Gunther Teubner (1988) has made major contribu-tions to this field and has developed an extensive research program on this topic. other jurists, such as Marcelo Neves (2001), Karl-Heinz Ladeur (1999), and recently An-dreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos (2011), have followed the same path. They empha-size not only the self-referential character of law, but also its internal capacity as a communication system to produce its own elements: laws, rules, procedures, etc. This is one of the most developed fields in the theory of the autopoiesis of social systems proposed by Luhmann.

« 16 » Economic sociology has also re-ceived inputs from this theory. Luhmann (1988) argues that the economy is an au-topoietic communication system, whose fundamental operations are payments in money. This research program has been systematically followed by other scholars, such as Dirk Baecker (2006, 2008), who has researched the role of banks in a mod-ern economy, and by Elena Esposito (2011), who has observed international financial markets as autopoietic systems. Many re-searchers, from both economic sociology and economics, have used the approach of the autopoeisis of social systems proposed by Luhmann.4

« 17 » Sociology of art has also developed innovative research based on the concept of art as an autopoietic communication system (Luhmann 2000). This research includes lit-erary studies (de Berg 2001), esthetics (Leh-mann 2006; Nassehi 2011), painting (Valen-zuela 2011), music (Araos 2006), and even architecture (Schumacher 2011).

« 18 » Scholars such as Alois Hahn (1987), Peter Beyer (1985, 1997), and Stefan Nacke (2010) have also followed Luhmann in the sociology of religion (see Luhmann 1982d, 2002a), while in the field of the so-

4 | For an overview of this matter, see Arnold & Cadenas (2013).

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ciology of education, the ideas of Luhmann on education (see Luhmann & Schorr 2000) have been further developed, mainly by Raf Vanderstraeten (2001, 2002, 2004).5

« 19 » others scholars have tried to continue the theoretical path indicated by the biological theory of autopoiesis. Milan Zeleny and Kevin Hufford (1992), for ex-ample, have used the six-step method de-signed by Varela, Maturana & Uribe (1974) to determine autopoietic systems. They have concluded that human “families” can be considered autopoietic systems defined by membership rules – and not by physi-cal space. They even argue, “All autopoietic, and therefore all biological (living), systems are social systems” (Zeleny & Hufford 1992: 147), as they involve regular relationships between their components and thus “com-munication” between them (ibid: 157). Nev-ertheless, according to their conclusions, not all social systems can be autopoietic, since some systems cannot be reproduced by themselves. Such systems are “designed” by others and, therefore, are not spontaneous; they are joined by force, as with, for exam-ple, “concentration camps, jails, command hierarchies, totalitarian orders” (ibid: 158).

« 20 » Systemic family therapy has also been influenced by the biological concept of autopoiesis (cf. Keeney 1983).

« 21 » At this point, it becomes clear that the concept of autopoiesis has broad reper-cussions, not only in social systems theory but also in other theories, research, and disciplines. Notwithstanding the above, we argue that the theory of autopoiesis can only expand its horizons beyond the biological model if a theory of social systems based on communication is adopted. Discussions concerning the applicability of this concept to social sciences have not led to productive results and the debate has stagnated. This situation must be addressed in all its com-plexity. The autopoiesis of social systems has aroused controversies, not only in biology but also in sociological discussions. We will address some of this criticism in both fields and try to contextualize its depth.

« 22 » We refer henceforth to critical positions regarding the application of the

5 | For an overview of the applications of Luhmann’s sociological theory, see Jahraus et al. (2012).

concept of autopoiesis to social sciences. We address this criticism on two fronts. on the one hand, we address biological criticisms, especially those made by Maturana and Varela. Along with these criticisms, and as a complementary point of view, we discuss sociological objections to the adoption of this concept made by Danilo Zolo and Jür-gen Habermas.

Biological criticisms

« 23 » Before Luhmann adopted the con-cept of autopoiesis, Maturana and Varela had already objected to its application to so-cial systems. Varela (1981: 38) argued early that intentions such as those of Stafford Beer (1980) of applying the concept to organiza-tions or of Gordon Pask (1978), who postu-lated conversations as autopoietic systems, were inadequate since such systems do not “produce” elements but only “operational-ize” relations. His suggestion for the study of social systems was to focus the analysis in terms of self-reference and autonomy, oth-erwise “the notion of autopoiesis becomes a metaphor and loses its power” (Varela 1981: 38). Not only Varela, but also Maturana (1985: 53) and John Mingers (2002: 291) share the criticism of the use of the term “production.” This is due to their particular vision of social systems.

« 24 » This blockade raised by Maturana and Varela was deepened later by their own theory of social systems, derived from their biological explanations of autopoiesis. The central argument of Maturana and Varela (1987) on this matter is that only biologi-cal systems of the first and second order are autopoietic, and social systems are mere ag-gregates of the third order of those systems. With regard to human beings, their social systems would be composed of individuals and their communicative and linguistic re-cursions. For them, social systems are both a social and biological phenomenon (Mat-urana 1985, 1997).

« 25 » If the principles of this approach are followed, undoubtedly, social systems cannot be autopoietic, since they consist of “members of a group of living beings” (Mat-urana 1985: 58) or of “real persons” (Min-gers 2002: 292), whose regular interactions lead to structural couplings, such as lan-

guage. Based on these principles, the social cannot even be distinguished as a system, but only as a more or less defined set of in-teractions between organisms integrated by “love”; and if this disappears, this unit disin-tegrates (Maturana 1985: 67).

« 26 » At this point, Maturana and Vare-la’s arguments exhibit their main weakness-es. While their ideas concerning biological phenomenon are supported by sophisti-cated systemic and cybernetic approaches, their conception of social systems, on the other hand, is based on old and outdated paradigms. This partly explains the fact that most sociological research on social systems has not followed this path. Another reason is, undoubtedly, the inexplicable and express renunciation of sociological knowledge (Maturana 1985: 54). With regard to this, Maturana (1991: 93) even argues that “the social does not belong to sociology, it be-longs to everyday life, and sociology makes sense only as an explanatory attempt of ev-eryday life.” However, in terms of his contri-bution to understanding the social phenom-enon, there is no qualitative improvement of current sociological knowledge. In a way, it is more a regression. Maturana and Varela’s advanced conception of biological systems has a minimum impact on their notion of social systems. For such systems, the ancient Aristotelian paradigm of a whole composed of parts seems to be enough.

« 27 » From a sociological point of view, this approach is more a “middle-range theory” (Merton 1949), in the context of systems theory, since its applications are of a distinctly particularistic nature. This is ex-pressed in four main areas.

« 28 » First, instead of problematizing complex social systems, this theory focusses on social groups – such as families that com-municate through love, or populations in a space – which are mediated by in-person relationships; but it has no application in a broad range of social phenomena that do not fit this condition. At least by Émile Durkheim (1893), and with greater sophis-tication in Parsons (1961), the question of absence in social systems is problematized. Parsons (1961: 30ff), for example, contem-plated the function of “latency” or “pattern maintenance” in a social system, making it an independent-acting unit. Another self-imposed blockade of Maturana and Varela’s

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approach is the exclusion of economic rela-tions from society, since these would nega-tively affect cooperation in a social group (Maturana 1985: 66). It is not necessary to refer to Karl Marx to discuss this postulate and see how narrow this vision of the eco-nomic and the social is, it is enough to re-member the results of the well-known Haw-thorne experiments of in the 1930s, directed by Elton Mayo, on social factors of coopera-tion in industrial work (cf. Roethlisberger & Dickson 1939).

« 29 » Second, this theory definitively rejects giving a universalistic relevancy to social systems, since those refer only to groups that form and disappear through re-lationships of cooperation and love.

“ Denying this relationship undermines human social phenomenon, because it refuses its founda-tions (love), and every society that does this disin-tegrates, even if its former members must contin-ue interacting because they cannot be physically separated.” (Maturana 1985: 65f)

« 30 » For Maturana, unlike the old soci-ological tradition, which is rich in research on passing interactions (cf. Goffman 1983), such passing relations are not themselves social. This has not only left a broad range of social phenomena unattended, but also shows a narrow understanding of the phe-nomenon itself.

« 31 » Third, Maturana & Varela (1987) propose a utilitarian concept of social sys-tems that remains subordinated to the maintenance of life. From their biological perspective, the social system is a structural coupling that makes possible the ontoge-netic and phylogenetic continuity of human beings. The existence and continuity of such social systems is subordinated to the goals established by their parts (individuals), ei-ther individually or collectively. The social appears as a mere instrument for maintain-ing human life. The reasons for the insis-tence on subsuming social systems to the needs of their parts (individuals, persons) are not theoretically entirely justified and the authors seem to defend them by rather “ethical” principles (Maturana 1985: 70; Maturana & Varela 1987: 198). From an eth-ical point of view, one cannot disagree with ideas that highlight that death and totalitari-anism are a consequence of political subju-

gation of individuals to society, but that is not an answer to theoretical questions.

« 32 » Finally, from a biological point of view, this social systems theory is simi-lar to theories and concepts of ecological origin, such as the biocenosis. This con-cept was elaborated in the late nineteenth century by the biologist and ecologist Karl Möbius to account for relations established between organisms within a certain bio-tope. Maturana seems to follow a similar reasoning:

“ In the history of humanity, the formation of large communities and the subsequent overload-ing of their natural environment increasingly de-prives human beings of their free access to those subsistence resources they need, and society, as a system of coexistence, must necessarily take the task (responsibility) of providing them. This task (responsibility) is often denied through argu-ments that put the individual as opposed to the social.” (Maturana 1985: 68)

« 33 » Since neither Maturana nor Vare-la reject the “spatial” character of autopoiesis and both desist from resorting to any social systems theory – not even the established systems theory of Parsons (1961) or Walter Buckley (1967) – they define social systems on the basis of the same spatial principles used for living beings. For this reason, so-ciety appears as a community of organisms that share a certain space to survive. Society is understood in certain way as an altruistic biocenosis determined by relations of coop-eration and love.

« 34 » These four elements are a direct consequence of subsuming the explanation of the social phenomenon to the biological and of sustaining a vague sociological and anthropological view of social systems, i.e., as groups of individuals that are only social when cooperation or love occurs.

« 35 » Followers of Maturana and Varela such as Urrestarazu (2014) adopt a similar criterion. Urrestarazu’s social systems con-cept seems to go no further than that of Maturana and Varela. He insists on the part-whole paradigm and on the “interactional” character of a social system.

“ A unity composed of dynamic agents interact-ing through communication events and constitut-ing a persistent network of related entities that

can be circumscribed in a domain in which this particular mode of interaction is observable.” (Urrestarazu 2014: 159)

« 36 » Even if we accept that biology, as proposed by Maturana, also includes in-teraction processes between living beings, none of this excuses this approach for its adoption of a diffuse theory of groups and for stepping back towards an Aristotelian systemic thinking – that of systems as units composed of parts. There is an evident theo-retical disconnection between social sys-tems theory and that of biological systems. This leads to unproductive efforts, such as rediscovering many traditional sociologi-cal concepts, such as that of “role,” without deepening, discussing or problematizing their sociological common sense. Thus for example Maturana says:

“ If living beings composing a social system are medical doctors, the identity preserved in those living beings composing this social system during their structural dynamics is that of medical doc-tors […] For that reason we can cease belonging to one or more social systems without necessar-ily disintegrating ourselves as human beings.” (Maturana 1985: 65):

« 37 » If, instead, a less pretentious ap-proach is chosen and the application of this theory is restricted to the field of building and maintaining social groups – including its belonging relationships and interactions – a common ground between both system theories can be founded. For this, however, the concept of society as a group must be abandoned, and to understand the place and relevancy of groups, the “levels” of differen-tiation of social systems must be analyzed (Luhmann 1982c).

« 38 » As we have seen, if we try to ap-ply the theoretical principles of Maturana and Varela to a more complex social systems theory, huge explanatory problems arise. The amount and density of social phenom-ena that fail to be explained by this theory are so extensive that it becomes necessary to limit these ideas to a very specific set of phenomena.

« 39 » Thus, the objection of Maturana and Varela to applying the concept of auto-poiesis to social phenomena is partly due to the lack of an appropriate concept of social

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systems. The fact that social systems do not have clear spatial borders, in contrast to liv-ing organisms, does not imply that they are more “metaphorical” than other systems for an observer. If, however, the part-whole paradigm is abandoned and a theory of autopoietic social systems is developed in its place, a very different set of questions is opened and a new flank of criticism appears. We will try to answer these questions in the following section.

Sociological criticisms

« 40 » Sociology has reacted to the con-cept of autopoiesis with some skepticism. one of the major criticisms is the “conserva-tive” character that this concept would have. The accusation is certainly old, and it is not related solely to this concept but to the full theoretical architecture. The theoretical di-aspora of this criticisms is broad, it includes a philosophy with historicist accents, as in Danilo Zolo (1990), critical Marxist posi-tions (suffice here only to mention Haber-mas), postmodern Marxism such as that of Fredric Jameson (2002), various revivals of Max Weber’s culturalism, as by Wolfgang Schluchter or Dirk Käsler (cf. de Marinis 2008), and other actionalist theories, par-tially inspired in the ideas of Luhmann (Knorr-Cetina 1992; Tyrell 1978; Wagner 1997). Since a complete analysis of these criticisms exceeds our ambitions; we will fo-cus on those directly related to the concept of autopoiesis.

« 41 » Zolo tried to deconstruct the theory of autopoeisis of Maturana and Va-rela from a philosophical point of view. His criticism hits the mark in some weak points of this theory, for example on the contradic-tion between a declared constructivism and a notion of autopoiesis based on the idea of “real” spaces (Zolo 1995: 219ff). However, Zolo seems to be unacquainted with the practice of concept building for scientific observation and experimentation. His criti-cism of autopoiesis as a scientific concept is an example of this. Since autopoiesis is only a “concept” describing a reality, Maturana and Varela would be victims of a “meta-physical idealism” or even operate within “gnoseologic realism,” which tries to dis-cover principles in nature (Zolo 1995: 219f).

Zolo certainly has no qualms about labeling Maturana and Varela with various philo-sophical affiliations. The main problem with this type of argumentation is that it cannot avoid being judged on its own principles or, better said, it cannot avoid being a self-refer-ential criticism: is a “metaphysics” of scien-tific concepts able to be attacked, since it can only by criticized by means of concepts – as Zolo does? If we consider science as a com-munication system, this criticism is unpro-ductive. Zolo’s arguments against Maturana and Varela finally lead to historicism, the charge that these authors have the historical “prejudices” of their scientific community (Zolo 1995: 229), and are influenced by their Chilean-Hispanic-Christian cultural tradi-tion.

« 42 » Criticism of the theory of au-topoiesis of Luhmann, meanwhile, has a more political accent. According to Zolo (1995: 207f), this hides “neoconservative” proposals, especially on political, economic, and legal deregulation. This opinion is also shared by Jameson (2002: 92), although the latter bases his criticism on the ancient – but indefatigable – concept of “ideology,” in the context of an untidy historical-sociological analysis into which Luhmann’s theory (and sociology in general) is inserted. Neither Zolo nor Jameson seem to delve into the theoretical implications of this observation.

« 43 » Jameson decided to choose the easier way, and instead of following a theo-retical argumentation, his proposal is styl-ized as a complaint against any position that denies a postmodern rupture with the modern and, therefore, defends the mod-ern. This, of course, ignores the multiple problems that Luhmann himself repeatedly noted regarding the disconnected and un-controlled character of modern society, es-pecially in the modern monetary economy (Luhmann 1995: 383ff, 2013a: 107ff, 1997 passim). Zolo (1995: 242), for his part, files the same charges against Luhmann that he earlier directed against Maturana and Va-rela, that is to say, that the autopoeisis of so-cial systems would be mere “realistic meta-physics.” Instead, Zolo proposes following an open systems theory, which consider inputs and outputs of the environment and suggests abandoning an approach that has not been consolidated, such as the theory of the autopoiesis and its conservative conse-

quences. Zolo’s position involves a rejection of biological or sociological constructivism and a defense of traditional philosophy. The question of the theoretical advantages of distinguishing theories as conservative or liberal remains completely open, as well as that of the need for using this distinction scheme.

« 44 » Habermas, for his part, made a number of criticisms of Luhmann’s ap-proach, as a result of decades of debate. Habermas considers this sociological theory of autopoietic systems as heir to the philo-sophical tradition of the “subject.” However, for him, this theory cannot be considered metaphysical but “metabiological” (Haber-mas 1998: 372), since it operates with a biological rather than physical image of the world. Although systems theory replaces and denies the theory of the subject, both have the same concerns. Systems theory would be a current manifestation of the philosophy of the subject that characterizes the entire western philosophical thought. Similar to Maturana and Varela, Habermas (1998: 384) noted that Luhmann’s biggest mistake consists of separating social and human phenomena. However, unlike them, Habermas argues that this mistake is not the separation of the biological from the social, but the dissociation between psychic and social systems. The link between the two is language, which makes understanding and consensus among people possible. Accord-ing to his approach, objects in the world are such only insofar they are represented, that is to say, “As states of affairs expressed in sen-tences” (Habermas 1996: 11). This supposes that thoughts are propositionally structured and the structure of sentences would allow the structure of thoughts to be read. on the other hand, social systems are only one side of social phenomena; the other side is the “lifeworld” (Habermas 1976, 1987), which does not follow the same principles of social systems, but rather linguistic mechanisms, aimed at understanding and consensus. Autopoietic social systems operate “narcis-sistically” (Habermas 1996: 51), taking into account only their own determinations.

« 45 » In addition, unlike Maturana and Varela, Habermas proposes a theory of society that does not restrict the social to a “lifeworld” based on cooperation and consensus, but considers – following David

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Lockwood (1964) – two principles of inte-gration, namely social and system integra-tion. Society is system and lifeworld. This duality comes from Habermas’s (1976: 5f) peculiar interpretation of Parsons’ AGIL action model (Parsons, Bales & Shils 1953), whereby only the spheres of politics and economics (A-G) are systemic, while institu-tions of social integration and culture (I-L) have a non-systemic nature.

« 46 » Unlike Maturana and Varela, Habermas postulates a two-level theory of society. Society is not only a human life-world based on cooperation and consen-sus, but also a system. Following Lockwood (1964), Habermas noted that society has two integration principles, namely, social and system integration. While the expansion of this paradigm for social research has proved fruitful, the greatest strides of this approach have been made in the field of political phi-losophy, notably in the debates between him and John Rawls (1998), as well as in the interdisciplinary field of communication theory.6

6 | For an overview of this matter, see Ley-desdorff (2000).

Conclusion

« 47 » We began our remarks by high-lighting the schism between biological and social theories of autopoiesis, and we stressed the need to address this concept in a unified way. our motivation comes not from a sociological whim to subjugate the biological theory of autopoiesis to the social, but from systems theory’s original purpose of unifying science.

« 48 » Systems theory, since the “gen-eral” programmatic formulation of Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1950), has used the con-cept of “system” as a common ground for varied disciplines. The cybernetics of Nor-bert Wiener (1948) also described itself as a science of information of various types of systems, such as machines and living beings. The main problem was not the obvious fact that each system is different, but rather the explanatory capacity of the model in each one of them, and to this task, both von Ber-talanffy and Wiener devoted all their efforts. The first theories of social systems, such as those of Parsons (1951, 1961; Parsons & Shils 1962) or Buckley (1967), also consid-ered general models applicable to different phenomena.

« 49 » The same principles that have guided systems theory from its beginnings can also be applied to the theory of autopoi-esis. This involves, undoubtedly, redirecting the theory to its original spirit and avoiding a split into different contents or disciplines. As noted by Zeleny and Hufford regarding the concept of autopoiesis:

“ Thus it does not matter what the things are in the system only that whatever they are they produce themselves. The autopoietic nature of a system is within the domain of systems science, systemhood, since it is independent of the things, thinghood, in the system.” (Zeleny & Hufford 1992: 146)

« 50 » This, of course, involves aban-doning the idea that the theory of autopoi-esis of social systems can be only used in a “metaphorical” or “analogical” sense. In-stead of this, it seems appropriate to follow the advice of Rudolf Stichweh (1987: 447) of applying this concept through a controlled relation between “generalization” regarding its biological context and “respecification” concerning social systems.

« 51 » If a formal principle is adopted, according to which autopoiesis refers to op-

hugo CAdenASis Assistant Professor at the Anthropology Department at the University of Chile. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany and a bachelor’s degree in social anthropology and master’s degree in anthropology and development from the University of Chile. Director of the Academic Journal Revista Mad–Universidad de Chile, he is the author of various articles on social systems theory, sociology of law, and social anthropology.

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MARCelo ARnoldis Professor at the Anthropology Department at the University of Chile. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Bielefeld, Germany and a bachelor’s degree in social anthropology and a master’s degree in the sociology of modernization from the University of Chile. Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Chile, he is the author of various books and articles on social systems theory, social constructivism, social anthropology, social gerontology, environmental sciences, and social anthropology.

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erations in different systems, new questions on systems research emerge. The social and the biological concepts of autopoiesis appear then as two facets of the same operational phenomenon. Based on these suggestions, promising perspectives for interdisciplinary research are opened. Empirical research on the field of the organizational studies, for ex-ample, has applied the concept of autopoi-esis both in the biological and social sense

(see Magalhães & Sanchez 2009). David Eldridge (2002) has explained the empirical functioning of the judicial courtroom, also following the social and biological concept of autopoiesis.

« 52 » An interdisciplinary framework seems to be realistic; nevertheless, impor-tant challenges for this purpose can be iden-tified, especially on methodological issues. The communication between disciplines

demands new research tools and analytical frameworks. The first step, however, is the recognition of the interdisciplinary nature of systemic research and the overcoming of the obstacle épistémologique placed by Mat-urana and Varela to their own invention.

Received: 27 January 2014 Accepted: 28 october 2014

What Is Sociology?Humberto R. MaturanaEscuela Matríztica de Santiago, Chile hmr/at/matriztica.org

> upshot • I discuss the foundations of what I have said in my work as a biolo-gist on autopoiesis, molecular autopoi-etic 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.

« 1 » I am writing this commentary be-cause the contents of Hugo Cadenas & Mar-celo Arnold’s target article and its title evoke a criticism of what I have written about liv-ing systems and about social systems. I find that the article is misleading because it does not represent what I have said in my writ-ings. For these reasons I want to reflect on sociology in detail here. This links in par-ticular to the Results and Implications in Cadenas and Arnold’s abstract.

living systems?« 2 » As a biologist, my purpose has

been and is to describe, explain and under-stand biological phenomena as I see them happening in the realization of the living of at least one living being as they appear to me as aspects of my daily living from one morn-ing to the next in whatever domain of do-ings I may find myself.

« 3 » Accordingly, in what follows I present my reflections standing on a reflec-tive ground defined by three basic unavoid-able biological facts:

� The first basic biological fact is that we, like all living beings, do not know and cannot know that which we, calling val-id at any particular moment in the expe-rience of what we live, shall devalue later as a mistake or illusion or shall confirm as a perception when we compare it with another experience, the validity of which we choose not to doubt.

� To accept this first basic biological fact leads me to accept the second basic bio-logical fact: We cannot claim to be able to say anything about anything that we distinguish as if that which we distin-

guish had any property or feature inde-pendent of what we were doing in the moment that we distinguish it.

� The third basic biological fact is that living beings as molecular entities are structure-determined systems. As such, anything that is external to a living sys-tem and that impinges upon it cannot specify what happens in it, and only triggers in it some structural change de-termined in its structure according how it is made at that moment. As a result of this third biological fact, whenever two or more living beings participate in a dynamics of recursive interactions, they enter in a process of coherent transfor-mation, which I have called “structural coupling” (Maturana 1978). It gives rise to ontogenic and phylogenic evolution-ary histories of congruent structural and behavioral transformations between the organisms and their ecological niches that arise with them. These histories last until the organisms separate.« 4 » All this happens spontaneously

in the biological domain, and all this con-stitutes the foundation of all that we do in

open Peer Commentarieson hugo Cadenas & Marcelo Arnold’s “The Autopoiesis of Social Systems and its Criticisms”

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our living as biological-cultural human be-ings from one morning to the next, what-ever we may be doing, thinking, desiring or reflecting. Therefore, I shall take our daily living as the operational and epistemologi-cal grounding of all that we human beings can say and that I shall say as I describe and explain my understanding of living systems and of the operation of what we call “social systems” in our daily living in our cultural present. I begun to think, speak and act in this understanding in 1965, when as a result of my work on color vision (Maturana, Uribe & Frenk 1968) I came to realize that which I described above as the first biological fact.

« 5 » From this reflective starting point, I, together with Francisco Varela, referred to a living system as a molecular autopoietic system (Maturana & Varela 1973). The word autopoiesis was proposed to indicate and evoke a closed network of recursive proc-esses of production of the molecular com-ponents of a system that specifies its borders in its operation as a discrete entity in the relational space in which it exists as a total-ity. Thus, when we first referred to living systems as “autopoietic systems,” we were claiming that they existed as networks of molecular productions that were closed in the sense that they produced their own bor-ders determining their extension as discrete entities. However, at the same time they are open to the flow of molecules through them. It seems to me that this was well understood by Niklas Luhmann but that he wished to use the notion of autopoiesis in an opera-tional domain different from the molecular one, as is apparent in his proposition that “social systems were autopoietic systems of communications.” When we talked in 1991, I pointed out to him that the notion of au-topoiesis does not apply in the way that he wanted because communications do not interact and thereby produce communica-tions like molecules. I asked him why he leaves human beings out of his proposition, knowing that human beings are the founda-tion of human social systems and that what we call “communications” occur as a reflec-tive operation of human beings in conver-sations about what they do. He replied that he wanted to propose a predictive theory of social phenomena, and that human beings were unpredictable in their behavior. So I told him that I did not want to propose a

sociological theory, especially if the theory would leave out human beings as he pro-posed. Rather, I wanted to understand the spontaneity of the operation of those com-munities of living beings of any kind that in our daily life in our culture we would call “societies” or “social systems.”

« 6 » The word “social” and the expres-sion “social system” were used in daily life to refer to some manner of living together of organisms already long before Varela and I proposed the notion of autopoiesis to speak of the molecular constitution of living sys-tems as discrete entities. In the domains of biology and of our daily life, many different words were used and are still used to refer to the distinctions that we make between the different manners of living together that the different kinds of organisms may adopt. For example, we speak of symbiosis, parasitism, social systems, commensalism and commu-nities. What kinds of things are we distin-guishing with such different names?

« 7 » We human beings propose theo-ries as systems of explanation of what we distinguish as happening in what we observe or do in the realization of our living. Theo-ries are systems of logical deductions that we propose in order to follow the consequences that would arise in a particular situation if we transformed everything in it around the conservation of some set of basic premises that we choose to adopt – either because we accept their validity according to some logical argument or, a priori, because we like them. Yet, we cannot properly make a theory before having some notion of what charac-terizes the kind of systems or situations that we may be considering while everything else is changing around the basic premises that we think define the theory and that we have chosen to conserve.

« 8 » Accordingly, I want to ask the question: What do we wish to mean with the word “social”? More precisely, I want to address the common features that those systems that we call “social” in our daily liv-ing have in common – systems that we wish to conserve while everything else is allowed to change around them as we operate with the theory that we are proposing in order to understand the manner of operating that is evoked when we speak about those manners of living in human or in insect communities that we call social systems.

Social systems?« 9 » If we attend to the different kinds

of manners of coexistence that we may ob-serve in living systems, we will see that they differ in the nature of the biological pro-cesses that keep them near each other in the different degrees of closeness or of distance as they happen to come together. Expres-sions such as “multi-cellular,” “symbiosis,” “commensalism,” “parasitism,” “colonies” and “social systems” are used to distinguish those different classes or forms of nearness. And we know also that those different forms of living in nearness or distance entail dif-ferent inner feelings and different relational doings and emotions. Furthermore, in our daily living we act as if we are aware that not all human relations are of the same kind, and that their nature as different manners of relating and of closeness depends precisely on the inner feelings and emotions that define them. Thus we speak of relations of work, authority, domination, subordination, alliances, etc. and we know that they differ from collaboration, friendship, etc. in the in-ner feelings that, as I just said, define them. Accordingly, this is why I have claimed that not all human relations are social relations. Rather, the inner feelings, emotions and do-ings that constitute social relations are those of mutual care, collaboration, honesty, equity and ethics, not as declared values, but as spontaneous manners of relating that result from our biological constitution as basically loving beings. Furthermore, we human be-ings can also consciously choose to adopt explicitly those manners of relating in our living together that we call democracy.1 Yes, as reflective languaging beings we human beings can negate and reject, support and approve our feelings, emotions and doings, being consciously or unconsciously guided by some theory of our choice that we may have adopted according to what we may want or not want to do.

1 | Ximena Dávila Yáñez and I claim that there are five manners of relating, which we inten-tionally adopt for living together, that constitute what we want to be the case when we declare that we want to live in democracy. These are: mutual respect, honesty, collaboration, equity and ethics (Maturana & Dávila, in press).

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« 10 » As I just said above, that which we call “social” in our daily living in our cultural present is our spontaneous biologi-cal coexistence in relations of mutual care and collaboration that are sustained by in-ner feelings of love. If we accept our under-standing that the biological nature of social phenomena is collaboration in mutual care, what do we need a sociological theory for? What are our concerns that we feel that we need a special sociological theory to speak of our spontaneous biological living in mu-tual care and collaboration under the inner feelings of love? Let us reflect.

Individuals?« 11 » The basic statement that love is

the emotion that constitutes social relations was made in Maturana (1985). The follow-ing reflections have been developed by Xi-mena Dávila Yáñez and me during our work together over the last fifteen years in Escuela Matríztica de Santiago. This is why in what follows what I write is the product of us both, and “we” refers to her and me.

« 12 » We may say that an organism acts as an autonomous individual when we think that it does what it is doing without emotional contradiction in the pleasure of doing what it is doing, whatever it may be. In the case of those insects that we call social insects, the manner of living together occurs in the doings of each member of the commu-nity as a spontaneous result of its individual growth in the nurturing circumstances of the care given to it by the older members of the community that it integrates with them as they act themselves as autonomous indi-viduals. This manner of living is the evolu-tionary result of a history of conservation of the mother-offspring relation of care prolonged in the ontogeny of each insect and conserved from one generation to the next in their historical coexistence in com-munities that became extended networks of collaborative mutual upbringing in mutual care. This collaborative mutual upbringing and care was established and is sustained by a flow of hormones, neuropeptides, nutri-ents and many other kinds of molecules that act in the process of growth and cellular dif-ferentiation of each insect through an inter-change of food. At every instant and circum-stance, it determines in each of the insects the course followed by the physiological and

the anatomical changes that the insect may be undergoing at that instant-circumstance according to its participation in the realiza-tion of the dynamic architecture of the social community that it integrates at that instant. Nothing that an observer could call a plan, blue print, purpose or aim is involved in this process. In other words, every organ-ism member of the community does what it does at every moment according to its struc-ture or dynamic architecture as it is arising according to its present participation in it. This particular manner of generating and conserving instant after instant the sensory, operational and relational coherences in a community of social insects through a food interchange that continuously results in the realization of the adequate dynamic archi-tecture of each insect and of the social com-munity at every instant is called tropholaxis.

« 13 » An insect becomes a member of the social community to which it belongs, as it grows in it as an individual that par-ticipates in a recursive fashion in its realiza-tion and its conservation, through caring for the growth of other individuals in the same manner that it was cared for. Is what occurs with social insects very different from what occurs in the human communities that we call “societies” or “social systems” to which we belong? No, and at the same time, yes. No, what happens with social human beings is not very different from what happens with social insects in the sense that in both cases a “social system or social community” is generated and conserved through relations of collaboration and mutual care that arise in the evolutionary expansion of the moth-er-offspring love relation. But, yes, it is very different because what happens with social insects is a living in spontaneous collabora-tion in mutual care sustained as a dynamic loving relation through a network of inter-change of hormones, neuropeptides and nutrients; while the mutual care that real-izes and conserves us as social human being members of the social community or social system into which we may integrate arises in the expansion of the mother–child relation of loving care for the whole life. This care relation arises as the continuous result of living in the recursive flow of coordination of feelings, doings and emotions in the cre-ation together of the worlds of daily living that they generate as they live as languaging

and reflective beings in networks of conver-sations, through a languaging process that we, Dávila and I, call “logolaxis.”2

« 14 » Logolaxis is the flow of the net-works of conversations that in us human beings play the same role as tropholaxis in insects for the generation and conserva-tion of the harmony of the acting dynamic architecture of the individual organisms and the social and non-social systems and communities into which they integrate at any moment of their living. That is, we re-flective human beings live the networks of our conscious and unconscious coordina-tions of inner feelings, doings and emotions in a logolaxis of mutual care and collabora-tion that constitutes our body and “soul” as loving social beings. So, the networks of conversations through which we generate and realize the worlds that we live as human beings coordinate and guide unconsciously the course of the continuously occurring anatomo-physiological transformation of the dynamic architecture of the ecologi-cal organism–niche unity of our social and non-social living, depending on the inner feelings, doings and emotions that guide us in all that we do while our living lasts.

« 15 » We are usually not aware of the extent to which our inner feelings and emo-tions that guide the nature of our doings in the networks of conversations that consti-tute the realization of our living guide the course of the continuous transformation of our anatomy and physiology according to the living that we are living. In social insects, tropholaxis guides the forms of living that are basically conservative in that they ap-pear to repeat from community to commu-nity within each species that we recognize precisely due to such repetition. In humans, logolaxis can in principle exhibit unlimited variation. Humans can generate an open-

2 | In social insects the coherence of their be-havior is obtained through the flow of hormones, peptides, nutrients and other molecules trans-mitted from one insect to the other while they share food – a process that is called tropholaxys; the same occurs between human beings through language in a process that we have chosen to call logolaxys. Dávila and I have written about this in a book that is in the process of being published, called The Tree of Living (Maturana & Dávila, in press).

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ended diversity of networks of conversa-tions, which may be changing continuously. This diversity of conversations in our human existence – our social conversations as con-versations of mutual care and collaboration under the inner feelings of love – makes our existence possible as the evolutionary result of conserving the conversations through our children’s learning from one genera-tion to the next. This has been the case since the origin of our living in languaging in a family of bipedal primates, i.e., for at least some three million years in the mutual care of sharing food in the loving tenderness of sexual intimacy.

Sociology?« 16 » The different kinds of social in-

sects occur as different manners of living to-gether in mutual care that occur in the same manner in the different communities of each species because the kinds of individu-als that compose them repeat through their manner of upbringing and their participa-tion through tropholaxis in the generation of their behavior as individual organisms. All this makes the behavior of the individ-ual members of any particular insect social community essentially predictable, easily re-placing each other in their operation in the social community because they are basically similar. Contrariwise, our manner of living as languaging and reflective human beings that learn the particular form of living to-gether in the loving mutual care of the social community in which they grow in logolaxis may be different in the different kinds of social living that we may generate in our cultural-biological existence. We human be-ings as reflective languaging beings live in a continuous openness to live in different manners our individual lives through reflec-tions in which we can always ask ourselves if we want to do or think what we are doing or thinking. Also, if we dare to do that, we can also always look at our inner feelings, doings and emotioning, and change them through our reflections in the knowledge that our bodyhood will also change accordingly.

What about our molecular autopoiesis?« 17 » our human anatomy and physiol-

ogy occur in the realization of our molecular autopoiesis in the ecological organism-niche

unity that we integrate; yet our humanness as persons that exist as totalities operating as social beings interacting with each other happens in the relational space. And we, as we speak about ourselves, exist in the rela-tional doings of a reflective conversation as persons that explain the nature of their existence as observers to other persons that listen as observers too. Whenever we reflect, whenever some elements form a totality through their interactions, an intrinsically new sensory, operational and relational domain arises that could not have been de-duced from what was before. It is because new sensory, operational and relational do-mains appear in our living from our doings, from the independent happenings that oc-cur in our ecological niche unity, and from the new domains that arise in our reflections in a manner that cannot be deduced from what was happening to us before, that it is intrinsically impossible to create a predic-tive theory in relation to what will happen in the course of our social living as we oper-ate in it according to our desires. If we want predictive behavior in a human domain, we must agree on a common project, or submit, either unwillingly or willingly, to some tyr-anny.

What is sociology?« 18 » I feel that I do not fully under-

stand what is the actual concern of sociolo-gists as they do their sociological reflections; I also feel as a biologist that if I were to de-clare myself a sociologist my concern would be to understand how can we contribute as human social beings to overcoming our fun-damental addiction to the pleasure of being served and to recovering the pleasure of mu-tual respect, collaboration honesty, equity and ethical social living.3 Furthermore, as a result of our reflections on tropholaxis and logolaxis, Dávila and I think that if we were to declare ourselves sociologists, our con-

3 | In Maturana & Dávila (in press) Dávila and I claim that democracy, as a manner of liv-ing, not as a political declaration, is the human manner of social living. As such it entails the daily presence of mutual respect, honesty, collabora-tion, equity and ethical living, not as principles but as a matter-of-course coexistence in mutual care. And we claim that if any of these manners of relating fails, all fail.

cern as such would be to understand the ori-gin of the rational-emotional contradiction that has interfered with the conservation of the basic harmony of our social existence in the loving relation of collaboration and mu-tual care that was the ecological organism-niche unity in which we arose as languaging and reflecting human beings.

« 19 » In other words, if social beingness appears spontaneously in our biological his-tory as a manner of living together in recur-sive mutual care as a result the expansion of mother-offspring care, then the theme of so-ciology cannot be to understand the nature of the social phenomenon. This is because we know that when we speak about social systems, we are speaking about sensory, operational and relational biological com-munities of organisms that live in collabora-tion and recursive mutual care. 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.

« 20 » How was it possible and is it still possible in our human social history that we have repeatedly fallen and we are still re-peatedly falling out of our social beingness, even though we are aware and know that our social beingness is the basic foundation of our humanness?

humberto Maturana Romesín received a Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard University. He showed that living beings are molecular autopoietic systems, and that if

one follows the consequences of the fact that living beings do not distinguish in their experience between perception and illusion, one can show that: language as a biological phenomenon occurs as a flow of living

together in coordinations of coordinations of consensual behaviors; and cognition as a biological phenomenon occurs when an organism operates adequately to the

circumstances of its living, conserving its autopoiesis as a consequence of the operational-relational

coherences with its niche that are proper to it in the present of its living as a feature of the history of the

evolutionary structural drift to which it belongs

Received: 4 January 2015 Accepted: 12 January 2015

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Towards a Consistent Constructivist general Systems TheoryHugo UrrestarazuIndependent Scholar hugo.urrestarazu/at/wanadoo.fr

> upshot • Cadenas and Arnold contrib-ute towards a better understanding of what is at stake in the long debate con-cerning the applicability of Maturana’s autopoiesis concept to social systems. However, their target article has two shortcomings: (1) it does not provide a deeper understanding of the reasons why Luhmann’s adoption of the autopoi-esis concept has proved to be sterile after decades of debate; and (2) their historic account does not integrate recent devel-opments that need to be highlighted to improve interdisciplinary research.

Introduction« 1 » Hugo Cadenas and Marcelo Ar-

nold’s paper provides both a succinct histor-ical account of the critical points involved in the above-mentioned debate and a synthetic description of the still unresolved problem-atic issues. Their main concern is to propose a path for “promoting the development of new interdisciplinary research in the field of systems theory and constructivism” (Ab-stract: Implications) by examining the criti-cisms, obstacles, and shortcomings arisen from Luhmann’s intent to apply autopoiesis to his social systems theory through “mov-ing” “[…] the problem from the plane of the physical ‘space,’ where life is constituted (Maturana & Varela), to the ‘meaning’ [do-main], where social systems emerge (Luh-mann)” (§14).

« 2 » Whilst enthusiastically sharing the above-mentioned concern and agreeing with their methodology of “[…] theoreti-cal reconstruction of the main issues of the debate” (Abstract: Method), I cannot avoid critically commenting on their account of the “adoption” procedure of the concept of autopoiesis by Luhmann and on some omis-sions in their proposed history of the debate.

« 3 » Cadenas & Arnold acknowledge that “Luhmann adopted the concept of ‘au-topoiesis’ along with the development of a

theory of ‘communication’” (§5, my empha-sis) – on his own – and at the same time they regret that “the term autopoiesis has sparkled a sterile debate leading interdisciplinary re-search to an otherwise inexplicable under-development” (§4, my emphasis).

« 4 » Their target article has two short-comings, though. Firstly, it does not provide a deeper understanding of the reasons why Luhmann’s adoption of the autopoiesis con-cept has proved to be sterile after decades of debate. I consider that it is legitimate to raise two basic questions:

Q1 Is the intent of adopting “autopoiesis” genuinely justified for understanding the social in the first place? and

Q2 Was the procedure for adopting the “au-topoiesis” concept properly conducted in theoretical terms?

I shall discuss these questions below in the next section.

« 5 » Their second shortcoming is that their account of the debate’s history does not integrate recent developments that need to be highlighted to improve interdisciplinary research. Hence, I shall mention that at least two proposals for generalizing the concep-tual framework used by M&V to build their theory of autopoiesis were not addressed by Cadenas & Arnold, as I discuss in section “The underlying general systems theory im-plicit in Maturana’s work.”

« 6 » Like many other authors, Cadenas & Arnold qualify as a “self-imposed restric-tion” (§3) M&V’s objection to considering it appropriate to apply the term “autopoiesis” to social systems. This inadequacy stems, how-ever, from a logical entailment of M&V’s rig-orous definition of the term “autopoietic ma-chine” when applied to entities (“systems”) that do not comply with all the rules that al-low observers to qualify a dynamic system as autopoietic. This is not a self-imposed restric-tion, but a matter of theoretical consistency. Autopoietic systems are a particular kind of dynamic (autonomous) systems. Qualifying a system as autopoietic is the outcome of the application of the six VM&U Rules1 verifica-

1 | By “VM&U Rules” I refer to the six “keys” proposed by Varela, Maturana and Uribe (1974), which I discuss in detail in Urrestarazu (2011a).

tion procedure. It is this verification proce-dure that “restricts” the applicability of the “autopoietic” qualification to only some particular dynamic entities that comply with all the rules. Removing these restric-tions would imply changing the VM&U Rules, which would be tantamount to “de-fining” a quite different type of dynamic system that would require a different name than “autopoietic.”

“Improper adoption” of a complex concept« 7 » For Q1 I argue that in order to ex-

plain and account for the self-constituting, permanently self-organizing, and self-refer-ential features exhibited by social phenom-ena, the “autopoiesis” hypothesis overshoots this objective. This is because features such as self-constitution (spontaneous emergence of long-lived plastic dynamic structures), per-manent self-organization (recursive-iterative incidence of “internal” homeostatic mecha-nisms compensating against “external” per-turbations), and self-reference (recursive-reflexive incidence of a dynamic unity’s “external” behaviour impinging on itself) are also ascribable to more general dynamic systems that are not autopoietic in the sense of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Va-rela (M&V).

« 8 » For Q2 I argue that the imple-mented adoption procedure is – at least in the case of Luhmann – methodologically questionable. This is because it is “improper” (or inadequate and incomplete) any theore-tician’s manner of borrowing a single complex concept developed within a theory – based on a whole associated conceptual framework – into another theory based on a different conceptual framework, without paying at-tention to the specific constellation of basic concepts of the original theory that make the adopted concept intelligible and applicable in its original domain of validity.

« 9 » I think that it is rather the meth-odologically improper adoption of the con-cept of “autopoiesis” by other disciplines (including Luhmann’s sociology) that is re-sponsible for the situation of sterile debate in interdisciplinary research regretted by the authors, not the concept itself.

« 10 » Metaphorically speaking, one cannot blame a transplanted organ for its malfunction in a patient’s body, since the

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success of a transplant operation results not only from the quality of the transplanted organ itself but also from the globalism of all external conditions that allow this organ to function exactly as it did in the donor’s body. If the adopting theory does not pro-vide an equivalent operational version of the original constellation of operational distinc-tions and basic concepts intimately related to the complex concept being adopted, the latter risks becoming unintelligible within an inadequate hosting conceptual environ-ment.

« 11 » More fundamentally, my personal regret is that – for so long – interdisciplinary research did not focus primarily on develop-ing a common basic understanding of the whole conceptual framework underlying the theory of autopoiesis, namely, a general sys-tems theory compatible with M&V’s onto-epistemological paradigm.

« 12 » If interdisciplinary research rigor-ously developed a truly domain-free under-standing of the whole constellation of opera-tional distinctions and conceptual tools that make autopoiesis intelligible and applicable in biology, other disciplines could more eas-ily adapt and develop their specific domain-dependent applications from such a general-ized conceptualization.

« 13 » I think that the adoption of a con-sistent general conceptual framework should be performed prior to attempting some spe-cific conceptual transplants, and that only then could complex concepts such as au-topoiesis be “adopted” by other disciplines, if necessary.

« 14 » For example, building a shared understanding of the fundamental con-cept of system is needed in the first place: in most arguments concerning the debate about social autopoiesis, the term “system” is used broadly as it denotes a simple evi-dent notion,2 whereas the definition of the autopoietic system concept relies on a very precise and rigorous definition of the sys-

2 | A “notion” is a detached embracing object of knowledge (a vague abstraction) that we can manipulate in language as a reference, whereas “concept” refers to a constellation (or semantic field) of more basic interrelated concepts and no-tions proposed as constitutive elements for build-ing a more complex object of knowledge (a rigor-ously defined abstraction).

tem concept itself (more specifically, the dy-namic system concept). The complexity of those specific abstract constructs cannot be circumvented by ignoring the foundational concepts on which those concepts are built.

« 15 » I also think that one cannot prop-erly understand what makes an observed dynamic entity be distinguished as an auto-poietic system without espousing the entire constellation of observer-related operations of distinction and derived concept construc-tion methods used by M&V within their onto-epistemological paradigm of objectiv-ity between parentheses. In this paradigm, the situated stance of human observers is central and all conceptual developments are considered as abstractions existing only in the languaging domain where human ob-servers exist as social beings, without con-fusing those abstractions – i.e., objects of knowledge – with objects existing in a sup-posed transcendental external “reality.”

« 16 » When proposing the autopoi-esis concept, Maturana appealed to distinc-tions and abstractions related to a partially implicit general theory of dynamic systems that he contributed to refining and mak-ing explicit in several pertinent aspects re-lated to biology. Moreover, M&V (along with Ricardo Uribe) proposed a remarkably condensed set of verification rules (the six VM&U Rules set) that, by explicitly apply-ing more basic concepts and related opera-tional distinctions and observations, allow the observer community to agree intersub-jectively on any claim concerning a specific distinguished dynamic system as being au-topoietic or not.

« 17 » M&V created, developed, adapt-ed, and used the conceptual tools they need-ed as biologists, as it is customary in science for building scientific theories. The appar-ent general formulation of these conceptual tools revealed themselves to be appealing to many disciplines concerned with other phe-nomenal domains, where their applicability was sought, especially the inspiring novelty of the autopoiesis notion.

« 18 » It seems to me that instead of rig-orously applying the general concepts (used by M&V in biology) to their disciplines and exploring their specific entailments in the corresponding domains, many research-ers imported the name “autopoiesis” as an umbrella term. I mean by this that the term

“autopoiesis” was superficially adopted as a notion, without paying due consideration to the refined specificity of the concept itself.

« 19 » In the molecular domain, M&V’s constellation of basic concepts has also been successfully used to distinguish, describe, and characterize the dynamics of other non-autopoietic molecular systems, a fact that reveals that “autopoiesis” is not the only phe-nomenon that the M&V’s conceptual para-digm is capable of unveiling and explaining in biology. Why should other disciplines be less rigorous in their own domains?

« 20 » If there is a serious goal for achiev-ing a real interdisciplinarity for studying sys-temic phenomena, the first step should be to develop a common language, to make sure that when talking about distinctions, uni-ties, systems, structures, mechanisms, pro-cesses, self-organization, self-reference, etc., we are talking about the same kind of dis-tinctions stemming from intersubjectively shared observers’ experiences. I think that the absence of such a common, complete, rigorous, and accepted general conceptual framework – all along with its epistemology – is at the root of this unfruitful debate, not the term “autopoiesis” itself, which is just an aspect of the whole paradigm.

The underlying general systems theory implicit in Maturana’s work« 21 » M&V proposed a wide range of

interrelated distinctions and concepts that allow us to refine the “broad conceptual openness” (§1) of existing systems theories and distinguish a variety of kinds of “sys-tems” that are useful and explanatory when dealing with living beings and biological phenomena.

« 22 » This is not so clear in the case of sociological research when distinguishing “social entities” as “systems” of some kind. Most efforts in this direction rely mainly on borrowing some aspects of the conceptual framework developed by M&V (including the concept of “autopoietic system”), and keeping the basic “system” concept vague and undifferentiated with respect to the con-stellation of related concepts that participate in its rigorous definition. There is no sur-prise if – in this state of affairs – “the theories that deal with biological systems and those dedicated to the study of social systems have been intertwined” (§1).

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does Social Systems Theory need Autopoiesis? Robert drury King

« 23 » Like any other scientist, Luh-mann was obviously free to define the abstractions and concepts with which he wanted to develop explanations for phe-nomena observed in the domain of his research (his theory of social systems composed of communication entities). If “communications” and their conveyed “meanings” were for him the necessary and sufficient basic concepts, without the need to refer to the physical entities involved in the generation of “communications” and “meanings,” nor to their “actions,” he could have built his own more complex derived concepts and independently explored ways of explaining features such as the sponta-neous emergence and self-reference of such systems. In my opinion, this is a perfectly legitimate choice, provided these sole con-cepts sufficed to propose explanations based on distinguishable mechanisms capable of generating all phenomena observed in the social domain.

« 24 » So why did Luhmann need to “import” such an extraneous3 concept as “autopoiesis” into his theory? In my opinion, he could not import the concept but only the label, in order to (metaphorically) refer to, but not explain, the observed self-referential features that we can loosely ascribe to social systems. Explaining those emergent phe-nomena in mechanistic terms (as required from M&V’s conceptual framework where autopoiesis is defined) would inevitably re-quire delving into both the psychic domain of humans and their domain of behaviours as communicating agents and “producers” of communication events – including their conveyed meanings – something that Luh-mann’s conceptual framework formally for-bids (“only communication produces com-munication,” §11).

« 25 » Cadenas & Arnold note that “[it] is almost impossible to detach the concept of system from its social and biological roots” (§2). This is a historical outcome (from Her-

3 | Extraneous because it was defined and operationalized in a quite different conceptual framework, where all basic concepts refer to entities existing in some observational domain embedded in physical space, either as compact or spatially distributed composite unities (see Ur-restarazu 2012: 188f).

bert Spencer to Ludwig von Bartalanffy),4 but they do not mention the fact that since Bartalanffy, some efforts have been made to generalize M&V’s conceptual framework underlying their theory of autopoiesis in or-der to justify its application to other meta-biological or non-biological phenomena. The above-mentioned conceptual frame-work cannot be conceived other than as a new expanded and consistent general sys-tems theory, (embracing the theory of au-topoiesis, autonomous systems theory and other, more general, dynamic systems theo-ries), which needs to be developed in more detail.

« 26 » Although a wealth of generaliza-tion is already implicit in M&V’s work, some general concepts have been made more ex-plicit: for example, in my “Autopoietic Sys-tems: A Generalized Explanatory Approach,” Parts 1–3 (Urrestarazu 2011a, 2011b, 2012), and in “Social Autopoiesis?” (Urrestarazu 2014). Another more systematic contribu-tion is provided by Mateus Esteves-Vascon-cello (2013).5 Alas, Cadenas & Arnold seem to classify my contribution superficially as a mere extension of M&V’s work by a follower – “Urrestarazu’s social systems concept seems to go no further than that of Maturana and Varela” (§35) – and they probably ignore Es-teves-Vasconcello’s contribution altogether.

« 27 » Regrettably, Cadenas & Arnold did not mention that in my response to various oPCs (Urrestarazu 2014: 188), I explained that my “definition” of social sys-tem was meant only as a theoretical exercise where my principal…

“ aim was not to ‘define’ what kind of systems so-cial systems could be, (but) to investigate if they could be tentatively construed as circumscribable composite unities existing in an appropriate space where they could be subject to scrutiny in terms of the requirements needed to ascertain their pos-sible autopoietic nature, as inferred from the [six

4 | For the record, I note that the authors neglect to consider that in scientific thinking the concept of “system” has been also employed in physics in a manner that cannot be put aside when dealing with “phenomenal entities” in general.

5 | A Spanish version of this book has been published by the author under the title “La Nueva Teoría General de los Sistemas,” which I am cur-rently translating into English.

VM&U] rules. Metaphorically speaking, I tried to drag and drop a generalized notion of ‘social system’ into a straitjacket consisting of all the re-quirements imposed by the most general possible definition of autopoietic system and see if it fitted in it and at what price.” (Urrestarazu 2014: §5)

« 28 » I want to clarify that because I am not a sociologist, I do not intend proposing a way of construing a concept for social sys-tems in particular. What I did, as a corollary of my proposed methodology for generaliz-ing some key concepts within M&V’s con-ceptual framework (see Urrestarazu 2011a, 2011b, and 2012), was to show explicitly that – conceived as inter-agent communi-cation networks – social systems could not be construed as purely mechanistic systems (Urrestarazu 2014: §90).

« 29 » I primarily focused on elucidat-ing a generalized explanatory approach for construing a dynamic system concept without explicit reference to the underly-ing mechanisms that interrelate for us their dynamic components. In my approach, rela-tions between components are distinguished as cause-effect couplings between elemen-tary unities capable of undergoing changes of state [transitions] and triggering state transitions on other dynamic entities. Thus, systems’ structures are distinguished as cau-sation flows due to interactions affecting the states of generalized dynamic abstract objects giving rise to closed causally related components’ structures evolving in time (see Urrestarazu 2011a).

« 30 » on Esteves-Vasconcellos’ side, he chose to generalize the entire set of basic and derived concepts used by M&V in their works by rigorously identifying and defining fourteen fundamental concepts – relation, unity (or entity, or totality), distinction, ob-server, simple unity, property, environment, composite unity (or system), component, organization, structure, medium, orthogo-nal interaction, and class identity – and logi-cally deriving thereof other concepts such as dynamic systems, circular systems, recursive systems, plastic systems, first order plastic systems, structural coupling, adaptation and cognition, second order plastic systems, and autonomous systems, among other domain-free theoretical constructs. Consistent with his proposed general systems theory, he advances towards the description of hu-

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man social systems, not only by criticizing Maturana’s and other authors’ visions, but by also proposing the distinction of two hu-man social systems classes: institutions and second-order interconstitution systems, the latter category proposed as a theoretical ex-planation for “constructivist” systemic social work (systemic mediation, systemic family therapy, and work with social networks). He applied these concepts to describe practical cases of social systemic work in Esteves-Vas-concellos (2014).

« 31 » Esteves-Vasconcellos and I, al-though independently and through different methodologies, aimed at providing a general conceptual framework that could be appli-cable to any kind of dynamic entities dis-tinguished or intuited as existing in a given observational domain, regardless of their na-ture. There is still work to be done in order to ascertain that there are no contradictions between both generalization proposals and whether they are equivalent or just comple-mentary in some aspects.

« 32 » Whether these two highly coin-ciding generalization efforts could prove to be useful for tackling the specific domain of social phenomena is still an open theoreti-cal research subject. Whatever the case, any effort to talk properly about “autopoiesis” beyond or aside the biological realm needs to refer to some accepted generalization rigorously inspired from the conceptual cat-egories used by M&V when they created the concept, and sociological research on the matter should not be an exception.

« 33 » Even if social systems – conceived as inter-agent communication networks – cannot be construed as purely mechanistic systems, I showed that they could be con-strued as partially autonomous systems, but that their autonomous features could not be linked to the component production process-es, as required for autopoietic systems (à la M&V). I stressed the point that they could be construed as possessing different degrees of autonomy, according to the observed inci-dence of “external” allonomous factors.

« 34 » Finally, I also proposed that by distinguishing processes of communication interactions involving groups of physical agents (processors), these diachronically dis-tinguished processes could be considered as more abstract dynamic entities existing in a “space” of interacting processes, and that in

this abstract space the process-like entities could become components of an emerging higher order system, participate in the pro-duction of other process-like entities and constitute a possible autopoietic system in that abstract space. I even proposed that “[…] a possible way to circumvent [the] incompat-ibility [between Luhmann’s and Maturana’s constructs] would be to conceive commu-nications as process-like dynamic objects” (Urrestarazu 2014: §110), provided that, for any specific social system distinguished in this way, any claim about its autopoietic nature “would need to be assessed by apply-ing the six VM&U Rules validation test.” (ibid: §111)

Conclusion« 35 » With regard to their first short-

coming, the validity of the adoption of the autopoiesis concept by Luhmann is not fully addressed in Cadenas & Arnold’s paper. I showed that this adoption is not justified (Q1) if its sole purpose is to account for the emergent and self-referential features exhib-ited by social systems – conceived as sys-tems composed of communications within a meaning domain – since these features may be more generally explained for systems that are not autopoietic. I also showed that, in general, an adoption procedure is not theo-retically adequate (Q2) if it is not based on the explicit adoption of the whole under-lying onto-epistemological paradigm and conceptual framework that could make the concept of autopoiesis intelligible in other meta-biological or non-biological domains.

« 36 » With regard to their second shortcoming, Cadenas & Arnold missed mentioning recent developments in inter-disciplinary research towards making ex-plicit the general systems theory underlying M&V’s conceptual framework. At least two contributions were omitted (Esteves-Vas-concellos’s and mine), in which novel ways of addressing the explicit generalization of M&V’s concepts are proposed that consti-tute steps towards developing a common language for disciplines seeking to explain rigorously the systemic phenomena ob-served in their specific fields of inquiry.

« 37 » I conclude by agreeing with Ca-denas & Arnold when they “[…] argue that the theory of autopoiesis can only expand its horizons beyond the biological model

if a theory of social systems based on com-munication is adopted.” (§21, my emphasis). Then, the point comes to elucidate how to develop a communication concept that is compatible with M&V’s onto-epistemolog-ical paradigm and conceptual framework. This task has not been yet accomplished sat-isfactorily, and I also agree with their remark that “[t]his situation must be addressed in all its complexity” (§21, my emphasis).

hugo urrestarazu is a former physicist educated at the University of Chile in Santiago (1969–1974)

– where he was Maturana’s student – and at Imperial College of Science and Technology in London

(1977–1981). In France he pursued an industrial software engineering career specialized in real time embedded systems design. Since 1990, he has been

involved in independent linguistic and enterprise architecture consulting and in interdisciplinary scientific extension of the theory of autopoiesis.


does Social Systems Theory need a general Theory of Autopoiesis?Robert Drury KingSierra Nevada College, USA rking/at/sierranevada.edu

> upshot • The authors claim that it is justified to extend the concept of auto-poiesis from its biological origin to other disciplines, predominately those that have a social character. However, the au-thors do not lay strong enough concep-tual grounds to justify this extension of autopoiesis because it is unclear what concept of autopoiesis it is that would achieve this objective, or why the con-cept of autopoiesis itself should be cru-cial to this endeavor.

« 1 » A fundamental question that Hugo Cardenas and Marcelo Arnold fail to ad-dress in their target article is why it is that, in their desire to unify systems theory, they require an autopoietic conception of social systems. From the conceptual point of view,

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why not leave autopoietic systems theory within the confines of a theory of biological or living systems? The authors state, “we at-tempt to refocus the debate on the concept of autopoiesis for social systems research” (§5). The authors claim that they will ana-lyze the “benefits shown by this concept [autopoiesis]” as it applies to social systems research and applications, “but also the con-sequences for social systems theory derived from restriction to a merely biological level” (§5).

« 2 » While the authors give a stellar re-view of the scholarly research on this topic, they do not in fact show, as they wish to, the benefits of applying the concept of au-topoiesis to social systems because they do not justify the essential claim that social systems are in fact autopoietic. Are they? Despite the authors’ suggestion that the de-bate concerning whether social systems are autopoietic (and on what grounds they are) has become stale, there is nonetheless no argument put forward by these authors that would decide the issue either way. Without this, the authors are left to rely on a some-what curious strategy of listing some of the applications of autopoiesis to social systems research (in the sociology of law and art and economic sociology) as if the more the con-cept of autopoiesis has been applied to the separate researches and research fields, the more evidence there is that social systems are in fact autopoietic. But are these various applications to social systems really deploy-ing properly autopoietic concepts? Have the arguments of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela – i.e., their protest con-cerning the extension of autopoiesis to so-cial systems – been defeated conceptually, or might the authors’ examples of applications be based on a false (or simply metaphorical) understanding of what constitutes autopoi-etic systems proper?

« 3 » It is far from obvious that the ap-plications in the sociology of law, economic sociology, sociology of art, etc., are in fact conceptually grounded in a theory of auto-poietic systems. Not a few of these applica-tions listed in the target article, it should be mentioned, end up borrowing Niklas Luh-mann’s notion of autopoiesis rather than Maturana and Varela’s. This point needs to be addressed more directly since it is pos-sible that these applications qualify only as

Luhmannian (that is, social) cases of auto-poiesis (which may not be autopoiesis af-ter all, if Maturana and Varela are correct). These applications are theories of, mainly, social systems researchers and are thus al-ready well within the Luhmannian under-standing of autopoietic systems theory, thus a-priori foreclosing the possibility that such frameworks might not be autopoietic.

« 4 » In relation to the above, it is un-clear just why it is that the authors seem to require a theory that confirms that social systems are autopoietic in the first place. The authors claim that autopoiesis is one of the fundamental concepts of the constructivist epistemology, but I fail to see how this in-sight necessarily assists the authors in their desire to unify systems theoretical research. Could this act not be performed by drop-ping the autopoietic concept from the realm of social systems? Must the unified frame-work of systems theory, the authors’ desire to promote the development of new inter-disciplinary research in systems theory, be so Luhmannian-Maturanian-Varelian; must it be autopoietic? Why? Is the logic merely that more researchers have found productive research paths when accepting that social systems are autopoietic and that those who keep to the notion that social systems are not autopoietic have found less productive research paths? Yet even if this is the case it does not support the assertion that the for-mer researchers are actually doing research on properly autopoietic systems. only an argument that defeats Maturana and Varela, on conceptual grounds, by showing that social systems are in fact autopoietic could support this position.

« 5 » To their credit, Cadenas and Ar-nold do attempt to point out the main weak-nesses of Maturana and Varela’s position on the non-extension of the autopoietic to the social, but none of the “weaknesses” they point out actually concern conceptual as-pects of this position. Instead the authors tell us their ideas are based on “old and outdated paradigms” (§26). But, at the level of argu-mentation, just what is it that, owing to this outdatedness, makes Maturana and Varela wrong? Nothing on this is said. Instead read-ers are merely told, “[t]his partly explains the fact that most sociological research on social systems has not followed this path” (§26). And? of course if one’s goal were to unify

systems theory, and one wished to do so by incorporating social systems and the theory of autopoiesis (as our authors wish to do), then this would appear to be a significant point. But this sort of argumentation says nothing about the accuracy or inaccuracy of Maturana and Varela’s conceptual claim(s).

« 6 » Cadenas and Arnold also note, quite oddly, that Maturana in particular of-fers “the inexplicable and express renuncia-tion of sociological knowledge” (§26). First, is it sociological knowledge he renounces or does he renounce the notion that sociologi-cal knowledge is of the same methodologi-cal or paradigm-type as autopoietic systems theoretical knowledge? More curiously, though, what is inexplicable about this re-nunciation? This is left unstated and seems unfair to Maturana’s explanatory frame-work of “everyday life,” or his other concepts of the social. on this point, Cadenas and Arnold then argue that “in terms of [Mat-urana’s] contribution to understanding the social phenomenon, there is no qualitative improvement of current sociological knowl-edge. In a way, it is more a regression” (§26). Maturana and Varela’s “advanced” concep-tion of biological systems “has a minimum impact on their notion of social systems” (§26). Even granting such a regression or minimal impact, this changes nothing in whether social systems are autopoietic.

« 7 » Similarly, the authors claim that Maturana and Varela’s account of social systems is “a middle-range theory” (§27); “focuses on social groups” (§28) rather than complex social systems (are social groups not complex social systems?); “definitively rejects giving a universalistic relevancy to social systems” (§29) (but whose goal is this anyway?); is utilitarian (§31); and is similar to the theory of biocenosis (§32). Still, ab-solutely none of these points demonstrates that Maturana and Varela are wrong about the way in which they wish to limit the con-cept of autopoiesis. So it is arguable that Cadenas and Arnold have failed to show how these traits are problematic from the conceptual point of view – for instance, how might Maturana and Varela’s advanced con-ception of biological systems actually aug-ment the concepts the authors would wish to see put in place within their (perhaps curious desire for an) autopoietic social systems theory – and not simply from the

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point of view that presumably preferable, non-“outdated” social systems theories do not have these traits. The authors do state that these traits “are a direct consequence of subsuming the explanation of the social phenomenon to the biological” (§34) and this might go some way toward a conceptu-al clarification of the flaws of Maturana and Varela, but more could have been said on this. Yes, it can be argued that Maturana and Varela do maintain a “vague sociological and anthropological view of social systems,” (§34) but this does not indicate how their conception of autopoietic systems theory (indeed of any conception of autopoietic systems theory), appropriately integrated within social systems theory, might help to do the job, if it can, of productively using autopoietic systems theory within a more unified systems theory (as the authors wish to use it). This last point reflects the nub of my earlier criticisms as well.

« 8 » Again, Cadenas and Arnold do none of the heavy-explanatory lifting where these conceptual issues are concerned. This is particularly visible in the “Results” sec-tion of their abstract, in which they declare:

“ [w]e claim that it is justified to extend the concept of autopoiesis from its biological origin to other disciplines, and to develop its interdisci-plinary character, following the spirit of systems theory and constructivism.”But there is insufficient argumentation for this supposed “justification.” What is sorely lacking are arguments that state just what the correct concept of autopoiesis is that would justify such a unification or would justify why the concept of autopoiesis itself should be so crucial to this endeavor, espe-cially considering that, as the authors’ claim:

“ if we try to apply the theoretical principles of Maturana and Varela to a more complex social systems theory, huge explanatory problems arise. The amount and density of social phenomena that fail to be explained by this theory are so ex-tensive that it becomes necessary to limit these ideas to a very specific set of phenomena.” (§38)

Notwithstanding the irony that this is par-tially why Maturana and Varela were leery of extending autopoietic systems theory to social systems theory (including Luhman-

nian) in the first place, it can be argued that this explains Maturana and Varela’s hesi-tation in this regard and their reasons for moving on to theories of social groups and, in Maturana’s case, “everyday life” (but this is hardly the issue where the target article is concerned). So while it appears possible that such a statement ought to mean that Maturana and Varela should have extended their concept of autopoiesis more progres-sively toward an autopoietic theory of social systems, it does not necessitate that it means this. Maturana and Varela might just have been correct that social systems are not autopoietic because social systems are not bounded in the same ways. John Mingers expresses similar doubts regarding the ex-tension of autopoiesis to the social:

“ It is one thing to say analytically that commu-nications generate communications, but opera-tionally they require people to undertake specific actions and make specific choices…one com-munication may stimulate another, but surely it does not produce or generate it.” (Mingers 1995: 149f)

It seems very plausible that the dynamics Maturana and Varela assigned to social sys-tems just do not carry over to social systems in the ways that Luhmann or any other so-cial systems theorist may have wished them to. Again, why do the authors require an autopoietic theory of social systems to unify systems theory?

« 9 » Certainly the target article’s ex-tensive, excellent review of the scholarly literature on the debate on the concept of autopoiesis and its limits should help with the development of new perspectives on the debate. Still, lacking the conceptual argu-mentation for why an autopoietic system ought to be adopted toward the cause of a unification of the field, lacking a clear state-ment regarding which (whose) autopoietic system ought to be adopted, and lacking conceptual clarification about what the nature of a social systems theoretical auto-poiesis might look like (perhaps some less regressive concept of social autopoiesis than is given in Maturana and Varela’s discourses on society), this target article cannot yet state that important changes to practice should be made – in contrast to what the authors claim in the “Implications” section

of their abstract. The development of new methods or concepts capable of unifying systems theory or constructivist epistemol-ogy requires fleshing out the notion of the “formal principle” (§51) the authors pro-pose and a stronger conceptual clarification capable of filling in the lack or gaps that re-main in lieu of the authors’ own conceptual clarifications.

Robert King is an associate professor at Sierra Nevada College and a research fellow with the Centre Leo Apostel at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His work revolves around using systems concepts to think through interdisciplinary problems pertaining to economic, ecological, and social systems, and he publishes in the fields of systems theory, political economy, and German Idealism.

Received: 2 February 2015 Accepted: 6 February 2015

Missing: The Socio-Political dimensionJohn StewartUniversité de Technologie de Compiègne, France js4a271/at/gmail.com

> upshot • Cadenas and Arnold argue in favour of deploying the concept of au-topoiesis to study human societies. This OPC makes a case for the opposition: au-topoiesis is not an appropriate tool for studying human societies, and attempts to do so both miss out key aspects of hu-man societies and, incidentally, damage the concept of autopoiesis.

« 1 » A key feature of human societies is that their organization and functioning are open to variation. Moreover, the members of human societies can and do engage in value-laden discussions of the choices in-volved. This is the dimension of politics, in the full and noble sense of the term. The ma-jor weakness of “social autopoiesis” is that it completely fails to get to grips with this di-mension. In §40 of their target article, Hugo Cadenas and Marcelo Arnold do briefly mention this criticism. However, they im-

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mediately evade the issue by saying that “analysis of these criticisms exceeds our am-bitions.” This will not do. The authors should either (i) argue that “social autopoiesis” can engage the political dimension (although they will have a hard time of it, because to date the record of social autopoiesis is not good); or else (ii) come clean, and say that in their view politics is not important, and that science should not get mixed up in poli-tics. In this case, our disagreement would be clear and complete.

« 2 » The authors devote a whole sec-tion (§§23–39) to criticism of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela’s own at-tempts to develop a theory of social sys-tems, in which they explicitly decline to use the concept of autopoiesis. Maturana and Varela’s social theory is undeniably poor; but it does not follow at all that if they had used the concept of autopoiesis in their en-deavours they would have fared any better. Thus, this whole section is unfortunately somewhat beside the point. Likewise is the question as to whether social systems can or cannot properly be considered as “autopoi-etic.”

« 3 » Finally, there is the question of biology. Contemporary biology is focused on molecular biology, and it is openly gene-centred (witness the lamentable current fashion for DNA-sequencing, a mindless endeavour if ever there was one). This has induced the noted biologist François Jacob to declare openly: “Life does not exist” (see Stewart 2004). In this, he is (unfortunately) quite correct: at present, “life” does indeed not exist as an epistemologically well-con-structed object of biological science. Per-sonally, both as a biologist and as a citizen, I consider this is a scandal. There is a genuine challenge here: both to construct an episte-mologically well-founded concept of “life,” and to gain acceptance for this concept in the relevant scientific community. It is in this context that the concept of “autopoiesis” does have a key role to play. And this issue – the sort of biology that our society will construct and put in place – is actually, in its way, a highly political issue. It is in this sense that the concept of autopoiesis is, already, a highly-charged political issue. Vague specu-lation about “social autopoiesis” is, unfortu-nately, an untimely distraction from what is at stake.

John Stewart was born in 1941 in England. After 10 years at Cambridge University and 3 years in the USA,

he has lived for the last 40 years in Paris. He has worked in the areas of genetics, physiology, sociology (in

particular the sociology of science) and epistemology; his current centre of interest is cognitive science.


Autopoiesis Applies to Social Systems onlyMilan ZelenyFordham University, USA mzeleny/at/fordham.edu

> upshot • I reaffirm and extend the no-tion of social autopoiesis away from mere labels and descriptions to acting physical components of social systems and societ-ies, ranging from subcellular to biological and human. All self-producing biological organisms are essentially societies of in-teracting components and therefore no-tions of autopoiesis and social systems are fundamentally, if not definitionally, interrelated. Some examples of real-life applications of social autopoiesis are also given. Future generations of scientists might even find the qualifier “social” re-dundant because there is no other auto-poiesis than “social.”

So we are continually making and mar-ring our own lives and the lives of other people by a word, an action, a thought.

(Edward Phillips oppenheim, A Prince Of Sinners, 1903)

« 1 » It is an unexpected pleasure to en-counter two Chilean authors from the Uni-versity of Chile addressing the issues of so-cial autopoiesis – decades after their famous predecessors, Francisco Varela and Humber-to Maturana. I still consider Francisco and Humberto as my teachers since the time of their first working paper, delivered into my hands when I was starting at Columbia Uni-versity in the early seventies. They probably would not call me their follower since I have ignored their aversion toward social systems.

The key to my departure was computer sim-ulation of autopoiesis, motivated by meet-ing with Ricardo Uribe (Varela, Maturana & Uribe 1974). only through computer simu-lation was I able to grasp the more general potential of autopoiesis while avoiding pure-ly scholastic reasoning as well as mechanistic simplification. The point of my departure here is the statement by Hugo Cadenas and Marcelo Arnold (§19 in their target article): “[Zeleny & Hufford 1992] even [sic] argue, ‘All autopoietic, and therefore all biological (living), systems are social systems’.” In spite of that “even,” my thesis remains very simple: only social systems can exhibit autopoiesis (see also §49 for affirmation).

Basic concepts« 2 » There can be no autopoiesis with-

out actively interacting components. In or-der to interact, such components must com-municate. Communication is not just the passive exchange of information, but mutual stimulation and induction to real action, in time and space. Components must act, i.e., respond in direct or chained reciproc-ity and mutual cohesiveness of their action. Such engendered action connects the com-ponents into networks. Such networks be-come stronger, predictable and autonomous under the influence of repetition. Such re-peated action brings forth the rules of be-havioral patterns and is itself affected by the same rules it has generated. The continuous making, degrading and remaking of such patterns is the very foundation of life – cel-lular, individual or social. Perpetuating the network of such interactions can be referred to as a social system. Its components are not separate or randomly interacting entities – they form a society. This was addressed at an early multiauthor symposium involving Maturana (Zeleny 1980).

« 3 » Such societies can persist autono-mously – either for fleeting moments or for millennia, depending on the reliability (rules) and repeatability (components re-newal) of their interactions. These societies can be small or huge, autonomous or semi-autonomous, sharply or fuzzily delineated or separable from their environment. Among the examples, we can list societies of cells (and intracellular interactions), multicel-lular organs and organisms, societies of in-sects (ants, bees, termites, etc.), societies of

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animals (swarms, herds, schools, interacting populations, etc.) and of course, societies of humans (families, tribes, groups, natural institutions such as markets, communities, self-government, etc.).

« 4 » It should be quite obvious that in-dividual autopoietic entities (cells, organs, organisms) can only be sustained if their interacting networks (groups, collectivities, societies) are equally self-sustainable and autopoietic (even before heteropoietic in-terventions of humans). Autopoiesis of an entity (or component) cannot be separated from the autopoiesis of the entire sustaining network/system. Therefore, pointing to the autopoiesis of individuals cannot be fully comprehended and completed while deny-ing the autopoiesis of their interacting net-works, i.e., societies. There is not a single liv-ing organism that exists outside its requisite social system. once the natural social sys-tem loses its autopoiesis and breaks down, its individuals cannot survive – except in heteropoietic (i.e., man-made) enclosures of man such as camps or prisons. They can be heteropoietically sustained, but they are not autopoietically self-sustainable. Autopoiesis of individuals is naturally interconnected with the autopoiesis of their social system (Zeleny & Hufford 1991).

« 5 » A society’s cohesiveness and au-tonomy is determined by the internal inten-sity, repetitiveness and density of its network of interactions, not by an enclosure, wall, boundary or membrane. A system’s auton-omy comes from activity within rather than separation or isolation without. Protective or filtering membranes are system compo-nents that interact with their environment – i.e., the result of autopoiesis, not its cau-sation. An autopoietic system is not defined through its enclosure, but the other way around: strong and sustainable autopoiesis generates its own protective organs (such as membranes, skins or physical enclo-sures) internally and naturally, and, as our computer simulation showed, those can be strengthened or weakened artificially, from without, by determined action.

holism« 6 » Autopoiesis certainly existed way

before the emergence of man and his specific ability to perceive, label, differentiate, clas-sify, divide, separate, (to) language or draw

distinctions. Nature and natural processes, as well as autopoiesis, were unclassified and not divided into hierarchies, domains, specialties, divisions, disciplines, vantage points and points of view. Physical, chemi-cal, biological, biophysical, social, ecological and similar distinctions did not exist, be-cause nobody needed them (Boden 2000; Zeleny 1981). Yet, life, living organisms and their collective and social interdependen-cies emerged through self-production, de-velopment, adaptation and evolution. There were no atomic, cellular, organic and social domains. Self-production of systems had been taking place before being unraveled, constructed and labeled by man. It is there-fore pointless to insist that autopoiesis can take place only in certain domains or levels of natural hierarchy. Nature, including living organisms (and humans), is holistic.

« 7 » “Holism” is the most misused and exploited cliché-label in current human intellectual discourse. I prefer the interpre-tation of Jan Christiaan Smuts (1926), em-phasizing the circularity of mutual effects and influences between micro and macro, i.e., between components and system. By “holism” we understand that behavior of components determines the behavior of the whole, while behavior of the whole deter-mines the behavior of components. That is, there are no components without the whole as well as no whole without the components. The circularity of this influence is the foun-dation of autopoiesis. Circular (holistic) or-ganization of systems (components and the whole) is necessary for autopoiesis. What-ever in nature is so organized could become autopoietic and whatever is autopoietic could become alive. In other words: all liv-ing systems must be autopoietic, but not all autopoietic systems have to be alive.

Autopoiesis as emergent« 8 » Simplistic equalizing of autopoi-

esis with life is misleading. Autopoiesis cannot be an all-or-nothing proposition. It emerges from non-autopoietic precursors; it weakens, is arrested or fades out. There are at least fifty shades of assorted autopoi-etic precursors, post-autopoietic (or allo-poietic) fade-outs and systems too fast, too slow or too vast for humans (being compo-nents themselves) to be perceived (or estab-lished) as autopoietic. There are also partial

or constrained autopoiesis (heteropoietic interventions1), autopoietic processes in inorganic milieus (synthetic biology in the sense of Stéphane Leduc 1912), etc. Auto-poietic systems emerge, and their process of becoming, not just being, is yet to be ad-dressed. Pre-autopoietic systems have to at-tain self-sustainability (not just sustainabil-ity) of their autopoietic processes in order to be recognized as “living.”

« 9 » In addition to self-sustainability, there has to be a requisite equilibrium (or balancing) among all constitutive processes of autopoiesis. The circularity of concatenat-ed processes is not sufficient for autopoiesis. Autopoiesis is fundamentally about equilib-rium. Even the smallest deviations in consti-tutive processes have to be compensated and the equilibrium restored. otherwise, the system lapses into one of the fade-outs, such as dissolution or death, allopoietic arrest or heteropoietic maintenance of sustainability. How such equilibrium is attained, main-tained and repaired/restored has not yet been sufficiently addressed. Unfortunately, the simulation models in Zeleny & Pierre (1976) and Zeleny (1977) have been ne-glected and thus useful insights weakened.

Circularity of social systems« 10 » Figure 1 shows the minimal cycle

of processes necessary for autopoiesis: Pro-duction → Bonding → Degradation → Produc-tion. This scheme is the fundamental key to autopoiesis. The circularity is crucial in many

1 | All man-made interventions are hetero-poietic (produced by another, not by itself). Any such intervention in autopoiesis could curtail its manifestations or appearance, even its sustain-ability, and thus deceive an uninformed observer.

production

degradation bonding

Figure 1 • The three necessary processes of autopoiesis.

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domains, regardless of the labels. Complex and sophisticated simulations (including cell division, multicellularity, heteropoietic inter-ventions, etc.) can be constructed based on this simple scheme. Notice that no a priori in-troduction of “membrane” is needed, because it is a natural (by)product of autopoiesis, in multitudes of forms, across all domains. Exclusion (or weakening) of any one of the three constitutive processes (i.e., produc-tion, bonding and degradation) can lead to fadeout (dissipation), two-state pulsation or allopoiesis.

« 11 » The houseleek or Sempervivum (also known as liveforever or hens and chick-ens) is a good example of an autopoietic cycle. Individual rosettes multiply vegeta-tively and form a tightly packed community on a rock, roof or patch of soil. After older

rosettes flower, they die and provide a new space for the new plantlets to enter. The community is thus being continually re-newed, maintaining its self-production for decades, as long as all three constitutive pro-cesses of autopoiesis remain viable. Autopoi-esis of a social system lasts longer than that of its components. Similar social networks would be large and tightly packed commu-nities of penguins or sparse and vastly loose communities of wolverines – all surviv-ing for hundreds or thousands of years, in spite of the ceaseless turnover of individual members (Zeleny 1996, 1997). Some read-ers may find it unusual to call plants social (yet, they form communities, communicate across large distances and are parts of com-plex physical networks, with animals, in-sects and humans). Therefore, please allow me to discuss this is in the remainder of my commentary.

Precursors of autopoiesis« 12 » It is then not surprising that the

first ideas of self-production emerged in social systems rather than in biology. Exam-ples abound, e.g., Giambattista Vico’s corso e ricorso, Adam Smith’s invisible hand, Joseph Schumpeter’s creative destruction. Social systems of autopoietic components must themselves be autopoietic – they are neces-sary for autopoiesis in the sense of holism because autopoiesis itself is the necessary condition for adaptation, development and evolution.

« 13 » When the scholastic debate about social autopoiesis reached its intellectual nadir, I had opted out from the discussion of its descriptions of action (information) in favor of coordination of action itself (i.e., knowledge and wisdom); I devoted myself to corporate consulting, mentoring and coaching, using social autopoiesis as the un-derlying guide to action. Examples of some very successful constructs are outlined in Figures 2 and 3.

Figure 2 shows the underlying model of circular organization of a business corpora-tion. While the organization is persistant, circular and autopoietic, the structure is a temporary allopoietic “snapshot” of under-lying autopoiesis. In Figure 3 an internal market of the Kyocera “amoeba system” of continuous building and rebuilding of an intracompany market is depicted.

Why autopoiesis only applies to social systems« 14 » Maturana and Varela drove an

unsustainably mechanical wedge between social systems and their components by contradicting holism. They excluded a most remarkable autopoiesis of natural social sys-tems, such as termites, bees, ants, amoebas, and ignored the obvious social nature of both multicellular and unicellular organisms, as well as organs such as brains, neural sys-tems, etc. organisms and their components are themselves social systems ad infinitum. By “social systems,” they referred to human political systems, but had not recognized ubiquitous spontaneous social orders. They confounded social autopoiesis with dictator-ship (“system of tyranny”); or even worse, with Luhmann’s humans-free (non-physical) virtual networks of symbolic communica-tions (Zeleny 1995).

« 15 » By the end of the 1990s, Varela had developed divergent thoughts. He recog-nized the age-old observation of John Amos Comenius, Adam Smith and Friedrich von Hayek – he called it “relatively recent (and stunning!)” (Varela 1999: 52) – that even sim-ple social systems “give rise to … a purpose-ful and integrated whole, without the need for central supervision” (ibid) – even citing “the most compelling of these examples is the social insect colony.” Varela appeared to be puzzled and genuinely surprised by his “discovery” of social autopoiesis: “…its sepa-rate components are individuals and it has no center or localized ‘self ’” (ibid: 53). To his astonishment, “[t]he import of this model of how complex systems exhibit emergent properties through the coordinated activity of simple elements is, in my eyes, quite pro-found…” (ibid).

« 16 » In 1975, Stafford Beer wrote the preface to Autopoietic Systems (Maturana & Varela 1975), where he presents a number of insights into social systems, which are rel-evant to our argument.

� The necessity of physical components: “The notion of coding is a cognitive no-tion which represents the interactions of the observer, not a phenomenon opera-tive in the physical domain” (ibid: 10).

� Before human observers emerge: “Na-ture is not about codes: we observers invent the codes in order to codify what nature is about” (ibid: 11). This could be

production understand

operate add value

implement invest

finance

innovation

customer

Figure 2 • Model of a self-sustaining corpo-rate organization.

M

in out

customers suppliers

EP production

dissolution linkage

pool maintance

Figure 3 • Model of an autopoietic inter-nal market (amoeba system). M refers to

management.

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applied to the target paper on Luhmann’s conception of “social system.”

� Without doubts: “Yes, human societies are biological systems” (ibid: 12).

� on Maturana: “…presumably at least one of the originators of autopoietic the-ory disagrees…” (ibid: 12).

� Finally, “…any cohesive social institution is an autopoietic system…” (ibid: 13).2

The rest of Beer’s argument I paraphrase because, undoubtedly, the reader got the message about his stand on social autopoi-esis. What is puzzling is why do Maturana & Varela not follow this line of development themselves? Why do they not write about the nature and adaptation of social institu-tions and the evolution of society itself? In this commentary I have tried to provide some answers. The fact is that if a social in-stitution is autopoietic, then according to the authors’ own argument (autopoiesis is necessary and sufficient to characterize the organization of living systems), it is neces-sarily alive.

« 17 » Beer concludes: “It seems to me that the authors are holding at arms length their own tremendously important discov-ery” (ibid: 15). one simple logical step and they could claim a “tremendously important discovery.” They did not. It also explains why the current author has since 1975 devoted all his efforts to the development of social autopoiesis.

« 18 » Another poorly defended claim was their belief that all living systems are autopoietic and all autopoietic systems are living, without actually proving the latter. Simulation models of autopoiesis show that autopoiesis is a systems property acquired only gradually – it is incorrect to claim that autopoiesis either is or is not; there are dif-ferent developmental stages, only differ-entially compatible with life. This was well understood by their computer expert Ri-cardo Uribe, later “removed” from the origi-nal troika. The autopoiesis stage can be too

2 | Maturana’s views of social systems, as well as his own descriptions and understand-ings of autopoiesis, are engagingly explained, in his own words, in the excellent book from 2004. There he discloses the reasons for Beer’s remarks: “I was not prepared to accept all the consequenc-es of my own theory” (Maturana & Poerksen 2004: 106).

fleeting to be observed, especially when tak-ing place with inorganic components. The origins of life emerge from the non-living, through autopoiesis, gradually, not sud-denly.

« 19 » Their insistence on a visible and physical membrane as a constitutive attri-bute of the autopoietic process ignores the fact that the membrane is only one of the produced components. Membranes are of-ten invisible (detectable only through be-havior), or too sparse and distributed to be detected. Again, some computer simulation is indispensable for understanding physical autopoiesis (Boden 2000; Zeleny 1977).

« 20 » Many decades have been spent on scholastic discourse about the essential inapplicability of autopoiesis to social sys-tems. But it is our economic, social and po-litical systems that are now undergoing his-torical transformation and metamorphosis. As Cadenas and Arnold’s target article dem-onstrates, social autopoiesis must be about physical entities (e.g., humans), not just hu-man concepts or labels. Self-production, for sure, had existed before humans emerged with their labeling, construction and re-construction.

« 21 » We are currently all suffering from ineffective applications of the mecha-nistic machine-like paradigm in addressing the long-term effects of secular stagnation and upheavals. Instead, we could have ap-plied autopoiesis as an excellent tool and necessary ingredient for shifting towards a more biological, organism-like paradigm of adaptive and learning social systems – towards evolutionary economics (Zeleny 2010, 2012), treating autopoietic social sys-tems as self-produced organisms rather than man-made mechanisms.

Milan Zeleny is Professor of Management Systems at Fordham University; he was previously at Columbia

University, and is now also at Tomas Bata University. For 34 years he has been the editor-in-Chief of

Human Systems Management. Zeleny’s research areas include human systems management, multiple

criteria decision making and autopoiesis. He is the author of over 600 publications and has the highest

Hirsch Citation Index among Czech economists. His website is at http://www.milanzeleny.com

Received: 21 January 2015 Accepted: 6 February 2015

explaining Social Systems without humansPeter M. HejlUniversity of Siegen, Germany hejl/at/mefo.uni-siegen.de

> upshot • I argue in favor of not elimi-nating humans from social theory. My argumentation is based on the “mecha-nistic” perspective that emerged in the interdisciplinary context of systems theory but that is lacking in Luhmann’s work. Based on defining communication in the constructivist-mechanist tradition, I claim that research on human (near-)universals contributes to solving the con-structivist problem of how understand-ing among individuals is possible. I also argue against the author’s critique of an “utilitarian” approach and for maintain-ing the individual and social level in sys-tems theory. Finally, I address the observ-er-problem in Luhmann’s theory.

« 1 » In the early 1970s, following Heinz von Foerster’s recommendation, I became familiar with the writings of Humberto Maturana. Together with Gerhard Roth and Wolfram K. Köck, we discussed Maturana’s papers and finally translated his “Biology of Cognition” (1970) into German. In the meantime, I had started working on my doc-toral thesis following an invitation by Niklas Luhmann. In August 1975 I sent our Mat-urana translation to Luhmann, who initially was quite skeptical about the aspects linked to Maturana’s concept of “circularity” of the processes in living systems. But some dis-cussions later in March 1976 he changed his mind with respect to what was to be called the theory of autopoiesis. During the follow-ing years I co-organized a number of con-ferences (Hejl, Köck & Roth 1978; Benseler, Hejl & Köck 1980; Roth & Schwegler 1981). However, even though he had begun to em-brace autopoiesis, Luhmann did not attend any of them. Despite numerous discussions, Luhmann’s and my views differed with re-spect to the central question Hugo Cadenas and Marcelo Arnold address in their target article: Should social systems be modeled as autopoietic (Luhmann) or should social systems be constructed as resulting from a

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(however defined) interaction of autopoietic individuals (Maturana, Varela, Hejl)? The conflict was clear from the early 1980s on and has never been resolved. So, after read-ing the target article, I find myself confront-ed with more or less the same questions and doubts I have been aware of for years.

« 2 » The history of systems theory rel-evant for the concept of autopoiesis goes back to the late 1940s and 1950s, when transdisciplinary discussions lead to cyber-netics, artificial intelligence, systems theory, cognitive science, and new concepts of in-formation and communication, etc. At that time, the Macy conferences (Dupuy 1985)1 played a stimulating role. Anthropologists, electrical engineers, biophysicists, physiolo-gists, social scientists, psychologists, math-ematicians, biologists, etc. had to establish a general vocabulary and general concepts to discuss communalities of otherwise in-compatible phenomenal domains. Talking of “systems” was helpful in that context. In addition, many of the participants shared a “mechanistic” understanding of “scientific explanations” (Heims 1985). The basic idea

1 | Cf. http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/foun-dations/history/MacySummary.htm

was that theories should allow to analyze and even construct physical mechanisms that would produce the behavioral or cogni-tive properties one was interested in.

« 3 » Coming from this tradition, Mat-urana also shares this mechanistic concep-tion. It is clearly stated in his often repeated explanation of what he sees as the core of “the scientific method”:

“ This method can be described as involving the following operations: (a) observation of a phe-nomenon that, henceforth, is taken as a problem to be explained; (b) proposition of an explanatory hypothesis in the form of a deterministic system that can generate a phenomenon isomorphic with the one observed; (c) proposition of a computed state or process in the system specified by the hypothesis as a predicted phenomenon to be ob-served; and (d) observation of the predicted phe-nomenon.” (Maturana 1978: 28f)

« 4 » It is this mechanistic understand-ing that I adopted – among other ideas – from Maturana. It is also shared by Ernst von Glasersfeld, who understood Maturana and Francisco Varela’s work as a biological basis for the radical constructivism he developed – although Maturana and Varela have kept

a certain distance from this epistemological position. In my commentary I will discuss the difference between Luhmann’s and my view based on this mechanical understand-ing of radical constructivism.

« 5 » Let me start with the concept of communication and what happens in com-munication as example. Figure 1 shows the most important aspects of communication in a strict sense from a constructivist posi-tion.

« 6 » There are three distinguishable processes that can be described as “selec-tions.”

« 7 » Communicator 1 “selects” (de-cides) what he wants to communicate (the “information”?). This can be a description of an observation about something observed in the social or “natural” environment, a request, a decision, a statement about emo-tions, etc. But this is not the “meaning” of what he wants to communicate. The meaning is the desired behavior of Communicator 2 that Communicator 1 intends to bring about.

« 8 » To achieve this goal, Communica-tor 1 has to transform the meaning he has in mind into a message (“utterance”), i.e., a verbal, non-verbal, pictorial, or other physi-cal entity, or process that seems adequate

Communicator 1 as autopoietic system

Various interactions in different social and nonsocial environments

Various interactions in different social and nonsocial environments

Communicator 2 as autopoietic system

Assumptions about the communication partnerand remembered feedback of past communication

Message

Transformation (production, selection)

of a meaning into a message according to the

autopoietic dynamics of the communicator

Available techniques of transmission

Innate ontogenetically developed nonverbal

media

Learned verbal and non-verbal

means of communication

Available techniques of transmission

Innate ontogenetically developed nonverbal

media

Learned verbal and non-verbal

means of communication

Transformation (production, selection)

of a message into a meaning according to the

autopoietic dynamics of the communicator

Figure 1 • Human communication and media from a constructivist position.

http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/foundations/history/MacySummary.htm

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to make the intended communication suc-cessful. of course, he has some expecta-tions about his partner. Communicator 1 might remember his experiences during earlier communications, perhaps he has known his partner for some time and gen-erated a “theory of mind,” which in fact is a kind of mechanistic model of the cognitive functioning of Communicator 2 and used to construct (select?) the most promising communicative offer (Byrne & Whiten 1988; Patel, Fleming & Kilner 2012). Alternatively, the partner might be dressed or talk in a way that suggests to Communicator 1 how the other might react etc. As a consequence, he decides how to address the other. More or less consciously and based on his experience in various social and nonsocial environ-ments, he has to decide which verbal and/or non-verbal media he should use to be suc-cessful. Finally, his choice depends as well on the repertoire of means of communication he has inherited (e.g., Peleg et al. 2006) and then developed ontogenetically, as well as on his learned verbal and non-verbal means of communication (choice of words, rules of behavior, etc.). Finally, he has to choose among the media available in his actual situ-ation.

« 9 » When Communicator 2 receives and reads or hears (“processes”) the mes-sage, the just-outlined highly complex pro-cess takes place again – but in the opposite direction and with an important difference. The receiver’s reading is conditioned by all the aspects that influenced the producer of the message, with the difference that – al-though belonging perhaps to the same class of interactions – they might have differed and are experienced differently due to the self-reference of the receiver and the unavoidable differences between individuals. In addition, the receiver’s final goal is not to reconstruct the meaning Communicator 1 had in mind. He is interested in what the message means for him: What does he wants me to do? Why is she telling me that? Is this chunk of knowl-edge interesting to me?

« 10 » It is not astonishing that, as Ca-denas and Arnold emphasize, Maturana and Varela agree with a modeling of communi-cation based on the interaction of (actors as) autopoietic systems that concludes that “communication is not a transmission of meaning.” But this is just the state of the art

at least since the early 1970s, when Maturana published his “Biology of cognition” (1970). It is more astonishing to call communication “an operation of distinction by a self-refer-ential system” (§10). In fact, if “distinction” means “selection” out of a set of alternatives, then the agreement of Maturana & Varela is a surprise. (But perhaps the authors did not look carefully enough at what Maturana & Varela agreed with). Normally, “distinction” means that there is a choice and that one or several of the offered entities/meanings, etc., are selected. In order to make this happen, it is necessary that there is a transmission of what to choose from. And if communication is about “distinction by a self-referential sys-tem,” the transmission-concept of communi-cation comes in again through the backdoor.

« 11 » However, as a radical constructiv-ist I do not speak of an “operation of distinc-tion” when talking about the activities of a receiver of a message: she constructs (produc-es) what she takes (too often) as “the mean-ing.” This activity is actually best explained by the model of autopoietic and hence self-referential systems. Let me mention just one of the questions that follows from the logic of the model used: How can we explain under-standing if meaning is constructed?

« 12 » Constructivists often underline that the autonomy of individuals who con-struct their realities, meaning, etc. is a re-sult of the dynamics of their own cognitive mechanisms and, being historical systems, the states they are in at a given point in time. If one takes this seriously, and that is what characterizes radical constructivism, one has to explain how “understanding” or “suc-cessful communication” is possible. What characterizes communicating actors who are successfully able to coordinate their be-havior through communication (Maturana & Varela 1987: 210ff)? Breakdowns of com-munication do happen and it can be argued that there are probably many problems that result from it. From a mechanistic (and so-cio-evolutionary) perspective, the likelihood of failures of communication must have been a crucial condition throughout biologi-cal and cultural evolution for the growth of communication and the advantages that go with it. Fortunately, the mechanistic perspec-tive also provides an answer to the problem of reducing differences between processes of construction: the more constructors (or their

constructing mechanisms) function in a comparable way (the importance of the con-structs of environments are not discussed here), the smaller are the differences between their constructs. Independent of its degree of autonomy, if a self-referential system func-tions like me – or if I know how it functions – I am able to choose or to produce the message that has the effect that I desire. (Hejl 2011). There is an increasing number of research re-sults on biological and cultural heritage that – among other effects – produce what might be called “human (near-)universals,” i.e., be-haviors, preferences, emotions that are basi-cally the same even in cultures that have had no or very little contact with each other over long periods of time (Murdock 1945; Brown 1991; Antweiler 2009). With respect to the question of communication or cooperation, such near-universals reduce differences be-tween actors and facilitate successful interac-tions of various kinds. Moreover, such near-universal human properties are present in all societies as evolved dispositions. As many of them evolved a long time ago, in many cases they are problematic in the context of mod-ern conditions of living and hence in need of regulation – food preferences and the male tendency to violence are just two examples.

« 13 » With respect to the question of how to use the theory of autopoiesis in sys-tems-theoretical modeling of phenomena central to the social sciences, broadly taken, my position looks quite traditional. If one uses a mechanistic approach, one hasa | to describe the phenomenon one is

interested in – here: communication between actors seen as autopoietic sys-tems. This has to be done

b | through the proposition of a model that allows identification of different pro-cesses and their relations involved in producing the phenomenon to be ex-plained (Figure 1 plus discussion). Then one should

c | make predictions or identify problems or consequences resulting from the functioning of the model (How is suc-cessful communication possible be-tween autopoietically functioning indi-viduals?) and

d | try to observe the predictions (gene-culture coevolution, (near-)universals).

From the very few explanations presented here, it should be clear that such an approach

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not only allows but necessitates interdis-ciplinary cooperation and an appropriate terminology as well as at least openness to empirical work.

« 14 » To conclude, it might be helpful to point at the rather strange remark in §31, where they criticize Maturana and Varela’s proposition of “a utilitarian concept of so-cial systems.” Although I do not share their view of social systems in all details, it seems evident to me as an observer that without individuals who cooperate hoping to serve (directly or indirectly, immediately or with some postponement) their interests (and this means very basically surviving and re-producing), there would be no sociality and hence nothing like the enormous variety of social activities that we construct as social systems. of course, we know that the old utilitarian conviction is wrong: it saw hu-mans primarily as rational actors seeking to maximize their individual benefits. Since humans and their individual and social behaviours are to be constructed as much more complex, the theory of social systems has to integrate these highly complex bio-logical systems.

« 15 » Keeping individuals within social theory does not at all imply a reductionist position. on the contrary, it is important to design carefully how individuals participate in social systems and to distinguish different levels of interactions and their properties. To explain the behaviour of social systems one has (a) to look at individuals who, with different parts of their capacities, act, in-teract, and communicate as components in various social systems. At the same time one has (b) to observe the organization of the so-cial systems one is interested in as systemic properties that explain large parts of the be-haviour of the systems that are independent of many of the particular components (Hejl 1995, and with respect to management Hejl & Stahl 2000). As I see the problematic re-lation between individuals and social sys-tems, it is necessary to give up the dualism between holism (the level of systems) and reductionism (the level of individuals). This requires overstepping the borders and tradi-tions of sociology as part of the humanities, an understanding of scientific explanations at least compatible with the mechanistic orientation of the natural sciences, and the readiness to interdisciplinarity beyond a

rather opaque adoption of terms and con-cepts.

« 16 » I would like to end with a ques-tion some readers may have been puzzled by all along: Why did Luhmann, a jurist with experience in administrative law, decide to propose a theory in which communication is the central activity? If we look at the judi-cial system, especially of judges and courts in the Roman-law tradition, it is clear that their main activity is communication and selecting meanings from texts. At the same time it is evident for all participants that, if there are conflicts, “communication within (the higher instances of) the system” will de-cide/select the meaning that is viable for the time being (Hejl 1997). The very last ques-tion then is: Why is access to these higher instances often a matter of political debate and struggle?

Peter M. hejl is adjunct professor at the University of Siegen, where until 2010 he taught sociology,

especially sociology of communication and media. Hejl contributed to the integration of the theory of

autopoiesis (Maturana) and the development of a radical constructivist approach to knowledge, communication, and social systems. Parallel to

this theoretical work, he designed and conducted empirical studies on the use of media.


Communication is Meaning-based AutopoiesisDiane LaflammeUniversité du Québec à Montréal, Canada laflamme.diane/at/uqam.ca

> upshot • Autopoiesis based on mean-ing is a rich conceptual tool. It would be a pity to reduce it to a few general statements on self-reference in social systems.

« 1 » The “Results” presented in Hugo Cadenas and Marcelo Arnold’s target ar-ticle are announced from the very begin-ning as a claim, namely “that it is justified

to extend the concept of autopoiesis from its biological origin to other disciplines.” As envisioned by the authors in their conclu-sion, these results will most certainly open promising perspectives for interdisciplin-ary research and contribute to overcoming the many hesitations inspired by Humberto Maturana’s public position against such de-velopments. In many of his writings Niklas Luhmann explains how and why he chose to include autopoiesis in his theory of mean-ing-constituting systems, building on what he calls Maturana’s innovation (Luhmann 1985b: 6). He invariably concludes with dec-larations such as: “In principle, I do not see a decisive difference between his theory and mine” (Luhmann 2013b: 77).

« 2 » Without questioning the validity of those sections of the target article where Luhmann’s vision of autopoiesis in social systems is confronted with criticism both from the original authors of the concept and from other social theorists, one could say that there is a missed opportunity in the sec-tion entitled “From self-reference to auto-poiesis of social systems” (§§6–14). It would gain in convincing power if more effort was invested in describing how social systems operate as meaning-constituting systems (Luhmann 1995: Chapter 2; 1990: Chapter 2; 1987). Meaning is briefly mentioned in §7, §10 and §14. The sentence that intro-duces and the one that concludes §14 both allude to the distinction between life-based autopoiesis and meaning-based autopoiesis. Little more is offered.

« 3 » The following comments are lim-ited to that one section of the target article. They are not meant to undermine the con-tribution made by the authors to refocusing the debate on the concept of autopoiesis and promoting a much needed development of interdisciplinary research using this con-cept.

« 4 » Sadly, when introducing the no-tion of meaning in §7, the authors take many short cuts. For example, they propose that “the social system itself is a ‘selection’ between different possibilities that meaning offers.” Such a declaration gives little weight to the extended analysis provided in Luh-mann (1982b) – which is the reference quot-ed – where the framework is clearly identi-fied from the beginning as a “general theory of meaning-generating systems.” Meaning

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forces the system to make a selection since a choice has to be made “among the totality of possibilities for relationship or references to other things indicated in the meaning actually given” (Luhmann 1995: 134). Fur-thermore, the history of a social system can be seen as a history of what selections were made. But to go further than that and insist that a system “is” a selection could lead the reader astray in the context of this target ar-ticle.

« 5 » Viewed as the operation of a social system, a selection is an event. What hap-pens is worth noting: meaning is “constitut-ed.” In §7, Luhmann (1982c: 70) is the refer-ence offered at the end of the third sentence, which is about self-selection and boundary-formation. Here again, Luhmann’s intro-duction of meaning-constituting systems is omitted. In Luhmann (1982c: 70), “self-selection” is discussed, but not in relation to boundary-formation (which appears rather on page 71). one can read instead that so-cial systems “constitute themselves through processes of self-selection.” To complete this sentence, Luhmann then adds: “just as living creatures constitute themselves through processes of autocatalysis.” Here, meaning-based autopoiesis in social sys-tems and life-based autopoiesis are intro-duced side by side.

« 6 » Luhmann – and this will prove to be a powerful conceptual insight – defines autopoiesis “as a general form of system-building using self-referential closure” that can be observed in systems including, but not limited to, living systems (Luhmann 1986: 172). In Luhmann’s theory, psychic systems – constituted on the basis of a

closed self-referential nexus of conscious states – and social systems – constituted on the basis of a closed self-referential nexus of communications – are interpenetrating meaning-constituting systems (Luhmann 1995: 59; 1990: 23f). At the very end of the section of the target article under scrutiny, in §14, the reader will be told swiftly about these two levels of system formation in two sentences, one at the beginning of the para-graph, one at the end. Luhmann’s major conceptual innovation is presented in §14 as moving the problem of autopoiesis “from the plane of the physical space” to the realm of meaning. We also find in §11 a puzzling sentence indicating that “the autopoiesis of society operates the autopoiesis of individu-als,” this being done “at a different level from the organic level.”

« 7 » once it has been established that life and meaning are to be distinguished as two different kinds of autopoietic organi-zation, attention can turn to the fact that meaning is “constituted.” Luhmann comes up, as the authors rightly point out in §7, with a definition of meaning as the unity of the difference between the actual and the possible. Such an approach to meaning is developed by Luhmann with explicit refer-ences to Edmund Husserl and, according to him, the best way to examine the constitu-tion of meaning is the phenomenological method (Luhmann 1990: 83). He criticizes Husserl, though, for using the word “consti-tution” as “a central category that remains ambivalent” (Luhmann 1990: 69). He notes that Talcott Parsons uses the word without defining it. He also explains that he chose the term “constitution” to describe the “be-

ing-possible-only-together” of order (the system) and the full complexity of the world:

“ meaning always appears within some delim-itable context and yet at the same time always points beyond this context and lets us see other possibilities. What I want to understand and to describe with the term constitution is this rela-tionship between a selectively restricted order and the openness of other possibilities, a relationship of mutual interdependence, of being-possible-only-together.” (Luhmann 1990: 25)

Meaning remains internal to the system, though:

“ meaning exists only as meaning of the opera-tion using it, and hence only at the moment in which it is determined by operations, neither be-forehand nor afterward.” (Luhmann 2012: 18)

« 8 » When better equipped to appreci-ate the central place occupied in Luhmann’s theory by meaning and its constitution, the reader might grasp more quickly, when pro-ceeding to §8 and 9 of the targeted article, why it matters so much whether a self – as element, as process or as system – is capable or not of referring to itself as a self. Luhmann considers that his contribution to the theory of self-referential systems requires nothing less than “a new paradigm” (Luhmann 1995: 10). Indeed, it could be somewhat unsettling for some to realize that in Luhmann’s theory, a self includes self-reference “within itself ” (Luhmann 1995: 446).

« 9 » What is missing in §8 is a clear statement that self-reference allows a self to switch from self-reference to hetero-ref-

Basal self-reference Basal self-reference in a social system Basal self-reference in communication

Self The self that refers itself is also an element

The element/self is a communication Communication (self) coordinates three selections in each of its elements: information (hetero-reference), utterance (self-reference) and understanding

ConnectivityRelations among elements hold out a prospect of connectivity

Successful relational connections recursively produce a network of communications

Understanding is the precondition for connection onto further communication

Autopoiesis No autopoiesis without basal self-reference

No autopoiesis in social systems without communications connected to further communications

No autopoiesis in communication without differentiating the connecting position (self- or hetero-reference) for the next communication

Table 1 • Securing connectivity through basal self-reference.

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erences by means of internal operations in search of connectivity. Luhmann explains that self-reference “includes the capacity to determine itself internally through a com-bination of ‘self-identity’ and ‘self-diversity’ and at the same time to leave room for exter-nal co-determination” (Luhmann 1995: 290). Meaningful internal references as well as ex-ternal ones are constituted inside the system, since meaning does not exist in the environ-ment. The system cannot operate in the envi-ronment, as pointed out a bit late in §9, and the distinction between self-reference and hetero-reference (or other-reference) has to remain a system-internal difference.

« 10 » Self-reference not being intro-duced along those lines in §8, it is more dif-ficult for the reader to realize that Luhmann makes use of the very same conceptual ap-paratus when describing the self-referential operation of communication in a social system. When the reader is told in §10 that communications “involve three selections,” there is no mention that information is hetero-reference, utterance is self-reference and understanding requires distinguishing the two internally. The unity of the three se-lections is co-created inside the system, and does not exist anywhere else. To make things more difficult, §9 has been inserted in be-tween, and the reader is hastily introduced to the three forms of self-reference: basal self-reference (the self is an element), reflex-ivity (the self is a process) and reflection (the self is a system). At the end of §9, the reader is then abruptly told that basal self-reference is “the condition that characterizes the au-topoiesis of the system.”

« 11 » Table 1 is an attempt to fill in the blanks and to show how concepts taken from the section under scrutiny, such as basal self-reference (§9), recursive networks (§12), connections (§13) and communica-tion (§10) fit with Luhmann’s statement that “basal self-reference is a constitutive re-quirement” for autopoiesis (Luhmann 1995: 443).

« 12 » When the authors write in §14 that “communication emerges as the unit of information and utterance,” we are not told the whole story. Something is missing. What we read in Luhmann is rather that information and utterance “are forced into unity” (Luhmann 1990: 12) and that com-munication requires the production of an

emergent unity” (Luhmann 1993: 774). The gap observed here goes deeper than a choice of vocabulary between “unit” and “unity.” Luhmann does use the two words together in the following sentence: “The unity of a communication is due to the system that reproduces itself by producing units of this kind through a network of units of this kind” (Luhmann 1996: 261). He clearly states in this paper, two paragraphs before the sentence quoted here, that his intention is to relate the concept of communication to a self-referential domain.

« 13 » In the last paragraph (§14) of the section under scrutiny, the word “mean-ing” is repeated six times, with an emphasis on “the meaning of communication” and “meaning in the consciousness” and “in the communication.” Luhmann’s warnings about the fact that meaning is constituted and that there are no bits of meaning wait-ing to be picked up by a system in the en-vironment do not seem to have been really heard. When a meaning-constituting sys-tem makes one selection, it neutralizes and sometimes negates the possibilities that are not actualized in that selection. But it does not eliminate them as possibilities. “The world is not reduced to only what is actu-ally being attended to each time a selection is made,” says Luhmann, “It still remains as the horizon of references, as the horizon of further possibilities, and thus as the domain from which followup selections or further choices are made.” (Luhmann 1987: 177)

« 14 » If the intended purpose of §§6–14 was to start with the notion of self-reference and to move from there into a closer exami-nation of the autopoiesis of social systems, then the reader has been offered a bumpy ride. To study the workings of meaning-based autopoietic processes may not be an easier path, but it is worth undertaking since it could very well be the condition of pos-sibility for interdisciplinarity.

diane laflamme teaches ethics at Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada. She is a member of Research

Committee 51 on Sociocybernetics of the International Sociological Association. Her current research

on Luhmann’s theory focuses on the constitution of meaning and moralized communications.


The Concept of Autopoiesis: Its Relevance and Consequences for SociologyGiancarlo CorsiUniversity of Modena-Reggio Emilia, Italy • giancarlo.corsi/at/unimore.it

> upshot • I discuss two aspects of Ca-denas & Arnold’s target article. The first concerns some clarifications of the socio-logical importance of the concept of au-topoiesis and the second the criticisms of this concept and its applications in the social sciences.

« 1 » The concept of autopoiesis is in-deed a successful case of abstraction, gener-alization and respecification (in the sense of Stichweh 1987: 447, quoted by the authors: §50) involving two disciplines very distant from each other: biology and sociology. This concept is important not so much be-cause it “explains” something that has re-mained unclear so far, but rather because it obliges the social sciences to rethink their tradition and to exclude many of the con-cepts that are still taken for granted today.

« 2 » First of all, defining social systems as systems recursively reproducing their own elements through their own elements re-opened the old question of what the el-ements of social systems are. As we know, traditionally there have been two answers two answers: individuals or actions – social actions. In both cases, there have always been problems. on the one hand, defining social systems on the basis of individuals always raises the problem of what is meant by this concept of an individual – its body? Its consciousness? But to describe or even explain how the law, families or formal or-ganizations work, starting with the idea of a set of individuals seems to be challeng-ing. on the other hand, the concept of ac-tion has never been defined satisfactorily either. Action refers to the actor and to its intentions, and also to all that can condition them. At the same time, however, nothing of what is social can be explained in terms of someone’s intention or will. Therefore ad-ditional concepts became necessary, such as the idea of unintended consequences of ac-tion (Merton 1936) or evolutionary theory.

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Luhmann’s solution, considering communi-cation as the basic operation of social sys-tems (Luhmann 1992), tackles both prob-lems. Luhmann defines communication as understanding the difference between information and utterance (§10): commu-nication then takes place only if and when it is understood and this means that its con-sequences depend on who understands and not on the intentions of the participants. Above all, this implies that communication is an exclusively social operation.

« 3 » If we take the concept of autopoi-esis to the extreme, I think it shows an inter-esting feature: a system is either autopoietic or not. There is no middle way: a system cannot be “a little” autopoietic, just as a women cannot be a little pregnant (Matu-rana’s example, quoted in Luhmann 2002b: 116). In this sense, autopoiesis as an either/or-concept is the condition of existence of a system, at least for living, conscious and social systems: if there is a system, then it is autopoietic.

« 4 » The literature, however, does not always agree with this point. Legal studies (sociology and theory of law) especially have discussed “autopoietic law” in depth (among the many publications, see Teubner 1988). For instance, one may have doubts that a system can really be or remain au-topoietic if society imposes local conditions (such as family relationships, diffuse cor-ruption and economic and political pres-sures) that the system cannot control at all, depending on inputs from other systems. For example, some scholars speak of allo-poiesis of law in certain territories (for the case of Brazil, see Neves 1992 and 2001). or, in a completely different context, Gunther Teubner refers to autopoiesis as a “gradual-ized concept” (Teubner 1988: 222 and 1989: 38) and distinguishes between autonomy and circularity: while circularity exists or does not exist (“there is no such thing as half circularity,” Teubner 1988: 222), au-tonomy could be seen as a “gradualized” concept, and observing the evolution of a differentiated system means also observing its becoming more and more autonomous.

« 5 » Luhmann’s objection to the con-cept of gradual autopoiesis is rather abstract and sophisticated (Luhmann 2002b: 116f). Still, I think it deserves to be elaborated. Luhmann distinguishes between autopoi-

esis and causal relationships. Autopoiesis does not indicate certain causes that allow the reproduction of a system’s operations. It indicates the mere fact that each operation is followed by another operation. But how this happens cannot be explained by the concept of autopoiesis.

« 6 » The possibility to connect opera-tions with further operations depends on the relationship of the system to its environ-ment, on its ability to build structures and to be irritated by the environment it is dealing with: “The condition of connectivity [An-schlussfähigkeit] does not suffice in order to produce the next state” (Luhmann 2002b: 117f, my translation). Autopoiesis is not a “creatio ex nihilo.” Therefore, other condi-tions are needed, which can be described by concepts such as structural coupling (Luhmann 2002b: 118–141; for applica-tions of structural coupling to the obser-vation of law as a social system, although with questionable interpretations of this concept, see also Febbrajo & Harste 2013). This implies that autopoiesis refers only to operations, not to structures.1 If we define as autopoietic a system able to reproduce its own operations through its own opera-tions, in fact we have not yet said anything about its structures. In other words, while autopoiesis takes place or not, structures may vary considerably depending on the evolution of the (living or social) system. This can be observed in the diversity of life forms, as well as in the various social forms of the past (tribes, ancient judicial proce-dures, divination, medieval guilds, etc.) and of the present (functional differentiation as a primary societal structure, formal organi-zations, mass media, etc.).

« 7 » Although I generally agree with the arguments of the authors, doubts arise when they write: “The social and the bio-logical concepts of autopoiesis appear then as two facets of the same operational phe-nomenon” (§51) and take this suggestion as a point of departure for interdisciplinary research (§51f). But it is not clear what this means. The concept of autopoiesis presup-

1 | By structures I mean everything that al-lows the system to operate. Modern society’s structures are the law (courts, constitutions, norms, etc.), the economy (banks, companies, stock markets, etc.), individual careers and so on.

poses a clear distinction between different types of systems: an organic system cannot connect its operations with social or psy-chological operations (in fact, even con-sciousness is an autopoietic system: Luh-mann 1985a) and vice versa. If the different types of autopoiesis are not clearly distin-guished, a certain confusion can arise, as one of the texts cited by the authors in §52 shows: Eldridge (2002) speaks actually of behavior rather than of communication as objects of his analysis, although without saying whether he considers them to be elements of the system, in any case refus-ing to consider institutions such as a court as “an abstract system of communication” (Eldridge 2002: 302). But in what sense an organized “behaviour,” aiming to make judicial decisions, could be something dif-ferent from communication remains unex-plained.

« 8 » Finally, I agree with the authors regarding the philosophical and ideological criticism of the concept of autopoiesis when they quote Danilo Zolo and Jürgen Haber-mas (§§40–46). To this, I want to add that the problem is always the observer’s posi-tion. For example, if one distinguishes be-tween social systems and “lifeworld” (Leb-enswelt), as Habermas does, the question arises of where one places oneself. on which side of his distinction should Habermas be placed? He certainly cannot be a social system, otherwise his theory collapses. But neither can he act as a Lebenswelt because for most of his readers he is only a sociolo-gist or a philosopher, an author of books. Should we assume that society is made up of social systems, lifeworlds and Habermas? The same problem arises in the discussion on “the new realism” against constructivism (Ferraris 2014): how can an observer distin-guish between reality and construction or interpretation without being God? In the highly sophisticated language of George Spencer Brown (1969), the problem is if and how a distinction re-enters into itself. Is the distinction between a lifeworld and a social system drawn by the lifeworld or by the social system? or does the distinction between “real reality” and interpretation belong to the reality or to interpretations? I think that in neither case can the ques-tions be answered without ending up in an absurd situation.

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« 9 » There is no doubt that one of the most important theoretical problems of all scientific disciplines, including sociology, is the position of the observers and there-fore the quality of the distinction they make (Kauffman 2014). This is the keystone of every theoretical development. But we have to admit that, as fascinating these develop-ments are, sociology take them into account only to a limited extent.

giancarlo Corsi is Professor of Sociology at the University of Modena-Reggio Emilia (Italy). His research interests are in sociological systems

theory, sociology of law and politics, constructivism and cognitive sciences. Among his publications are Constitutions and Paradoxical Perspectives

(edited with Alberto Febbrajo, forthcoming) and Reform und Innovation in einer unstabilen

Gesellschaft (edited with Elena Esposito, 2005).


Authors’ Responseon the Criticisms against the Autopoiesis of Social SystemsHugo Cadenas & Marcelo Arnold

> upshot • Firstly, we discuss the main criticisms of our arguments. Secondly, we address the comments and observa-tions on some parts of our article. We conclude with some reflections about the perspectives of the discussion on the autopoiesis concept.

Introduction« 1 » With very much pleasure, we have

read the commentaries on our article and we are grateful to all the commentators for their perusal of our target article. Thanks to their contributions, we can resume this useful de-bate for the development of systems theory and constructivist thought.

« 2 » In this response we address their criticisms that we consider relevant for the debate and discuss their main points as well as additional issues to clarify our position and to amend our arguments.

defending the biological theory of autopoiesis« 3 » We would like to start with the

commentary of humberto Maturana, whom we consider one of the greatest contempo-rary contributors to the development of sys-tems theory. In his text, Maturana not only restates his original arguments about the social phenomenon but also introduces new ideas and concepts resulting from his recent work with Ximena Dávila. Even though Mat-urana presents mainly a reaffirmation of his own position rather than direct discussion of our article, we nevertheless believe that it is fruitful to respond to the doubts Maturana has regarding our understanding of his ideas. His main criticism is that our article “does not represent what I have said in my writings” (§1). on the contrary, we would like to emphasize that we do not believe that our reading of his ideas is profoundly mis-leading, and Maturana’s commentary serves well to reinforce our claims with regard to his concept of the “social.”

« 4 » Maturana’s arguments about the social are a good example of this. He writes that social relations are exclusively “the in-ner feelings, emotions and doings […] of mu-tual care, collaboration, honesty, equity and ethics” (§9, emphasis in the original). Mat-urana considers all other “human relations” as non-social.

« 5 » It does not require any training in sociology to be aware that Maturana’s con-cept of the social is too narrow. If one wishes to reduce the task of understanding the so-cial phenomenon by focusing only on such a “communitarian” conception of the social – as he clearly does in §13 – one would have to leave out many of the current and past top-ics of the social sciences. Based on Maturana’s definition, one could argue in favor of cer-tain “ethical” imperatives for life in a good society – similarly to the “discourse ethics” of Jürgen Habermas (1987) – but based on these principles, it is impossible to establish a theory of society with a sufficient level of generality.

« 6 » Although Maturana is a biologist and professedly explains the social phe-nomenon from the biological perspective, he tries to discuss basic concepts of social sciences. It is there where, unfortunately, Maturana’s ideas do not represent significant progress, precisely because of the lack of

dialogue with social sciences. His commen-tary on our criticism is yet another symptom of this.

« 7 » In contrast to Maturana’s text focus-ing on the defense of his concept of the “so-cial,” hugo urrestarazu aims at a more specific defense of the biological concept of autopoi-esis. He points out that our article misses its target since the extension of the concept of autopoiesis to social systems is not justified (§24, §35) because it disregards important aspects of the original theoretical proposal of Varela, Maturana and Uribe (1974) (§8, §9, §35).

« 8 » Although urrestarazu agrees with our proposal of a “common language” for systems research (§20), he emphasizes the inconvenience of adopting the concept of autopoiesis by social systems theory, i.e., he espouses a defensive position similar to that of Maturana, albeit from a slightly different angle.

« 9 » one might well abandon any at-tempts to discuss the notion of autopoiesis of social systems, and leave things as they are. After all, the proponents of this concept and their followers frown upon the appli-cation of autopoiesis beyond their self-im-posed biological boundaries. In this sense, urrestarazu would be right, and the use that we defend would neither be “justified” (§35) nor “theoretically adequate” (§35) since it does not follow the definition of Varela, Mat-urana and Uribe (1974) either. In urrestara-zu’s perspective, his canonical reading of the instructions of the creators of the concept is the only legitimate way to read them.

« 10 » observing the state of the art in social systems research, one can see an en-tire field of studies dedicated to the autopoi-esis of social systems that takes little notice of the restrictions imposed by Maturana and his followers. This is largely due to the fact that scientific research – especially systems research – grows in a heterodox way. only if an orthodox stance was adopted, would any unauthorized use of a concept appear as “unjustified” or “theoretically inadequate.”

« 11 » From its beginnings, Niklas Luh-mann’s theory was such an unorthodox exercise in conceptual construction. Its original concept of social system is based on Talcott Parsons’s ideas but was transformed by means of an equivalence functionalism, as opposed to structural functionalism.

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Luhmann’s concept of meaning was inspired by Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology but understood in the context of the theory of society. His theory of sociocultural evolu-tion follows the ideas of Charles Darwin and Donald Campbell but is embedded in George Spencer Brown’s theory of differen-tiation. All this shows that Luhmann’s theo-retical construction did not stop at the pos-sible objection of any of the original authors or their followers. So while the path sug-gested by urrestarazu is certainly a possible alternative, it is not the only one.

« 12 » Robert King’s criticism is very straightforward and full of questions, most of which we think we have already answered in our target article. The question we believe deserves most attention is: “Why do the au-thors require an autopoietic theory of social systems to unify systems theory?” (§7, em-phasis in original). We understand that this is his main criticism. He also criticizes the lack of a “conceptual” clarification (§5) of the reasons for adopting the concept of au-topoiesis.

« 13 » The answer to the first question is simple: It is not needed. Furthermore, eliminating any reference to the concept of autopoiesis in the writings of Luhmann would not result in any significant loss. Af-ter all, Luhmann introduced this concept at the end of his theoretical work, and many of his ideas can be well understood without any reference to autopoiesis, Nevertheless, such elimination does not seem to be the solution.

« 14 » Systems theory has proven fruit-ful for the consolidation of a common lan-guage for social science. Thanks to the de-velopments of general systems theory and cybernetics, it has been possible to apply a number of concepts coined in these in-terdisciplinary fields to diverse disciplines. Luhmann’s work, as well as the work of oth-ers systems theorists in social sciences, such as Talcott Parsons, Gregory Bateson and Walter Buckey, are examples of this. Here, again, while it is not necessary to include the concept of autopoiesis in the broad concep-tual reservoir of systems theory, it is fruitful for the development of systems theory itself, the interests of which – according to Nor-bert Wiener (1948) – include systems from machines up to living beings – a formulation later adopted by Maturana & Varela (1980).

« 15 » As for the second question, the conceptual clarification requested by King was already given in the target article – es-pecially in §§10–14 – but this may not have been specific enough. So let us elaborate on this a little further.

« 16 » In many social fields such as the closed communication system of the world economy and scientific communication, ap-plying the concept of autopoiesis to social systems can be very useful. In general, it could be argued that the concept of autopoi-esis seems to describe properly the function-ing of any communication system.

« 17 » Based on this claim we can con-tinue as follows. Autopoiesis requires that the elements of the system have to be pro-duced by the system itself. In social systems operating in the medium meaning, this im-plies a constant renewal of events that disap-pear as soon as they appear. A communica-tive event can only have connection capacity if a system is capable of operating based on these events and ensure their own continu-ity (Luhmann 1986). The system constantly renews through its own operations what it uses as a unit, and overcomes thus its own difficulties. Thanks to language, i.e., to a lim-ited set of sounds, it is possible to create an infinite world of understandable meaning; thanks to symbolically generalized com-munication media, it becomes possible to accept highly improbable offers; and thanks to mass media, communication can cross geographical boundaries (Luhmann 2012, 2013a-or-b).

« 18 » The autopoiesis of social systems reflects this constant renewal of elements of a system in the operations of the system itself. only by means of communication can more communication occur. Thoughts, emotions and environmental states only have meaning in the system when they adopt a communicable form. A communi-cation system can continue without coming to a consensus or a unification of criteria, since the system needs only the continuity of communication.

« 19 » The fact there are critical voices in response to our target article is a clear ex-ample of the autopoiesis of scientific com-munication. It is better not to have a consen-sus because a consensus would perhaps have less informative value. We are not required to cooperate for a better society or even have

the same understanding. A communication system only needs communication, and the system itself provides the means for this continuity.

« 20 » The last criticism we address here can be answered briefly. John Stewart argues in favor of an analysis of the political use the autopoiesis concept. We have already addressed this matter in the target article (especially in §§40–46). However, we fail to understand the background of his criticism. The conviction that seems to move Stewart is the political nature of scientific activity. Political communication can relate to the world, as well as to economy, science, law, religion, etc. However, this does not oblige scientific communication to adopt each of these perspectives or, better yet, to qualify some of them as more relevant.

further aspects« 21 » Milan Zeleny defends the applica-

tion of the concept of “social autopoiesis.” Zeleny, as was Stafford Beer, is among the earlier proponents of an extension of the au-topoiesis to social phenomena. He arrived at a broader understanding of the concept on the basis of computer modeling. For Zeleny, “all living systems must be autopoietic, but not all autopoietic systems have to be alive” (§7). Similarly, any expression of autopoiesis implies a social component. While we agree with his claim, we are concerned by his idea of excluding social systems such as prisons from the scope of autopoiesis. From our per-spective, any communication system can be autopoietic, whether authoritarian or not. So Zeleny would need to present more argu-ments in support of his thesis.

« 22 » Peter hejl’s commentary points at some unclear issues in our target article. Firstly, he rightfully claims that the concept of “distinction” requires further deepening. When we refer to this concept, we follow the nomenclature and explanations of Luh-mann. This means that communication, as an operation of observation, is in need of distinguishing and indicating. However, we do not see why this communication concept would imply a “transmission” (§6), as hejl points out.

« 23 » The second relevant point hejl makes has to do with the concept of “coop-eration” (§§9f). If one accepts, as hejl does, that cooperation is indispensable for social

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life, one should be at least prepared to accept the possibility of conflict as well. Many an-thropologists in the twentieth century, such as Bronislaw Malinowski and Franz Boas, showed that whenever cooperation between primitive societies exists, it is mainly in the context of family structures opposing other families. This is as much social as coopera-tion. However, many questions remain un-answered when one appeals to the argument of cooperation. We agree that a “minimum” concept of cooperation could be of sub-stantial help, for example when explaining the behavior of partners who communicate their understanding. However, what hap-pens if they do not cooperate and still com-municate?

« 24 » With regard to diane laflamme’s commentary, we cannot help but agree with it. our article does not delve into the con-cept of “meaning” of social systems theory, which – as laflamme points out (§4) – is used in many diverse occasions. It was not a deliberate omission, we must say, but our arguments pointed to other directions, so we do not have to delve into the concept of meaning but can instead focus on discuss-

ing the criticisms of the autopoiesis of social systems. laflamme’s excellent explanation on this subject is of great help for a better understanding of the text, as is the table she provides that allows very detailed analysis of the concepts we use.

« 25 » Finally, for the most part, giancar-lo Corsi’s article supports our claim of using the autopoiesis concept in a broader context. In §7, Corsi critically remarks, though, that our wording is confusing when we write “The social and the biological concepts of autopoiesis appear then as two facets of the same operational phenomenon” (§51) be-cause the expression seems to indicate that this is the same operation viewed from two different perspectives. This was not our in-tention, of course. The autopoiesis of bio-logical systems and that of social systems are not “two-sided” phenomena, but rather two operations in different domains.

Conclusion« 26 » We are grateful to have shared

our thoughts with such a great group of scholars, who have taken the time to peruse our article. our response to their criticism

does not constitute the final word in the controversies initiated here. The autopoiesis of social systems will certainly continue to be much discussed, so we are pleased to have contributed to it.

« 27 » As Zeleny noted (§15, §18), of the original authors of the concept, only Mat-urana seems to hold a firm opposition to the application of autopoiesis in social sciences. So it is not surprising that the defense of the biological concept of autopoiesis comes mainly from Maturana and his followers.

« 28 » For those who do not feel re-stricted by the canonical use of the concept, we provided arguments in favor of its ap-plication beyond biology. our position is certainly sociological but it can be amended by other developments inspired by systems theory and constructivism in order to con-tribute to an interdisciplinary debate.

Received 25 February 2015 Accepted: 3 March 2015

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