[Buddha-l] Query about Francisco Varela

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Dan Lusthaus schreef:
> Thanks, Barnaby, for the explanation of Varela. But what, I wonder, is new
> about this, that wasn't, for instance, already thoroughly studied,
> documented and analyzed by Gestalt psychologists in the early 20th century
> (Kohler, et al,, not the later Fritz Perls derivative), or Merleau-Ponty in
> the early 1940s? They all used the blind spot as an example of our mental
> constructions -- Merleau-Ponty carried it into such issues as phantom limbs
> (someone who has lost a limb who, at least occasionally, feels it itch,
> etc.).
>
> Western Psychology of Perception -- a vast experimental and theoretical
> literature -- has had much in common with Buddhism for over a century. It
> should be a required course for anyone attempting to major in Buddhist
> studies.
>
>   
The weak point of Varela is precisely his biologism, the illusion that you can explain human behaviour and even the meaning of life by means of biological theories. Varela never had any clue of even the existence of phenomenology and never heard of Husserls and Heideggers refutation of all kinds of scientism. So to compare him with Merleau-Ponty is not right, Varela consideren the body and perception as biological processes and not as phenomena. You willn't catch him performing a phenomenological, eidetical or transcendental reduction.

Erik


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