Commentary on the Separate Prologues by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela to the Second Edition of 'De Maquinas y Seres Vivos-Autopoiesis: La organizacion de lo vivo'-Twenty Years After

摘要

The present paper introduces two documents written separately by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, which describe their early scientific and intellectual collaboration in the formulation of the idea of autopoiesis and reflect on how that idea impacted on the wider intellectual community up to the mid-1990s. The paper invites consideration of these papers in the context of the history of science as a rich narrative as to the way in which social, personal and historical factors deeply impact on any such work.