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Biological Autonomy

  • CRITICAL CONCEPTS IN BIOLOGICAL THEORY
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Abstract

The nature of biological autonomy and the choice of an appropriate framework for understanding it are subjects of ongoing debates in philosophy of biology and cognitive science. The enactivist view, originating with Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, emphasizes the concepts of organizational or operational closure and structural coupling between the organism and its environment as central in the context of autonomy. The proponents of this view contrast it with the traditional cybernetic paradigm based on inputs, outputs, feedback, and internal representations. This essay takes a synoptic view of the relevant issues and situates them in the context of modern theory of systems and control, in particular the behavioral approach developed by Jan Willems. It is argued that the behavioral approach, which favors a fairly liberal notion of control as interconnection without any prefigured designation of inputs and outputs, provides a more fruitful background for understanding and modeling of biological autonomy.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Kenneth McKenna and Stuart Newman for inviting me to contribute this essay to the “Critical Concepts in Biological Theory” series, and Kevin Mitchell, Stuart Newman, and Luiz Pessoa for their detailed and constructive comments on earlier versions of the essay, which led to a number of improvements and clarifications in the exposition.

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  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA

    Maxim Raginsky

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  1. Maxim Raginsky
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Correspondence to Maxim Raginsky.

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Raginsky, M. Biological Autonomy. Biol Theory 18, 303–308 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-023-00440-6

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