[Buddha-l] Query about Francisco Varela

[Vaj]

On Jan 11, 2007, at 6:35 AM, Erik Hoogcarspel wrote:

> 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.


Are you sure?

See:

"Three Gestures of Becoming Aware" (p. 2 "The Second Approach:  
Phenomenology")

http://www.dialogonleadership.org/Varela-2000.pdf
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