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    STUDIA - Issue no. /  
         
  Article:   IS INTENTIONALITY A BETTER CONCEPT THAN TELEOLOGY TO DESCRIBE BIOLOGICAL INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR?.

Authors:  RAPHAEL AYBAR.
 
       
         
  Abstract:  The author proposes that the phenomenological concept of intentionality fits with the idea that the living organism is structurally coupled with its environment, as stated by the theory of Autopoiesis of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. This affirms that living organisms produce themselves as systems in response to the disturbances they experience from their environments, and considers that as a primordial cognitive motion. It is argued that this response is intentional because it is an elementary way of positioning oneself in a meaningful world. The first part of the article explains what Autopoiesis is, how organisms are cognitive agents, and what structural coupling is. The second part affirms that living organisms cannot be understood in mechanistic terms because they respond to a certain telos which can only be described by the concept of intentionality. Finally, the last part discusses in what sense structural coupling and intentionality are similar, and why intentionality is a more functional concept than teleology to describe the structure of individual organisms.

Keywords: Autopoiesis, cognition, intentionality, machine, teleology?
 
         
     
         
         
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