#67: Autonomy, Autopoiesis & the Enactive Approach with philosopher Ezequiel Di Paolo

After Andrea’s introduction, Mirko Prokop talks to Ezequiel Di Paolo about the enactive approach in cognitive science and its roots in Francisco Varela’s work on biological autonomy. They explore the ideas of autonomy and autopoiesis, the deeper meaning of enaction, how biological, sensorimotor and social dimensions of embodiment drive the ongoing, creative process that is human becoming, and what this implies about the meaning of love, authenticity, and the importance of staying true to your questions.

Ezequiel is a Research Professor at Ikerbasque, the Basque Science Foundation and member of the IAS-Research Centre for Life, Mind and Society at the University of the Basque Country as well as the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics at the University of Sussex. He is known for key developments of the enactive approach and has published numerous articles and books on this and related topics in cognitive science and philosophy. Most recently, together with Evan Thompson he has reedited the new, annotated edition of Francisco Varela’s book Principles of Biological Autonomy, first published in 1979.

00:00 Intro by Andrea

05:02 Varela’s Principles of Biological Autonomy: From First Encounter to New Edition

11:25 Autopoiesis and Autonomy

19:20 Enaction: Bringing Forth a World

26:38 The Co-Construction of Organism and Environment

33:46 Dimensions of Embodiment

38:35 Enactive Becoming

43:57 The Primordial Tension of Participatory Sense-Making

52:32 What’s Love Got to Do With It?

1:00:36 Authentic Becoming

1:04:40 Staying True to Your Questions

Links to mentioned work by Varela & Co:

Principles of Biological Autonomy (Varela, F., E. Di Paolo and E. Thompson (eds.), 1979/2025, MIT Press)

The Embodied Mind (Thompson, E. Varela, F., and Rosch, E. 1991/2018, MIT Press)

Organism: A Meshwork of Selfless Selves (Varela, F., 1991)

Patterns of Life: Intertwining Identity and Cognition (Varela, F., 1997)

Life after Kant: Natural Purposes and the autopoietic foundations of biological individuality (Weber, A. and Varela, F., 2002)

Autopoiesis, Adaptivity, Teleology, Agency (Di Paolo, E., 2005)

Participatory sense-making: An enactive approach to social cognition (De Jaegher, H., and Di Paolo, E., 2007)

Sensorimotor Life (Di Paolo, E., Buhrmann, T., Barandiaran, X., 2017, OUP)

Linguistic Bodies (Di Paolo, E., De Jaegher, H., and Cuffari, E., 2018, MIT Press)

Enactive Becoming (Di Paolo, E., 2021)

F/acts: Ways of Enactive Worldmaking (Di Paolo, E., 2023)

Mirko Prokop is currently a PhD stud