Abstract

Open peer commentary on the article “The Autopoiesis of Social Systems and its Criticisms” by Hugo Cadenas & Marcelo Arnold. Upshot: Cadenas and Arnold argue in favour of deploying the concept of autopoiesis to study human societies. This OPC makes a case for the opposition: autopoiesis is not an appropriate tool for studying human societies, and attempts to do so both miss out key aspects of human societies and, incidentally, damage the concept of autopoiesis