Preface
These readings grew out of my teaching and research in psychology and neuroscience at Temple University. They bring together questions about living organization, cognition, and meaning that I have found difficult to separate. What follows from being a living thing that must continually produce and maintain itself? How does that bear on what an organism perceives and does, and on what becomes significant in its life?
The work of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela provides a starting point. Their account of living organization led them to rethink cognition, perception, and knowing. Later enactivist work has taken these ideas in several directions. The readings follow one of those directions, asking how sense-making and agency relate to the organization and activity of living beings.
My aim is to make these ideas accessible while leaving room to examine them. Some of the claims are difficult, and some remain contested. The examples and sources give readers ways to work through the arguments and consider what they help us explain.
Enacting Life is a companion to About Development, which asks how organized living beings and their capacities develop. The two resources approach overlapping questions from different starting points. Each can be read on its own.