The Lifeworld of Ecology, Religion, and the Politics of Autopoiesis
Abstract
I am interested in developing a structural theory of autopoiesis through the lens of ecological thinking, with a focus on the significance of bringing forth a meaningful world. Francisco Varela serves as a key figure in integrating autopoietic epistemology with Buddhist meditation, creating a bridge for science–religion dialogue. I further propose a structural approach to the lifeworld and second-order cybernetics (as articulated by Heinz von Foerster), examining his ethical implications.
The concept of second-order cybernetics emphasizes radical constructivism over genetic determinism, reinforcing the biological theory of autopoiesis. This framework provides valuable insights into a politics of autopoiesis, which is central to participatory democracy and autonomy. This epistemic stance supports a bilingual model for science-and-religion dialogue, rooted in creative translation, constructivism, and co-constitution. It fosters a collaborative approach that transcends traditional divides and opens new possibilities for integrating scientific and spiritual worldviews.
Systems Thinking, Oikos Construction, and Political Reference
Systems thinking closely aligns with ecology, traditionally understood as the study of oikos—the household of life, interconnected with all members of the Earth community. Ecology is not merely the science of organisms in isolation but a science of relationships: between organisms and their environments, and among systems within broader networks. In this ecological theater, communities of animals, plants, and microorganisms interact dynamically with the physical world, collectively forming a new oikos—an integrated ecological unit.
As a science of interdependence, ecology enriches systems thinking by emphasizing key concepts such as community, pattern, complexity, and relationality. The ecosystem emerges as a networked structure in which no element operates in isolation; instead, meaning, survival, and adaptation arise through systemic interaction. In this context, oikos construction becomes more than a biological or environmental concern—it serves as a framework for reimagining human belonging and responsibility within the web of life.[1]
In Aristotle’s philosophy, the oikos refers to all members living within a household, governed by the economic system of oikonomia—the management of the household aimed at sustaining life and well-being. This stands in contrast to chrematistike, the art of accumulating wealth, in which the exchange and circulation of money become central—not as a means to a good life, but as ends in themselves. While oikonomia is oriented toward the needs of the household and the well-being of the community, chrematistike prioritizes profit and endless accumulation, often at the expense of relational integrity and ecological balance.[2]
In Aristotle’s conception of ethical praxis, there is a profound synthesis between oikos (household) and oikonomia (household management), which can be reinterpreted today as an ecological mode of thinking grounded in eco-justice and oriented toward the common good. For Aristotle, praxis is a form of action aimed at excellence, whose purpose is inherent in the action itself—an expression of self-realization (entelechy) in the ethical life of the polis.
In contrast to Aristotle’s view of the human being as a political animal within the polis, the term poiesis refers to productive activity or creation in an organism’s life that results in an external product—what we might today call oikos construction in a broader, ecological sense. This classical distinction finds new relevance in the work of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, who bridge praxis and poiesis through their theory of autopoiesis—the process by which living systems generate and maintain themselves. Autopoiesis implies autonomy, creativity, and the bringing forth of a meaningful world—a process akin to constructing an oikos in the biological, social, and ecological senses.
In the ecological context of evolution, Maturana and Varela argue that natural selection is not a prescriptive process guiding the improvement of fitness. Instead, their theory of structural evolution emphasizes the conservation of adaptation and facilitated variation in a proscriptive context, generating enormous diversity at all levels of genetic and evolutionary processes. This diversity is shaped by—and shapes—the structural coupling between organisms and their environments.
Their epistemic stance suggests that natural selection operates in a modified sense: it functions as a broad survival filter, ensuring the persistence of structures with sufficient integrity to survive, while discarding those that are incompatible with conservation, survival, and reproduction. “Organisms and the population offer variety; natural selection guarantees only that what ensues satisfies the two basic constraints of survival and reproduction.”[3]
Autopoiesis and Buddhist Principle
Francisco Varela, in particular, extends the concept of autopoiesis beyond biology, integrating a phenomenological philosophy rooted in the traditions of Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Varela emphasizes organization as a fundamental category for understanding the diverse realities of social systems, where meaning and function emerge from embodied engagement rather than from abstract structure. Drawing on Aristotelian phronesis (practical wisdom) and Buddhist mindfulness, Varela highlights praxis as embodied ethical action—right action that arises not from external rules, but from situated, attentive presence in the world. He underscores the connection between praxis and prudence (phronesis), suggesting that right action is embodied, coming into alignment with the principles of Buddhist meditation.[4]
In dealing with a world shaped by the history of structural coupling, organisms and their environments fold into one another and unfold from one another, reflecting the fundamental circularity that underlies life itself. The concept of groundlessness among diverse forms of life resonates with Buddhist philosophy, particularly the Middle Way, where the problem of groundlessness is central to the Madhyamika tradition and its teaching of Śūnyatā (Emptiness).
Things arise co-dependently because they are entirely groundless. This doctrinal teaching, as expounded by Nāgārjuna in the Mulamadhyamikakārika (Stanzas of the Middle Way), remains a cornerstone of Mahāyāna Buddhism in China and Japan, as well as Vajrayāna Buddhism in Tibet. The latter tradition particularly emphasizes the connection between co-dependent arising and the practice of great compassion, often articulated through the Eightfold Path.[5]
According to Varela and his colleagues, an autopoiesis-based enactive approach seeks to bridge the living tradition of mindfulness/awareness meditation—rooted in the principle of co-dependence—with the traditions of phenomenology and cognitive science, particularly in their exposition of the Madhyamika teaching. They apply the principle of co-dependence to three main topics: the relationship between subjects and their objects, the connection between things and their attributes, and the interaction between causes and effects. If all things are “empty” of independent existence, they arise co-dependently.
As Nāgārjuna states in his Mulamadhyamikakārika: “Nothing is found that is not dependently arisen. For that reason, nothing is found that is not empty.” [6]
If all things are empty of any independent intrinsic nature, this has profound ethical implications, fostering solidarity with marginalized communities and with all living creatures in the natural world through great compassion and the practice of the Eightfold Path. This epistemic stance is crucial in shaping socially engaged Buddhism, which aligns with the enacted theory of embodiment.
At this juncture, it becomes essential to integrate economic thinking of the common good with the ecological management of sustainability, so that economics (the management of the household) and ecology (the study of the totality of relations between organisms and their environments) can serve as companion disciplines in the co-constitution of a just and sustainable world.[7]
More than simply applying the enactive approach and the concept of structural coupling, I aim to offer new insights into the politics of autopoiesis. This position will be further clarified in terms of the lifeworld and the systemic forms of life within a structurally emergent framework. This insight addresses certain limitations of the universal relativism often associated with the doctrine of dependent co-arising, while emphasizing a structural theory of co-constitution and life’s emergence. This distinction also clarifies the Buddhist understanding of emptiness, which views it as the ultimate nature of the non-existence of phenomena.
When transposing the concept of lifeworld from the individual scope to the broader scope of ecosystems—ranging from the cellular level to the ecosphere—I offer a renewed conceptual clarity that differentiates my approach from Habermas’s cultural-communicative model.
The structural dynamics of the autopoietic unity become more complex in the process of self-organization and reproduction (including replication, transcription, and translation in protein synthesis). The original unity must be organized in a distributed, non-compartmentalized way through its interactions, which enable structural coupling. Environmental fluctuations (or irritations) and structural ruptures (such as extinction or the emergence of a new order at a higher level) are integral to this process.[8]
Lifeworld and Systems Theory under Critique
In a structural-systemic theory of autopoiesis, I incorporate into the structural theory of systemic forms of life an intersubjective regime of embodied cognition and enacted practices aimed at bringing forth a meaningful life through structural coupling with the environment. From a phenomenological perspective, the intentionality underlying immanent critique—particularly as rooted in Husserl’s theory of the lifeworld—seeks to uncover and interrogate the cultural sedimentation of meaning, including prejudice, opacity, and hierarchical domination. In this sense, the lifeworld represents not only a pre-theoretical ground of meaning but also the space of lived critique and emancipatory potential.
This ideology-critical dimension lies at the heart of Jürgen Habermas’s critique of Niklas Luhmann, particularly in their famous debate. Habermas argues that Luhmann’s systems theory, with its functionalist orientation, reduces complex social phenomena to issues of technological rationalization, thereby marginalizing practical moral reasoning and political agency.
In light of the distinction between first-order observation (the self-referential system/environment boundary) and second-order observation (other-referential opinion) in Luhmann’s systems theory, a gap emerges in addressing the significance of intersubjective rationality—shared, embodied, and enacted—in the process of bringing forth a meaningful world. Against this, a structural theory of social systems should be explored to analyze disparities between system, operation, and stratification in areas such as class/status, power, and privilege, revealing the potential for distortion or reification.
Indeed, Luhmann’s emphasis on functional differentiation and system self-reference risks reinforcing technocratic governance and legitimizing its political decisionism. His theory has less to offer in terms of fostering a systemic democratic discourse on intersubjectivity, critical ethics arising from lived experiences, and embodied interactions with others and the world.
Nevertheless, Habermas recognizes that Luhmann’s theory is more sophisticated than a mere extension of social cybernetics. Luhmann develops a highly advanced systems model that draws not only on communication theory but also on empirical observation and biological paradigms, particularly from autopoiesis and second-order cybernetics. Within this framework, the biological organism is understood as a self-regulating system, a concept that extends to social and cultural systems through autopoiesis and operational closure—while remaining structurally coupled to their environments.
Luhmann’s approach emphasizes system function, differentiation, and self-reference as the core features of meaning-making and rationality, highlighting the system’s role in reducing complexity in late modern society. Thus, Luhmann provides a powerful descriptive framework for modern society, but the question remains whether his theory can accommodate a normative dimension grounded in lifeworld critique, or whether it inevitably sidelines ethical praxis and transformative agency in favor of system stability and functionality.[9]
In my view, Habermas is correct in his critique, as Luhmann’s concept of second-order observation remains ethically neutral and overlooks a crucial blind spot. It is neither superior nor more insightful than first-order observation, and even third-order observation does not resolve this issue.[10]
Social Cybernetics and the Ethical Imperative
The concept of embodied intersubjectivity finds its way into second-order cybernetics, which Heinz von Foerster redefines as a new paradigm for the “cybernetics of cybernetics.” Von Foerster’s work is significantly influenced by the theory of self-organizing autopoiesis developed by Maturana and Varela, who, in turn, contributed to the development of second-order cybernetics alongside von Foerster. Thus, the original conception of autopoiesis is deeply rooted in the earlier foundations of cybernetics and systems thinking.[11]
According to von Foerster, Humberto Maturana, the Chilean neurophysiologist, captivated him with his concept of autopoiesis—the organization of living systems. Here is Maturana’s proposition: “Anything said is said by an observer.” To this theorem, von Foerster adds his own proposition: “Anything said is said to an observer.”[12]
First, an observer is defined by their ability to make descriptions according to the first theorem—what an observer says is a description. The second concept introduced is language. Together, these concepts form a combined theorem that establishes two observers through their use of language. From this connection, the third concept emerges: the elementary nucleus of a society, formed by the two observers.
This triadic position consists of: first, the observers; second, the language they use; and third, the society they form through their use of language and their interrelationship. All three elements are required to maintain this closed, triadic relationship.[13]
In fact, we do not perceive our blind spot as a black spot in the center of our visual field. If we are unaware of this blind spot, it is referred to as a second-order deficiency. The only way to overcome such deficiencies is through therapies of the second order, which emerge with new paradigms. The term “paradigm,” as used by Thomas Kuhn, refers to a culture-specific or language-specific model for linking descriptions semantically. According to Kuhn, a major paradigm shift occurs when normal science reveals inconsistencies or contradictions in the face of anomalies.
However, von Foerster argues that what is crucial in two instances is not the emergence of deficiencies in the dominant paradigm, but rather its flawlessness—this flawlessness is the very cause of its rejection. For example, Nicolaus Copernicus’s heliocentric model of the solar system challenged the Ptolemaic geocentric model in the Almagest. Copernicus’s model is also flawed, as the sun is not the true center of the solar system, but it nonetheless marked a critical paradigm shift.
A therapy of the second order involves a conceptual framework that engages not only with the observed but with the act of observing itself. The cybernetics of observed systems is considered first-order cybernetics (or “first-order stipulation”), while second-order cybernetics is the cybernetics of observing systems (or “second-order stipulation”). In second-order cybernetics, the second observers stipulate their own purpose in an autonomous sense. At last, “if we fail to recognize autonomy of each, we may turn into a society that attempts to honor commitments and forgets about its responsibilities.”[14]
This perspective opens up a space for addressing Habermas’s critique of social cybernetics. Habermas’s central thesis is grounded in Marx’s theory of the human species, which defines humans as the subject of world history, in opposition to the concept of totality. This dialectical approach is further developed by Adorno as negative dialectics, which he conceives as the self-negation of dialectics. Within this dialectical tradition, Hegel’s idealist philosophy of the concrete universal can be applied to the category of communication, which in turn replaces a monological subjectivity with a more dialogical one.[15]
If Hegel’s concept of the concrete universal is applied to intersubjective communication, a critical question arises within a structural theory of autopoiesis: How does the universal idea of human rights find concrete significance in different cultures or races? In a racialized society, a universal idea of human rights often becomes unilateral, working against other races. In other words, racial justice is not fully realized in intersubjective communication and consensus. Instead, social and legal systems establish their legitimacy through power relations.
Second-order cybernetics carries an ethical responsibility to reconstruct the social system in a self-referential manner, while remaining structurally coupled to its environment. This approach implies the need for legal reforms around racial justice, framed within the lens of radical constructivism.
According to von Foerster, society can be understood in terms of the “many-brain problem,” as our society suffers from what he calls a participatory crisis—the exclusion of individuals from active participation in the social process. In this situation, society becomes a “system”—a depersonalized establishment dominated by a monstrous, tyrannical figure that governs through absurd, illogical, and oppressive means. The so-called “communication channels,” or “mass media,” become one-way flows in the absence of a feedback loop. What cybernetics can offer is a universally accessible social input device, facilitating true participatory engagement.
It addresses the responsibility to reconstruct the social system in a self-referential manner, while maintaining structural coupling for co-constitution. This framework implies the need for legal reform, particularly around racial justice, as viewed through the lens of radical constructivism.[16]
Alongside this, the epistemology of cybernetics emphasizes ethical responsibility. Within the field of cybernetics, we bear the responsibility to engage in solving the social and ethical challenges of our time.[17]
This epistemological stance highlights self-referential autopoiesis and its political implications through second-order cybernetics, framed around three core principles: autonomy, responsibility, and choice on behalf of radical constructivism—contrasted with authoritative decisionism. In response, a counter-proposal emerges as a constructivist ethical imperative: “I shall act always so as to increase the total number of choices.”[18]
A systemic construction of ethical reality, grounded in freedom, autonomy, and choice, underscores the significance of intersubjective communication within a self-referential system, challenging Luhmann’s posthuman orientation. A human being, as an autopoietic living system, is equipped with autonomy, responsibility, and language.
On the other hand, Jean-François Lyotard critiques systems theory as inherently technocratic, arguing that in postindustrial societies, the normativity of laws is increasingly displaced by the performativity of procedures. In these contexts, the imperative of performance optimization—measured by output, efficiency, and system coherence—supersedes the interests of the communicative actors who constitute the social fabric. Performativity thus becomes a substitute for legitimation, reducing justice and consensus to mere technical functions.
In Lyotard’s view, technology gains authority not only through its access to scientific knowledge but also by consolidating decision-making power. He describes this as part of the “regime of the problematic,” where legitimation no longer arises from normative deliberation or democratic consent, but from the self-authorizing authority of the system itself. Power and knowledge become intertwined, legitimating themselves through procedural efficiency and scientific rationality—much like how systems justify their existence through performance maximization.
This critique highlights the postmodern condition, where meta-narratives of emancipation and justice are replaced by localized, performative “games”—a shift with profound implications for how we understand the role of science, governance, and communication in late modern societies.[19]
A theory of the postmodern condition, within the framework of the language game, can be integrated into a theory of radical constructivism, which is also grounded in Wittgenstein’s ethical concerns. Furthermore, a theory of the lifeworld prevents the postmodern condition from slipping into relativism or reductionism of power relations, by grounding it in the immanent critique, the politics of recognition, and emancipation within a general-relative framework.
Self-Reference and Self-Indication
Valera’s study on “A Calculus for Self-Reference” (1975) introduced a third self-indicating state, distinguishing between the inside and outside. This concept accounts for expressions of system integrity and autonomy, enabling a system to “re-enter” its own logical space in terms of autopoiesis, thereby creating a self-referential loop.
The logic of self-reference can be understood through a calculus of self-reference, where the act of calculation refers to self-indications (a third state), or a “self-cross.” The third state of self-indication represents the initial, defining act of drawing a boundary; it refers to the emergent, self-referential whole as it undergoes perturbations in cross-reference to the world.
A calculus of self-reference is defined as a process of re-entry into the network, applied to complex systems. It introduces a new state of self-indication that defines the system’s boundary as a mark against the environment. The cell membrane, as a result of the cell’s metabolic processes, physically differentiates the internal side of the cell from its external surroundings. “Self-cross” refers to the system’s ability to recursively engage in self-production for self-renewal and interaction within its own indicated boundary, maintaining a state of dynamic disequilibrium with its environment.
This calculus describes living organisms that maintain their distinction from their environment. It encompasses all instances of self-referential situations through self-indication or re-entry (a theory of re-entering expressions) in the context of second-order cybernetics. As observers interact with the systems they observe, re-entry becomes the recursive looping process that enables self-reference and cross-self in dynamic, real-world systems.
At the cellular level, the nature of the re-entering expression involves infinite recursion and [re]production oscillating within a closed system, referring to the basic form of self-reference in a different context.[20]
The unity of self-referring situations can be conceived as the embodiment of self-reference or autonomy within the process of time. It emphasizes the role of self-reference in personal identity, particularly as experienced through the lived experience of being in a body.
A cell is both the producer and the produced, embodying the producer as it continuously cycles through a series of circular processes in time. This cyclical nature is characteristic of a cybernetic ontology, framed by distinctions within self-reference, time, re-entry, and self-cross.
In the organization of living systems, a circular and recursive neuronal network emerges, creating complex feedback loops. In self-referential situations, a self-cross recovers all forms of circularity through reconstruction or the introduction of re-entering expressions, whether linguistic or otherwise. A new domain emerges through the intercrossing of domains at the point of self-referring.[21]
The calculus of indications serves as a foundational basis for a theory of general systems in any description of the universe, emphasizing the cognitive structure of living systems and revealing a new, meaningful world.
Constructivism and Co-Constitution: The Science-Religion Dialogue
Given the autopoietic cybernetic model, the respective systems must be recognized as self-referential while also emphasizing their interactions, self-crossing, and intercrossing (including structural coupling, irritation, and rupture) in the context of co-constitution and radical constructivism. This dynamic interaction fosters a new, meaningful life-world that bridges science, religion, and ethics.
This epistemic circularity in living systems opens up the possibility for translation—not merely as linguistic conversion, but as a creative, context-sensitive act of understanding across paradigms.
As discussed earlier, Valera’s engagement with the Buddhist principle of the Middle Way and its mediation plays a crucial role in shaping the science-religion dialogue through the autopoietic perspective.
At this juncture, it is important to reinterpret Thomas Kuhn’s theory of paradigms in relation to a theory of language games, within the framework of autopoiesis. According to Kuhn, translation becomes a key tool for persuasion, bridging conceptual gaps and even enabling paradigm shifts—through nuanced engagement rather than reductive simplification.[22]
This perspective aligns with Wittgenstein’s concept of family resemblance and the practice of translation. The meanings of words emerge through “a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing,” [23] allowing for a fluid, flexible understanding rather than rigid boundaries or fixed definitions.
This network of resemblances allows us to transcend exactness and the distance between differing uses of the same concept. Meaning is shaped by learning and adhering to the contextual rules that govern each particular language game. This perspective can be redefined within a self-referential system, emphasizing interactions and self-crossing (or intercrossing) for structural coupling with other references, enabling dynamic translation, cross-referencing, radical constructivism, and co-constitution.
The relationship between Kuhn and Wittgenstein can be viewed through a semantic lens, particularly with regard to the notion of epistemic rupture. This perspective challenges the traditional two-language approach, as well as the categories of dependency and instrumentalism in the science-religion relationship, as outlined by Ian Barbour.[24]
Instead, I aim to emphasize the centrality of translation, cross-referencing, and the recognition of limit questions, positioning systems theory within a bilingual model of cross-reference, constructivism, and co-constitution. This approach enriches critical realism and broadens the conceptual framework of divine action through self-referential and cross-referential interactions, fostering structural coupling between science and religion for mutual benefit and the common good. It offers a nuanced framework that bridges scientific and theological discourses regarding the shared reality of the world.
Lifeworld and the Politics of Autopoiesis
Habermas overlooks Husserl’s later engagement with the biological form of life, which grounds the primordial regime of embodied experience within the ontology of the organism and its environmental world. This perspective reveals that human life has a biological a priori.
In this context, the lifeworld should not be confined solely to the domains of language, culture, or society. It also encompasses the structural and systemic dimensions essential for understanding biological life, embodiment, and emergence. The lifeworld thus implies an ecological-systemic perspective—one that acknowledges the interconnected networks of life that shape and sustain the natural world.
Rather than serving merely as a counterpoint to the system (as in the conventional dichotomy between system and lifeworld—e.g., politics, economy, or mass media vs. civil society and deliberative democracy), the lifeworld must be reconceived as a general and ecological structure. This broader framing allows for the inclusion of organic, material, and ecological conditions of life within the fabric of meaning-making, intersubjectivity, and social structure. It invites us to think of the lifeworld not merely as a cultural or normative background, but as a living matrix in which systems are embedded and from which they derive their validity and ethical significance. A systemic construction of reality, as social structure (relative differential), is inseparable from the ecological construction of reality.
In contrast, Luhmann tends to displace the social and embodied dimensions of systems in favor of operational closure, neglecting enactivist and epigenetic considerations. In autopoietic systems, intersubjective communication and the genesis of meaning are embedded within self-referential closures, yet they remain exposed to environmental irritations—this point invites further analysis through the lens of epigenetic marks and social-ecological factors that threaten the integrity of the lifeworld.
The concept of structural coupling denotes the co-constitution between systems and their environments. Building on this, a structural theory of social systems, informed by Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and Varela’s biology of cognition, advocates for a social-political stance that resists the intrusion of functionally differentiated systems—with their power dynamics—into embodied intersubjectivity.
Phenomenology of Life and the Systemic Construction of Reality
An epistemology of cybernetics suggests that emergence (genesis) and perception (cognition) are creative processes. This refers to the phenomenological inquiry of perception, retention, remembrance, and protension within the spectrum of intentionality and meaning in cognitive circulation.
Husserl’s work shows elective affinities with second-order cybernetics, as the horizon of meaning is seen as operationally closed within autopoietic systems, akin to the flowing river of consciousness described by Heraclitus. However, this horizon is continually moving and remains open to the lifeworld through the procedure of radical constructivism. In this light, intersubjectivity, embodiment, and ethical significance remain central in Husserl’s phenomenology, particularly in Ideas II.
Self-organizing systems are explicated through cybernetic epistemology and radical constructivism. These systems are operationally closed; their structure and function are actively generated from within, continually interacting with the knowledge and symbolic communication that has built up over human history.
This perspective challenges Luhmann’s political decisionism, grounded in the system’s autopoietic capacity to produce collectively binding decisions. Luhmann’s view risks depoliticizing power relations by reducing shared responsibility to mere system functionality. Instead, a politics of autopoiesis and social structure affirms the primacy of embodied intersubjectivity, shared responsibility, and an immanent critique of totalizing political systems. It offers an emancipatory vision aimed at bringing forth a meaningful world, not grounded in system autonomy, but in the mutual constitution of meaning, ethical practice, and structure.
The facticity of the social world is constituted and realized through social praxis and relationships grounded in the lifeworld. This approach enables a nuanced understanding of multiple social realities, each corresponding to distinct forms of life—such as the legal, religious, or economic constructions of reality.
Crucially, this perspective interrogates how intersubjective relationships are not only embodied and enacted but also stratified through speech, communication, and discursive power within the systemic construction of social reality. In other words, all sociological constructs—such as social structure, process, stratification, institutions, or systems—risk becoming reified abstractions if they are not grounded in lived social experience, intercorporeality, chiasm (the intertwining of body, self, and world), and the intersubjective praxis of meaning and communication. These concepts must not remain detached theoretical formulations; they must be translated into the phenomenological and embodied dimensions of systems life.
Merleau-Ponty employs the concept of structure to indicate the integrated functioning of the organism within a general system of reference, emphasizing the dynamic interplay between perception, action, and environment. In this sense, a theory of social structure must engage with more than static forms; it must be responsive to embodied life and intersubjective relations.
Such a theory may take the form of a critical theory of social formation, a historical episteme in the Foucauldian sense, or the social construction of reality as articulated by Berger and Luckmann. What unifies these perspectives is the need to account for how meaning is enacted, negotiated, embodied, and stratified within the structures and practices that constitute social systemic life.
On the other hand, Lyotard’s critique of the alliance between science and technology—mediated through power relations—remains crucial for both the sociology of science and the public theology of science. However, his analysis tends to overlook recent breakthroughs in autopoiesis and the phenomenology of embodiment, where critical engagement with epigenetic science becomes central to redefining an organismic view of life and the mechanisms of power within socio-ecological contexts.
Coda
I have developed a structural theory of autopoiesis that engages with ecological thinking, emphasizing the importance of bringing forth a meaningful world. This approach combines a structural view of the lifeworld with second-order cybernetics (as articulated by Heinz von Foerster), exploring its implications through radical constructivism and examining its political-ethical consequences. The structural articulation of the lifeworld with second-order cybernetics highlights the politics of autopoiesis, particularly in refining the systemic construction of socio-cultural life.
This structural theory of autopoiesis integrates Habermas’s theory of communicative rationality and action within the framework of intersubjectivity, while also addressing some limitations in Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems. The significance of second-order cybernetics lies in its underlying self-referential feedback loops, re-entry, and cross-reference.
This epistemic stance supports a bilingual model for science-and-religion dialogue, engaging with theories of language games and paradigms to foster creative translation, constructivism, and co-constitution.
I reinterpret Husserl’s conception of the lifeworld as a foundational source of meaning, rationality, and intercorporeality, particularly in its capacity to uncover and critically examine cultural sedimentations, structural hierarchies, and latent forms of domination. This critique is not merely theoretical; it is essential to the emancipatory potential embedded in critical phenomenology, which remains crucial in underpinning a structural theory of systemic construction and the social reality it creates.
While Luhmann incorporates elements of Habermas’s notion of consensus—particularly regarding the validity claims underlying communicative action—he reconfigures them within a systems-theoretical framework, where validity is determined by systemic legitimation. However, unlike Lyotard’s concern with performativity and postmodern skepticism toward grand narratives, Luhmann’s approach is less focused on legitimation through homology or homeostasis—the stabilizing logic that often governs scientific communities and competing research programs.[25]
Instead, Luhmann emphasizes the self-referential dynamics of systems, which construct and maintain their own operational logic through structural coupling.
It seems somewhat unfair and reductive for a postmodern thinker like Jean-François Lyotard to accuse systems theory of operating solely through homology, homeostasis, or even terroristic behavior—portraying systems merely as instruments of technocratic control or performative domination. On the contrary, Luhmann’s concept of self-referential systems emphasizes not fixed control, but processual complexity, feedback loops, and the adaptive interaction between system and environment. This dynamic is articulated through first-order, second-order, and third-order observation, which clarifies the problematic regime through systemic rationality.
Rather than being rigid or power-determined, self-referential operations are fundamentally networked, dynamic, and embodied. They generate meaning through structural coupling and internal differentiation. Systems do not merely reflect external power relations; they co-evolve with their environments in ways that allow for emergence, innovation, and context-specific rationalities. This perspective addresses the politics of autopoiesis and epigenetics. The accusation of systemic determinism misses the enactive and ecological character of autopoietic systems—an aspect that is central not only to systems theory but also to contemporary phenomenological and biological approaches to cognition and society.
[1] M. Higashi and T. P. Burns, Theoretical Studies of Ecosystems: The Network Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991)
[2] Aristotle’s Politics, 2nd ed. trans. Carnes Lord (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), I, 11, 1258b, 33–34.
[3] Valera, et al., The Embodied Mind, 185.
[4] “An Interview with Francisco Varela,” Wild Duck Review a Literature, Necessary Mischief, & News, 1-7.
[5] Valera, et al., The Embodied Mind, 221. 223.
[6] Ibid., 223.
[7] Eugene P. Odum and Gary W. Barrett, Fundamentals of Ecology, 5th. Ed. Eugene P. Odum and Gary W. Barrett (Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2004), 2.
[8] Humberto Maturana and Francisco Valera, The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding, 2nd ed. (Boston, Mass.: Shambhala, 1987), 61-2.
[9] Habermas, Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985), 369–501.
[10] Hans-George Moeller, Luhmann Explained From Souls to Systems (Chicago and La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 2006), 73.
[11] Varela, “The early days of autopoiesis: Heinz and Chile. Systems Research” (1996) 13(3): 407– 416.
[12] Heinz von Foerster, Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition (New York: Springer, 2003), 283.
[13] Ibid. 284.
[14] Ibid., 286.
[15] Habermas, Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften, 404.
[16] von Foerster, Understanding Understanding, 196.
[17] Ibid., 244.
[18] Ibid., 282.
[19] Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 47.
[20] Valera, “A Calculus for Self-Reference,” International journal (1975), Vol.2. 6. [5-24]
[21] Ibid., 20.
[22] Thomas S. Kuhn, “Postscript-1969,” The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago, 1970), 203.
[23] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953), 66.
[24] Ian G. Barbour, When Science Meets Religion (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2000), 21.
[25] Jean-F.L Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. G. Bennington and B. Massumi (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 63.