Dialectical Systems
@dialecticalsys.bsky.social
A forum in Biology, Ecology and Cognitive Science
Very nice upcoming workshop at the Center for Philosophical Psychology (University of Antwerp) on how radical embodiment unfolds in complex, “wild” real-world environments.
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/events/works...
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/events/works...
November 7, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Very nice upcoming workshop at the Center for Philosophical Psychology (University of Antwerp) on how radical embodiment unfolds in complex, “wild” real-world environments.
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/events/works...
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/events/works...
Marx as a philosophical biologist?
Chris Shambaugh on young Marx's account of organismal agency, its relation to human life to the critique of capitalism.
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
Chris Shambaugh on young Marx's account of organismal agency, its relation to human life to the critique of capitalism.
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
November 6, 2025 at 7:35 AM
Marx as a philosophical biologist?
Chris Shambaugh on young Marx's account of organismal agency, its relation to human life to the critique of capitalism.
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
Chris Shambaugh on young Marx's account of organismal agency, its relation to human life to the critique of capitalism.
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
➡️New article out⬅️
@leonardobich.bsky.social and @lauramenatti.bsky.social
argue that health is not about balance or stability, but about adapting and transforming in response to changing circumstances — the capacity for adaptive change.
link.springer.com/journal/13752
@leonardobich.bsky.social and @lauramenatti.bsky.social
argue that health is not about balance or stability, but about adapting and transforming in response to changing circumstances — the capacity for adaptive change.
link.springer.com/journal/13752
October 30, 2025 at 8:49 AM
➡️New article out⬅️
@leonardobich.bsky.social and @lauramenatti.bsky.social
argue that health is not about balance or stability, but about adapting and transforming in response to changing circumstances — the capacity for adaptive change.
link.springer.com/journal/13752
@leonardobich.bsky.social and @lauramenatti.bsky.social
argue that health is not about balance or stability, but about adapting and transforming in response to changing circumstances — the capacity for adaptive change.
link.springer.com/journal/13752
How did regulation and agency arise before genes?
Shirt-Ediss et al. model evolving protocell ecologies with the Araudia platform—showing how simple metabolic systems can “learn” to adapt to changing environments
dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
Shirt-Ediss et al. model evolving protocell ecologies with the Araudia platform—showing how simple metabolic systems can “learn” to adapt to changing environments
dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
New Paper (2025): Modelling the prebiotic origins of regulation and agency in evolving protocell ecologies - Dialectical Systems
How could the first living systems learn to regulate themselves before the emergence of genes? In their new paper, Ben Shirt-Ediss, Arián Ferrero-Fernández, Daniele De Martino, Leonardo Bich, Álvaro M...
dialecticalsystems.eu
October 15, 2025 at 9:05 AM
How did regulation and agency arise before genes?
Shirt-Ediss et al. model evolving protocell ecologies with the Araudia platform—showing how simple metabolic systems can “learn” to adapt to changing environments
dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
Shirt-Ediss et al. model evolving protocell ecologies with the Araudia platform—showing how simple metabolic systems can “learn” to adapt to changing environments
dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
How does life emerge from nonlife?
New special issue of the Royal Transactions brings together leading thinkers on the origins of life—where chemistry meets information, and evolution unfolds through the “adjacent possible.”
dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
New special issue of the Royal Transactions brings together leading thinkers on the origins of life—where chemistry meets information, and evolution unfolds through the “adjacent possible.”
dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
October 8, 2025 at 9:36 AM
How does life emerge from nonlife?
New special issue of the Royal Transactions brings together leading thinkers on the origins of life—where chemistry meets information, and evolution unfolds through the “adjacent possible.”
dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
New special issue of the Royal Transactions brings together leading thinkers on the origins of life—where chemistry meets information, and evolution unfolds through the “adjacent possible.”
dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
📖 New Book Out
Alvaro Moreno & Juli Peretó explore the major transitions in biological agency—from origins of life to metazoans—showing how agency drives the evolution of biological complexity
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
Alvaro Moreno & Juli Peretó explore the major transitions in biological agency—from origins of life to metazoans—showing how agency drives the evolution of biological complexity
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
October 3, 2025 at 7:31 AM
📖 New Book Out
Alvaro Moreno & Juli Peretó explore the major transitions in biological agency—from origins of life to metazoans—showing how agency drives the evolution of biological complexity
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
Alvaro Moreno & Juli Peretó explore the major transitions in biological agency—from origins of life to metazoans—showing how agency drives the evolution of biological complexity
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin
A hybrid conference bringing together voices old and new to revisit how The Dialectical Biologist still resonates, and reinvigorates, contemporary biology
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/events/diale...
A hybrid conference bringing together voices old and new to revisit how The Dialectical Biologist still resonates, and reinvigorates, contemporary biology
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/events/diale...
September 26, 2025 at 8:59 AM
Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin
A hybrid conference bringing together voices old and new to revisit how The Dialectical Biologist still resonates, and reinvigorates, contemporary biology
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/events/diale...
A hybrid conference bringing together voices old and new to revisit how The Dialectical Biologist still resonates, and reinvigorates, contemporary biology
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/events/diale...
Dialectics meets the enactive approach!
Join us for Dialectics and the Embodied Mind
📍 Univ. of Luxembourg | Sept 22–23
dialecticalsystems.eu/events/inter...
Join us for Dialectics and the Embodied Mind
📍 Univ. of Luxembourg | Sept 22–23
dialecticalsystems.eu/events/inter...
September 15, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Dialectics meets the enactive approach!
Join us for Dialectics and the Embodied Mind
📍 Univ. of Luxembourg | Sept 22–23
dialecticalsystems.eu/events/inter...
Join us for Dialectics and the Embodied Mind
📍 Univ. of Luxembourg | Sept 22–23
dialecticalsystems.eu/events/inter...
Reposted by Dialectical Systems
Inspiring work by Denis Walsh on organism/ environment dialectic, along side @jonothingeb.bsky.social and Stuart Newman ! #ISHPSSB2025 is such a treat !
July 22, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Inspiring work by Denis Walsh on organism/ environment dialectic, along side @jonothingeb.bsky.social and Stuart Newman ! #ISHPSSB2025 is such a treat !
Since its beginnings, the enactive approach has shown how autonomy is scaffolded across biological, sensorimotor, and social dimensions.
This new video interview with Ezequiel Di Paolo tells the story in an accessible way:
youtube.com/watch?v=y4Dz...
This new video interview with Ezequiel Di Paolo tells the story in an accessible way:
youtube.com/watch?v=y4Dz...
Originals | Ezequiel Di Paolo: Linguistic Bodies and Sensorimotor Agency
YouTube video by Originals
youtube.com
July 10, 2025 at 6:43 AM
Since its beginnings, the enactive approach has shown how autonomy is scaffolded across biological, sensorimotor, and social dimensions.
This new video interview with Ezequiel Di Paolo tells the story in an accessible way:
youtube.com/watch?v=y4Dz...
This new video interview with Ezequiel Di Paolo tells the story in an accessible way:
youtube.com/watch?v=y4Dz...
Integrating dialectical insights into cognitive science has driven advances in the enactive approach. This new paper opens a dialogue between enaction and Marxism, highlighting labor as a form of an ecological and distributed cognition
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
An enactive account of labor - Mind & Society
This paper aims to build a theoretical bridge between the Marxist and enactive traditions by focusing on the concept of labor. While labor represents a central component of human experience, it remain...
link.springer.com
July 3, 2025 at 8:35 AM
Integrating dialectical insights into cognitive science has driven advances in the enactive approach. This new paper opens a dialogue between enaction and Marxism, highlighting labor as a form of an ecological and distributed cognition
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Today we celebrate the new edition of Varela’s Principles of Biological Autonomy (1979) from MIT Press, with a new critical apparatus by Ezequiel Di Paolo & Evan Thompson, reconnecting Varela's legacy in cognitive science to his theoretical biology
dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
New edition of Principles of Biological Autonomy - Dialectical Systems
Today, we celebrate the new publication of Principles of Biological Autonomy (1979) by MIT Press, now accompanied by a new critical apparatus by Ezequiel Di Paolo and Evan Thompson.Varela’s ideas cont...
dialecticalsystems.eu
June 17, 2025 at 8:15 AM
Today we celebrate the new edition of Varela’s Principles of Biological Autonomy (1979) from MIT Press, with a new critical apparatus by Ezequiel Di Paolo & Evan Thompson, reconnecting Varela's legacy in cognitive science to his theoretical biology
dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
Embodied & enactive approaches aren’t just about individual cognition — they’re about society.
A new Mind & Society special issue brings enactivism into conversation with ethics, social theory & political philosophy.
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
A new Mind & Society special issue brings enactivism into conversation with ethics, social theory & political philosophy.
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
June 10, 2025 at 7:27 AM
Embodied & enactive approaches aren’t just about individual cognition — they’re about society.
A new Mind & Society special issue brings enactivism into conversation with ethics, social theory & political philosophy.
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
A new Mind & Society special issue brings enactivism into conversation with ethics, social theory & political philosophy.
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
Reposted by Dialectical Systems
Really excited to read the reprint of Varela’s Biological Autonomy annotated by @evanthompson.bsky.social. I really want to offer a special topics course focusing on it in an upcoming semester.
May 24, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Really excited to read the reprint of Varela’s Biological Autonomy annotated by @evanthompson.bsky.social. I really want to offer a special topics course focusing on it in an upcoming semester.
Collin Lucken & Elmo Feiten use the enactive concept of participatory sense-making to ground public science engagement, showing how core ideas from embodied cognition can scale beyond motor coordination to illuminate social cognition in practice
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Leveraging participatory sense-making and public engagement with science for AI democratization
Our paper explores new potentials for productive dialogue between public engagement with science (PEWS) and radical embodied cognitive science (RECS).…
www.sciencedirect.com
April 15, 2025 at 6:48 AM
Collin Lucken & Elmo Feiten use the enactive concept of participatory sense-making to ground public science engagement, showing how core ideas from embodied cognition can scale beyond motor coordination to illuminate social cognition in practice
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Henry Potter and @wiringthebrain.bsky.social challenge reductive views in neuroscience by introducing richer, temporally extended notions of causality and arguing to re-center cognition and the organism as genuine causal agents in behavior
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Beyond Mechanism—Extending Our Concepts of Causation in Neuroscience
The search for neural mechanisms of behaviour often relies on a synchronic, driving view of causation, where neural activity drives more neural activity, which eventually drives behaviour. The real c...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
April 10, 2025 at 8:18 AM
Henry Potter and @wiringthebrain.bsky.social challenge reductive views in neuroscience by introducing richer, temporally extended notions of causality and arguing to re-center cognition and the organism as genuine causal agents in behavior
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Reposted by Dialectical Systems
The audio recording of our fantastic event with Kevin J. Mitchell and Anil Seth, FREE AGENTS: Did Evolution Give Us Free Will?, is now up on our website and Youtube Channel. Go take a listen now!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVr-...
@wiringthebrain.bsky.social @anilseth.bsky.social
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVr-...
@wiringthebrain.bsky.social @anilseth.bsky.social
April 8, 2025 at 11:02 AM
The audio recording of our fantastic event with Kevin J. Mitchell and Anil Seth, FREE AGENTS: Did Evolution Give Us Free Will?, is now up on our website and Youtube Channel. Go take a listen now!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVr-...
@wiringthebrain.bsky.social @anilseth.bsky.social
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVr-...
@wiringthebrain.bsky.social @anilseth.bsky.social
Reposted by Dialectical Systems
The media circus on the slightly modified wolf mixed with the nonsensical hype of de-extinction only highlights the need to greatly shift how we talk about genes and genetic "information" in popular discourse. Oyama's groundbreaking book and Lewontin's prescient forward should be a starting point.
April 8, 2025 at 11:18 AM
The media circus on the slightly modified wolf mixed with the nonsensical hype of de-extinction only highlights the need to greatly shift how we talk about genes and genetic "information" in popular discourse. Oyama's groundbreaking book and Lewontin's prescient forward should be a starting point.
Reposted by Dialectical Systems
Information and data will never deliver creativity
— Life, information, and the search for meaning
New piece over at @iai.tv
In which I quote Colwyn Trevarthen and David Bowie.
iai.tv/articles/inf...
— Life, information, and the search for meaning
New piece over at @iai.tv
In which I quote Colwyn Trevarthen and David Bowie.
iai.tv/articles/inf...
Information and data will never deliver creativity | Hanne De Jaegher
iai.tv
April 7, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Information and data will never deliver creativity
— Life, information, and the search for meaning
New piece over at @iai.tv
In which I quote Colwyn Trevarthen and David Bowie.
iai.tv/articles/inf...
— Life, information, and the search for meaning
New piece over at @iai.tv
In which I quote Colwyn Trevarthen and David Bowie.
iai.tv/articles/inf...
Reposted by Dialectical Systems
𝗕𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗺: 𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲
Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon: Join our discussion with @wiringthebrain.bsky.social
Apr 11 at noon EST USA time.
Here's the paper to get the discussion going:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Everyone welcome but register ->
Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon: Join our discussion with @wiringthebrain.bsky.social
Apr 11 at noon EST USA time.
Here's the paper to get the discussion going:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Everyone welcome but register ->
Beyond Mechanism—Extending Our Concepts of Causation in Neuroscience
The search for neural mechanisms of behaviour often relies on a synchronic, driving view of causation, where neural activity drives more neural activity, which eventually drives behaviour. The real c....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
April 6, 2025 at 4:03 PM
𝗕𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗺: 𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲
Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon: Join our discussion with @wiringthebrain.bsky.social
Apr 11 at noon EST USA time.
Here's the paper to get the discussion going:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Everyone welcome but register ->
Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon: Join our discussion with @wiringthebrain.bsky.social
Apr 11 at noon EST USA time.
Here's the paper to get the discussion going:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Everyone welcome but register ->
Adaptivity is central to life, yet conceptually homeless. While adaptation is tied to selection, adaptivity is an ongoing organismal process—rooted in metabolism, not just evolutionary causation
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/contribution...
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/contribution...
The Philosophy of Adaptivity - Dialectical Systems
At the core of life is adaptivity, the organismal process of adjusting to ever-changing conditions. But despite its centrality, adaptivity is a surprisingly lonely concept. Its most immediate lexical ...
www.dialecticalsystems.eu
March 27, 2025 at 8:41 AM
Adaptivity is central to life, yet conceptually homeless. While adaptation is tied to selection, adaptivity is an ongoing organismal process—rooted in metabolism, not just evolutionary causation
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/contribution...
www.dialecticalsystems.eu/contribution...
Reposted by Dialectical Systems
Happy to share that our SI in Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society B was accepted 😎
Hybrid Agencies - Crossing Borders between Biological and Artificial Worlds
Co-Edited with Shaun Gallagher and Takashi Ikegami
We have a fantastic line up of contributions coming up soon !
Hybrid Agencies - Crossing Borders between Biological and Artificial Worlds
Co-Edited with Shaun Gallagher and Takashi Ikegami
We have a fantastic line up of contributions coming up soon !
March 25, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Happy to share that our SI in Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society B was accepted 😎
Hybrid Agencies - Crossing Borders between Biological and Artificial Worlds
Co-Edited with Shaun Gallagher and Takashi Ikegami
We have a fantastic line up of contributions coming up soon !
Hybrid Agencies - Crossing Borders between Biological and Artificial Worlds
Co-Edited with Shaun Gallagher and Takashi Ikegami
We have a fantastic line up of contributions coming up soon !
Can natural selection shape the ability to evolve?
New study shows bacteria evolving mutations that speed up adaptation—suggesting mutations are not purely random but can be biased toward adaptive outcomes
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
New study shows bacteria evolving mutations that speed up adaptation—suggesting mutations are not purely random but can be biased toward adaptive outcomes
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
March 21, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Can natural selection shape the ability to evolve?
New study shows bacteria evolving mutations that speed up adaptation—suggesting mutations are not purely random but can be biased toward adaptive outcomes
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
New study shows bacteria evolving mutations that speed up adaptation—suggesting mutations are not purely random but can be biased toward adaptive outcomes
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
CFP: Towards Comparative Philosophy of Science (Journal for General Philosophy of Science)
Call for papers on comparative philosophy of science is out,, ed;: Simon Lohse and Karim Bschir. Submissions until 31 March 2025.
philevents.org/event/show/1...
Call for papers on comparative philosophy of science is out,, ed;: Simon Lohse and Karim Bschir. Submissions until 31 March 2025.
philevents.org/event/show/1...
Towards Comparative Philosophy of Science (Special Issue of the Journal for General Philosophy of Science)
CALL FOR PAPERS: Towards Comparative Philosophy of Science (Special Issue of the Journal for General Philosophy of Science)
Guest editors: Simon Lohse (Nijmegen) & Karim Bschir (St....
philevents.org
March 14, 2025 at 12:46 PM
CFP: Towards Comparative Philosophy of Science (Journal for General Philosophy of Science)
Call for papers on comparative philosophy of science is out,, ed;: Simon Lohse and Karim Bschir. Submissions until 31 March 2025.
philevents.org/event/show/1...
Call for papers on comparative philosophy of science is out,, ed;: Simon Lohse and Karim Bschir. Submissions until 31 March 2025.
philevents.org/event/show/1...
Is teleology really obsolete? This special issue explores how goal-directedness remains crucial in biology, mind, and society—despite its exile from analytic philosophy.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
#Philosophy #Teleology
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
#Philosophy #Teleology
Teleology for the twenty-first century: editorial introduction - Synthese
Synthese -
link.springer.com
March 11, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Is teleology really obsolete? This special issue explores how goal-directedness remains crucial in biology, mind, and society—despite its exile from analytic philosophy.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
#Philosophy #Teleology
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
#Philosophy #Teleology