Works by F. Varela
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- The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience.Francisco J. Varela,Evan Thompson &Eleanor Rosch -1991 - MIT Press.The Embodied Mind provides a unique, sophisticated treatment of the spontaneous and reflective dimension of human experience.
- Principles of Biological Autonomy.Francisco J. Varela -1979 - North-Holland.
- Neurophenomenology: A methodological remedy for the hard problem.F. Varela -1996 -Journal of Consciousness Studies 3 (4):330-49.This paper responds to the issues raised by D. Chalmers by offering a research direction which is quite radical because of the way in which methodological principles are linked to scientific studies of consciousness. Neuro-phenomenology is the name I use here to designate a quest to marry modern cognitive science and a disciplined approach to human experience, thereby placing myself in the lineage of the continental tradition of Phenomenology. My claim is that the so-called hard problem that animates these Special (...) Issues can only be addressed productively by gathering a research community armed with new pragmatic tools for the development of a science of consciousness. I will claim that no piecemeal empirical correlates, nor purely theoretical principles, will really help us at this stage. We need to turn to a systematic exploration of the only link between mind and consciousness that seems both obvious and natural: the structure of human experience itself. In what follows I motivate my choice by briefly examining the current debate about consciousness at the light of Chalmer’s hard problem. Next, I outline the phenomenological strategy. Finally I conclude by discussing some of the main difficulties and consequences of this strategy. (shrink)
- Naturalizing Phenomenology: Issues in Contemporary Phenomenology and Cognitive Science.Jean Petitot,Francisco J. Varela,Bernard Pachoud &Jean-Michel Roy (eds.) -1999 - Stanford University Press.This ambitious work aims to shed new light on the relations between Husserlian phenomenology and the present-day efforts toward a scientific theory of cognition—with its complex structure of disciplines, levels of explanation, and ...
- The tree of knowledge:The biological roots of human understanding.Humberto R. Maturana &Francisco J. Varela -1992 -Cognition."Knowing how we know" is the subject of this book. Its authors present a new view of cognition that has important social and ethical implications, for, they assert, the only world we humans can have is the one we create together through the actions of our coexistence. Written for a general audience as well as for students, scholars, and scientists and abundantly illustrated with examples from biology, linguistics, and new social and cultural phenomena, this revised edition includes a new afterword (...) by Dr. Varela, in which he discusses the effect the book has had in the years since its first publication. (shrink)
- Radical embodiment: Neural dynamics and consciousness.Evan Thompson &Francisco J. Varela -2001 -Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5 (10):418-425.
- Ethical know-how: action, wisdom, and cognition.Francisco J. Varela -1999 - Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.How can science be brought to connect with experience? This book addresses two of the most challenging problems facing contemporary neurobiology and cognitive science. Firstly, understanding how we unconsciously execute habitual actions as a result of neurological and cognitive processes that are not formal actions of conscious judgment but part of a habitual nexus of systematic self-organization. Secondly, attempting to create an ethics adequate to our present awareness that there is no such thing as a transcendental self, a stable subject (...) or soul. The author combines researches in cognitive science and phenomenology with two representatives of what he calls the 'wisdom traditions': Confucianism and Buddhist epistemology. (shrink)
- The specious present: A neurophenomenology of time consciousness.Francisco Varela -1999 - In Jean Petitot, Francisco J. Varela, Bernard Pachoud & Jean-Michel Roy,Naturalizing Phenomenology: Issues in Contemporary Phenomenology and Cognitive Science. Stanford University Press. pp. 266--314.
- On Becoming Aware: A Pragmatics of Experiencing.Natalie Depraz,Francisco J. Varela &Pierre Vermersch -2003 - John Benjamins.Searches for the sources and means for a disciplined practical approach to exploring human experience.
- The view from within: first-person approaches to the study of consciousness.Jonathan Shear &Francisco J. Varela (eds.) -1999 - Bowling Green, OH: Imprint Academic.The study of conscious experience per se has not kept pace with the dramatic advances in PET, fMRI and other brain-scanning technologies. If anything, the standard approaches to examining the 'view from within' involve little more than cataloguing its readily accessible components. Thus the study of lived subjective experience is still at the level of Aristotelian science, leading to a widespread scepticism over the possibility of a truly scientific study of conscious experience. Drawing on a wide range of approaches -- (...) from phenomenology to meditation -- The View From Within examines the possibility of a disciplined approach to the study of subjective states. The focus is on the practical issues involved. (shrink)
- Ways of coloring: Comparative color vision as a case study for cognitive science.Evan Thompson,Adrian Palacios &Francisco J. Varela -1992 -Behavioral and Brain Sciences 15 (1):1-26.
- Beyond the gap: An introduction to naturalizing phenomenology.Jean-Michel Roy,Jean Petitot,Bernard Pachoud &Francisco J. Varela -1999 - In Jean Petitot, Francisco J. Varela, Bernard Pachoud & Jean-Michel Roy,Naturalizing Phenomenology: Issues in Contemporary Phenomenology and Cognitive Science. Stanford University Press.
- Guiding the study of brain dynamics by using first- person data: Synchrony patterns correlate with ongoing conscious states during a simple visual task.Antoine Lutz,Jacques Martinerie,Jean-Philippe Lachaux &Francisco J. Varela -2002 -Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the Usa 99 (3):1586-1591.Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Imagerie Ce´re´brale (LENA), Hoˆpital de La Salpeˆtrie`re, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).
- First-person methodologies: What, why, how?Francisco Varela &Jonathan Shear -1999 -Journal of Consciousness Studies 6 (2-3):1-14.
- The naturalization of phenomenology as the transcendence of nature: Searching for generative mutual constraints.Francisco J. Varela -1997 -Alter: revue de phénoménologie 5:355-385.No categories
- (2 other versions)Redrawing the map and resetting the time: Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences.Shaun Gallagher &Francisco Varela -2001 -Canadian Journal of Philosophy.
- Present-time consciousness.Francisco J. Varela -1999 -Journal of Consciousness Studies 6 (2-3):111-140.My purpose in this article is to propose an explicitly naturalized account of the experience of present nowness on the basis of two complementary sources: phenomenological analysis and cognitive neuroscience. What I mean by naturalization, and the role cognitive neuroscience plays will become clear as the paper unfolds, but the main intention is to use the consciousness of present time as a study case for the phenomenological framework presented by Depraz in this Special Issue.
- Phenomenology In Consciousness Research.Francisco Varela -1996 -Journal of Consciousness Studies 3 (4):330-349.
- At the source of time: Valence and the constitutional dynamics of affect: The question, the background: How affect originarily shapes time.Francisco J. Varela -2005 -Journal of Consciousness Studies 12 (8-10):8-10.This paper represents a step in the analysis of the key, but much-neglected role of affect and emotions as the originary source of the living present, as a foundational dimension of the moment-to-moment emergence of consciousness. In a more general sense, we may express the question in the following terms: there seems to be a growing consensus from various sources -- philosophical, empirical and clinical -- that emotions cannot be seen as a mere 'coloration' of the cognitive agent, understood as (...) a formal or un-affected self, but are immanent and inextricable from every mental act. How can this be borne out, beyond just announcing it? Specifically, what is the role of affect-emotion in the self-movement of the flow, of the. (shrink)
- Mechanism and biological explanation.Francisco Varela &Humberto Maturana -1972 -Philosophy of Science 39 (3):378-382.Machines and Biology have been, since antiquity, closely related. From the zoological figures present in astronomical simulacra, through renaissance mechanical imitations of animals, through Decartes' wind pipe nerves, to present day discussions on the computer and the brain, runs a continuous thread. In fact, the very name of mechanism for an attitude of inquiry throughout the history of Biology reveals this at a philosophical level. More often than not, mechanism is mentioned in opposition to vitalism, as an assertion of the (...) validity of the objectivity principle in biology: there are no purposes in animal nature; its apparent purposefulness is similar to the purposefulness of machines. Yet, the fact that one picks machines as a set of objects comparable to living systems, deserves a closer look. What in machines makes it possible to establish such a connection? (shrink)
- The basic cycle.Natalie Depraz,Francisco Varela &Pierre Vermersch -2003 - In Natalie Depraz, Francisco J. Varela & Pierre Vermersch,On Becoming Aware: A Pragmatics of Experiencing. John Benjamins. pp. 15-63.
- Intimate distances: Fragments for a phenomenology of organ transplantation.F. Varela -2001 -Journal of Consciousness Studies 8 (5-7):259-271.In this article, the author uses his recent experience of organ transplantation as the basis for reflection on phenomenologically-derived notions of lived experience, temporality, selfhood and medical ethics.
- The gesture of awareness: An account of its structural dynamics.Natalie Depraz,F. Varela &Pierre Vermersch -2000 - In Max Velmans,Investigating Phenomenal Consciousness: New Methodologies and Maps. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 13--121.
- Peer commentary and responses 307.Francisco Varela &Jonathan Shear -1999 - In Jonathan Shear & Francisco J. Varela,The view from within: first-person approaches to the study of consciousness. Bowling Green, OH: Imprint Academic. pp. 6--2.
- Color vision: A case study in the Foundations of Cognitive Science.Francisco J. Varela &Evan Thompson -1990 -Revue de Synthèse 111 (1-2):129-138.No categories
- Neurofenomenologia: metodologiczne lekarstwo na trudny problem.Francisco Varela -2010 -Avant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies 1 (1):31-73.This paper responds to the issues raised by D. Chalmers by offering a research direction which is quite radical because of the way in which methodological principles are linked to scientific studies of consciousness. Neuro-phenomenology is the name I use here to designate a quest to marry modern cognitive science and a disciplined approach to human experience, thereby placing myself in the lineage of the continental tradition of Phenomenology. My claim is that the so-called hard problem that animates these Special (...) Issues can only be addressed productively by gathering a research community armed with new pragmatic tools for the development of a science of consciousness. I will claim that no piecemeal empirical correlates, nor purely theoretical principles, will really help us at this stage. We need to turn to a systematic exploration of the only link between mind and consciousness that seems both obvious and natural: the structure of human experience itself. In what follows I motivate my choice by briefly examining the current debate about consciousness at the light of Chalmer’s hard problem. Next, I outline the phenomenological strategy. Finally I conclude by discussing some of the main difficulties and consequences of this strategy. (shrink)
- Neural synchrony and the unity of mind: A neurophenomenological perspective.F. Varela &Evan Thompson -2003 - In Axel Cleeremans,The Unity of Consciousness: Binding, Integration, and Dissociation. Oxford University Press.
- A science of consciousness as if experience mattered.F. Varela -1998 - In Stuart R. Hameroff, Alfred W. Kaszniak & A. C. Scott,Toward a Science of Consciousness 1996. MIT Press.
- Life after Kant: Natural purposes and the autopoietic foundations of biological individuality. [REVIEW]Andreas Weber &Francisco J. Varela -2002 -Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1 (2):97-125.This paper proposes a basic revision of the understanding of teleology in biological sciences. Since Kant, it has become customary to view purposiveness in organisms as a bias added by the observer; the recent notion of teleonomy expresses well this as-if character of natural purposes. In recent developments in science, however, notions such as self-organization (or complex systems) and the autopoiesis viewpoint, have displaced emergence and circular self-production as central features of life. Contrary to an often superficial reading, Kant gives (...) a multi-faceted account of the living, and anticipates this modern reading of the organism, even introducing the term self-organization for the first time. Our re-reading of Kant in this light is strengthened by a group of philosophers of biology, with Hans Jonas as the central figure, who put back on center stage an organism-centered view of the living, an autonomous center of concern capable of providing an interior perspective. Thus, what is present in nuce in Kant, finds a convergent development from this current of philosophy of biology and the scientific ideas around autopoeisis, two independent but parallel developments culminating in the 1970s. Instead of viewing meaning or value as artifacts or illusions, both agree on a new understanding of a form of immanent teleology as truly biological features, inevitably intertwined with the self-establishment of an identity which is the living process. (shrink)
- Neural synchrony and the unity of mind: A neurophenomenological perspective.F. Varela &Evan Thompson -2003 - In Axel Cleeremans,The Unity of Consciousness: Binding, Integration, and Dissociation. Oxford University Press.
- A Cognitive view of the immune system.Francisco Varela -1994 -World Futures 42 (1):31-40.
- Der Baum der Erkenntnis. Die biologischen Wurzeln des menschlichen Erkennens.Humberto R. Maturana &Francisco J. Varela -1989 -Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 20 (1):166-169.No categories
- Experimental Epistemology: Background and Future.Francisco Varela -unknown -Eidos: The Canadian Graduate Journal of Philosophy 5.
- Truth is what works : Francisco J. Varela on cognitive science, buddhism, the inseparability of subject and object, and the exaggerations of constructivism--a conversation.Francisco J. Varela &Bernhard Poerksen -2006 -Journal of Aesthetic Education 40 (1):35-53.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.1 (2006) 35-53 [Access article in PDF] "Truth Is What Works": Francisco J. Varela on Cognitive Science, Buddhism, the Inseparability of Subject and Object, and the Exaggerations of Constructivism—A Conversation Francisco J. Varela Bernhard Poerksen Institut für Journalistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft Universität Hamburg Francisco J. Varela (1946-2001) studied biology in Santiago de Chile, obtained his doctorate 1970 at Harvard University with a dissertation on the (...) insect eye, and worked there for some time in the laboratory of Torsten Wiesel, the later Nobel Laureate for medicine. From his scientific beginnings as a researcher in biology, he not only studied and practiced biology but, resisting the dominating mainstream, pursued a research program that ignored and broke down traditional disciplinary boundaries. This research program is best characterized as experimental epistemology, a concept introduced by the neuropsychiatrist and cybernetician Warren S. McCulloch. Francisco J. Varela's great aspiration was to examine and answer the philosophical ur-question of cognition with scientific precision and with the help of the best possible theoretical framework. [End Page 35]Having obtained his doctorate, he went back to Chile to work as a professor of biology together with Humberto R. Maturana. He contributed to the writing of the theory of autopoiesis, which was to cause a furor in the world of science as a universally applicable explanatory model. After the overthrow of Allende and the installation of the dictatorship by the putsch general Pinochet, Francisco J. Varela first escaped to Costa Rica, then became a professor at the American University of Colorado and University of New York, and finally returned in 1980 to the University of Chile in Santiago for five years. Temporary positions as guest professor for neurobiology, philosophy, and cognitive science in Germany, Switzerland, and France led him to Paris in the end, where he worked as research director of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique until his death on May 28, 2001.In his research work embracing cognitive science, evolutionary theory, and immunology, Francisco J. Varela, constantly inspired by his fundamental interest in the key questions of epistemology, gave the epistemological debate a new orientation. In his thinking he refuses to accept the strict separation of subject and object, of knower and known, which as a rule unites realists and constructivists alike. Francisco J. Varela rejects the fundamental dualism dividing mind and world, which had shaped Western philosophy from its earliest beginnings. He does not subscribe to the idea that human individuals can invent their own realities—blindly and arbitrarily, and without experiencing any resistance from the external world and all other things given. He equally distances himself, however, from the diametrically opposite position that overstates the eigenpower of the world of objects. The external world and all other things given cannot determine what happens in an organism. Varela's claim is that individual and world create each other. The Computational Model of the Mind Poerksen: The ancient key questions of philosophy are at the center of modern cognitive science. What is the essence of the mind? Do our conceptions represent a given world, which is independent from our minds? What is the formative power of external objects over our perceptions? How does cognition function? The search for an adequate answer and an improved understanding of the human mind has led many cognitive scientists to entertain the assumption that the brain is actually a kind of computer. Memory is taken to be a store. Thinking and perceiving are understood as data processing in the sense that an independent external world is computationally transformed into symbols and represented in the organism in this manner. You are very critical of this view. Why?Varela: If the brain is considered as a kind of computer, then cognitive research is limited to discovering certain self-sufficient shapes—the symbols—together with the rules [End Page 36] governing them—the programs. But this search for symbols and programs will never be profitable because it... (shrink)
- Neural synchrony and consciousness: Are we getting somewhere?F. Varela -2000 -Consciousness and Cognition 9 (2):S26 - S27.
- (1 other version)Understanding Origins. Contemporary Views on the Origin of Life.Francisco J. Varela &Jean-Pierre Dupuy -forthcoming -Mind and Society. Dordrecht, Boston, London.
- On the ways to color.Evan Thompson,Adrian Palacios &Francisco J. Varela -1992 -Behavioral and Brain Sciences 15 (1):56-74.
- El arbol del conocimiento: las bases biológicas del conocimiento humano.Humberto R. Maturana &Francisco J. Varela -1990 - Madrid: Editorial Debate. Edited by Francisco J. Varela.
- Upwards and downwards causation in the brain: Case studies on the emergence and efficacy of consciousness.F. Varela -2002 - In Kunio Yasue, Mari Jibu & Tarcisio Della Senta,No Matter, Never Mind: Proceedings of Toward a Science of Consciousness: Fundamental Approaches (Tokyo '99). John Benjamins. pp. 33--95.
- Autopoiesis and lifelines: The importance of origins.Evan Thompson &Francisco J. Varela -1999 -Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (5):909-910.Lifelines provides a useful corrective to “ultra-Darwinism” but it is marred by its failure to cite its scientific predecessors. Rose's argument could have been strengthened by taking greater account of the theory of autopoiesis in biology and of enactive cognitive science.
- Przerysować mapę i przestawić czas: fenomenologia i nauki kognitywne.Shaun Gallagher &Francisco Varela -2010 -Avant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies 1 (1):77-122.We argue that phenomenology can be of central and positive importance to the cognitive sciences, and that it can also learn from the empirical research conducted in those sciences. We discuss the project of naturalizing phenomenology and how this can be best accomplished. We provide several examples of how phenomenology and the cognitive sciences can integrate their research. Specifically, we consider issues related to embodied cognition and intersubjectivity. We provide a detailed analysis of issues related to time-consciousness, with reference to (...) understanding schizophrenia and the loss of the sense of agency. We offer a positive proposal to address these issues based on a neurobiological dynamic-systems model. (shrink)
- Naturalizing Teleology: Towards a Theory of Biological Subjects.Andreas Weber &Francisco J. Varela -2008 - In Luca Illetterati,Purposiveness: Teleology Between Nature and Mind. Ontos Verlag. pp. 201-220.No categories
- La réduction a l’épreuve de l’expérience.Natalie Depraz,Francisco J. Varela &Pierre Vermersch -2000 -Études Phénoménologiques 16 (31-32):165-184.
- The extended calculus of indications interpreted as a three-valued logic.Francisco J. Varela -1979 -Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 20 (1):141-146.
- Size constancy and the problem of perceptual spaces.Humberto R. Maturana,Samy G. Frenk &Francisco G. Varela -1972 -Cognition 1 (1):97-104.The phenomenon of size constancy is defined as the apparent perceptual invariance of the linear dimensions of a seen object as this approaches the eye or recedes from it. It has been interpreted as resulting from the application by the brain of a size correction, made possible by the subject's apprehension of distance cues present in the image. We present several observations which, by dissociating accommodation from distance of the seen object and by suppressing the optic effects of accommodation on (...) the visual image itself, show that this interpretation is incorrect, and that in fact the size correction of the visual image is a function of the central effort of accommodation, not of the distance of the seen object. (shrink)
- Approches de l'intentionnalité : de l'individu aux groupes sociaux.Francisco Varela -forthcoming -Rhuthmos.Dans cette conférence de 1996, Francisco Varela tente d'établir une homologie formelle entre l'émergence cognitive dans le monde du vivant et celle propre au monde social. Texte retranscrit par Christiane Peyron-Bonjan, soumis au conférencier et corrigé par ses soins. 1. Introduction Je vous remercie de votre invitation à faire une communication ici. Il y a une semaine, à Londres, j'ai participé à un colloque homologue, intitulé « Complexity and Strategy » organisé par le Santa Fe Institute for the - Biologie.No categories
- Between Turing and quantum mechanics there is body to be found.Francisco J. Varela -1990 -Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13 (4):687-688.
- Cartas a Elpidio sobre impiedad, la superstición y el fanatismo en sus relaciones con la sociedad.Félix Varela &Humberto Piñera Llera -1944 - Universidad de la Habana.
- Editors' rejoinder to the debate.F. J. Varela &Jonathan Shear -1999 -Journal of Consciousness Studies 6 (2-3):2-3.Response to the Commentary on ‘The View from Within’ The numerous commentators to this Special Issue have greatly enhanced its focus and usefulness. We thank them all very sincerely for their efforts. Within the restricted space of this rejoinder we cannot respond in detail to all the issues raised. Instead, we shall concentrate first on some fundamental criticisms.The remaining additions and complementary ideas will only be touched on briefly, merely to see them in perspective. We shall start with our two (...) main critics of the global enterprise, Baars and Nixon. They both offer arguments that our enterprise is misguided, but their arguments fall on two opposite extremes: empirical and hermeneutical. (shrink)
- Fully embodying the personal level.Francisco J. Varela &Pierre Vermersch -1998 -Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (6):777-778.The target article concludes that it is essential to introduce the personal level in cognitive science. We propose to take this conclusion one step further. The personal level should consist of first-person accounts of specific, contextualized experiences, not abstract or imagined cases. Exploring first-person accounts at their own level of detail calls for the refinements of method that can link up with neural accounts.
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David Bourget (Western Ontario)
David Chalmers (ANU, NYU)
Area Editors:
David Bourget
Gwen Bradford
Berit Brogaard
Margaret Cameron
David Chalmers
James Chase
Rafael De Clercq
Ezio Di Nucci
Esa Diaz-Leon
Barry Hallen
Hans Halvorson
Jonathan Ichikawa
Monte Johnson
Michelle Kosch
Øystein Linnebo
Paul Livingston
Brandon Look
Manolo Martínez
Matthew McGrath
Michiru Nagatsu
Susana Nuccetelli
Giuseppe Primiero
Jack Alan Reynolds
Darrell P. Rowbottom
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Howard Sankey
Jonathan Schaffer
Thomas Senor
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