John Mingers: Self-Producing Systems: Implications and Applications of Autopoiesis (1995)

“This is the first volume to offer comprehensive coverage of autopoiesis-critically examining the theory itself and its applications in philosophy, law, family therapy, and cognitive science.”

Publisher Springer, Dordrecht
Contemporary Systems Thinking series
ISBN 0306447975, 9780306447976
246 pages

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2012-7-29)

Humberto R. Maturana, Francisco J. Varela: Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living (1972–) [ES, EN, IT]

“What makes a living system a living system? What kind of biological phenomenon is the phenomenon of cognition? These two questions have been frequently considered, but, in this volume, the authors consider them as concrete biological questions. Their analysis is bold and provocative, for the authors have constructed a systematic theoretical biology which attempts to define living systems not as objects of observation and description, nor even as interacting systems, but as self-contained unities whose only reference is to themselves. The consequence of their investigations and of their living systems as self-making, self-referring autonomous unities, is that they discovered that the two questions have a common answer: living systems are cognitive systems, and living as a process is a process of cognition. The result of their investigations is a completely new perspective of biological (human) phenomena. During the investigations, it was found that a complete linguistic description pertaining to the ‘organization of the living’ was lacking and, in fact, was hampering the reporting of results. Hence, the authors have coined the word ‘autopoiesis’ to replace the expression ‘circular organization’. Autopoiesis conveys, by itself, the central feature of the organization of the living, which is autonomy.”

Spanish edition
Translated by Carmen Cienfuegos
Publisher Editorial Universitaria, Santiago de Chile, 1972

English edition
With a preface by Stafford Beer
Publisher D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht/Boston/London, 1980
Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 42
ISBN 9027710163
147 pages

Autopoiesis on Wikipedia (EN)

De máquinas y seres vivos: Una teoría sobre la organización biológica (Spanish, trans. Carmen Cienfuegos, 4th ed., 1972/1998, updated on 2020-4-17)
Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living (English, 1980, updated on 2012-7-18)
Autopoiesi e cognizione: la realizzazione del vivente (Italian, trans. Alessandra Stragapede, 1985, added on 2020-4-17)

See also Varela, Maturana, Uribe, Autopoiesis, 1974. (added on 2014-6-2)

Félix Guattari: Chaosmosis: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm (1992–) [PT, EN, ES, IT]

Guattari’s final book is a succinct summary of his socio-philosophical outlook. It includes critical reflections on Lacanian psychoanalysis, structuralism, information theory, postmodernism, and the thought of Heidegger, Bakhtin, Barthes, and others.

Originally published in French as Chaosmose, Editions Galilee, Paris, 1992.

English edition
Translated by Paul Bains and Julian Pefanis
Publisher Indiana University Press, 1995
ISBN 0253210046, 9780253210043
144 pages

publisher (EN)
google books (EN)

Caosmose (Portuguese, trans. Ana Lúcia de Oliveira and Lúcia Cláudia Leão, 1992, added on 2013-9-26)
Chaosmosis (English, trans. Paul Bains and Julian Pefanis, 1995, updated on 2015-3-26)
Caosmosis (Spanish, trans. Irene Agoff, 1996, added on 2013-1-5)
Caosmosi (Italian, trans. Massimiliano Guareschi, 1996, no OCR, added on 2013-1-5)