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From: gal2@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Jacob Galley)
Subject: Re: a nonanthropocentric ethic
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Date: Sat, 12 Aug 1995 17:56:52 GMT
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>pd120395@student.uq.edu.au (Nigel Stobbs) wrote:
>
>>I have read Varela and Maturana's "Autopoiesis: The Realisation of the 
>>Living" but am unable to find much recent discussion or criticism of 
>>autopoiesis (at least not in Philosophy journals).  Can anyone advise me 
>>of recent discussions?

If you get on the Autopoiesis discussion list, I think there is a very
complete and probably well-maintained bibliography availible from
Randall Whitaker.  In the meantime, here's a somewhat outdated
bibliography of stuff that I have come across.  (Apologies for the
TeXese.)

@book{bio-auto,
	author = "Francisco J. Varela",
	title = "Principles of Biological Autonomy",
	year = 1979,
	publisher = "North Holland",
	address = "New York"}

@book{autopoiesis,
	author = "Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Varela",
	title = "Autopiesis and Cognition",
	year = 1980,
	publisher = "D. Reidel",
	address = "Dordrecht, Holland",
	editor = "Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky",
	series = "Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science",
	volume = 42}

@book{tree,
	author = "Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Varela",
	title = "The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding",
	year = 1987,
	publisher = "Shambhala Publications",
	address = "Boston"}

@incollection{autop-lang,
	author = "Humberto R. Maturana",
	title = "Biology of Language: The Epistemology of Reality",
	booktitle = "Psychology and Biology of Language and Thought",
	editor = "George A. Miller and Elizabeth Lenneberg",
	year = 1978,
	pages = "27-63",
	publisher = "Academic Press",
	address = "New York"}

@article{to-see,
	author = "Humberto R. Maturana",
	title = "What is it to See?",
	year = 1983,
	journal = "Archivos de Biologia y Medicina Experimentales",
	address = "Santiago",
	volume = 16,
	pages = "255-269"}

@book{embodied-mind,
	author = "Francisco J. Varela and Evan Thompson and Elanor Rosch",
	title = "The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience",
	year = 1991,
	publisher = "M.I.T."}

@article{novel-colours,
	author = "Evan Thompson",
	title = "Novel Colours",
	journal = "Philosophical Studies",
	volume = 68,
	pages = "321-349",
	year = 1992}

@incollection{sci-inner-lives,
	author = "Kathleen Akins",
	title = "Science and our inner lives: Birds of prey, bats, and the common (featherless) bi-ped",
	booktitle = "Interpretation and Explanation in the Study of Animal Behavior",
	volume = 1,
	pages = "414-427",
	editor = "M. Bekoff and D. Jamieson",
	publisher = "Westview",
	address = "Boulder",
	year = 1990}

@article{coloring,
	author = "Evan Thompson and Adrian Palacios and Francisco J. Varela",
	title = "Ways of coloring: Comparative color vision for cognitive science",
	journal = "Behavioral and Brain Sciences",
	year = 1992,
	volume = 15,
	pages = "1-74"}

@article{fleischaker,
	author = "Gail R. Fleischaker",
	title = "The Traditional Model for Perception and Theory of Knowledge: Its Metaphor and Two Recent Alternatives",
	year = 1984,
	journal = "Behavioral Science",
	volume = 29,
	pages = "40-50"}

The neurophysiological research of Walter Freeman's lab at Berkeley is
developing a compatible theory of what has been poorly dubbed "mental
representation" (though of course brain studies are highly
anthopomorphic).  Here is a good, brief introduction explaining the
significance of their findings:

@incollection{who-needs-reps,
	author = "Walter J. Freeman and Christine A. Skarda",
	title = "Representations: Who needs them?",
	booktitle = "Brain Organization and Memory: Cells, Systems, and Circuits",	
	editor = "James L. McGaugh and Norman M. Weinberger and Gary Lynch",
	year = 1990,
	pages = "375-380",
	publisher = "Oxford University Press",
	address = "New York"}

Also, some books by the philosophers Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Hans
Jonas are written in the same vein.  Jonas's book in particular is
highly recommended:

@book{struct-behav,
	author = "Maurice Merleau-Ponty",
	title = "The Structure of Behavior",
	year = "1963",
	publisher = "Beacon Press",
	address = "Boston"}

@book{phenom-perc,
	author = "Maurice Merleau-Ponty",
	title = "The Phenomenology of Perception",
	year = "1962",
	publisher = "Routledge \& Kegan Paul",
	address = "London"}

@book{phenom-perc,
	author = "Hans Jonas",
	title = "The Phenomenon of Life",
	year = "1982"
	publisher = "University of Chicago"}


Good luck,
Jake.

-- 
The artificial sundering of res cogitans and res extensa is the heritage of
dualism, with the extrusion between them of LIFE---this double-faced ontology
of death creates problems which it has rendered unsolvable from the start.
								<-- Hans Jonas
