Tim Miechels
Radboud University Nijmegen
Autopoiesis and sense-making
In The Structure of Behavior, Merleau-Ponty describes the world in terms of structures. He distinguishes three different orders of structures in reality, namely: the physical order, the vital order and the human order. My concern is with the first two orders, which differ in the fact that the structures in the vital order, unlike those in the physical order, are able to make sense of the world around them, thereby constructing a meaningful world.
Someone who takes up on this point is contemporary philosopher Evan Thompson. In his recent work Mind in Life he tries to show that the vital structures Merleau-Ponty is talking about can be scientifically explained in terms of autopoiesis, a theory concerning the organization of the living being established by the scientists Maturana and Varela. This theory, which treats the organism as a system that constantly has to maintain its own boundaries, can be seen as an attempt to scientifically account for sense-making in living beings.
The main question of my paper will be whether or not the theory of autopoiesis does indeed correspond to the living structures Merleau-Ponty has in mind. Can it account for the specific qualities that, according to Merleau-Ponty distinguish the realm of the living from the realm of the merely physical, the most important of which is sense-making? To answer this question, my paper will first of all deal with both the theory of vital structures and autopoiesis whilst also taking into account Di Paolo’s criticism of the claim that autopoiesis can account for sense-making.