Francisco Varela: A Philosophy of Surprise

Abstract

I would like to show here that Varela, besides being a scientist and a Buddhist practitioner, also has the stature of a philosopher. In order to do so, I chose to illuminate his thought in the light of a concept that he did not use much, at least at the beginning, but which constitutes the cornerstone of his philosophy. It is the concept of surprise. I will show first how surprise is at the core of what I call his 'Valence' article; time, affect, and intersubjectivity being the main coordinates of surprise. Then I will prove how the structural concepts of autopoiesis, enaction, and co-generativity are all supported by surprise as a dynamic model. In parallel, I will indicate how some seemingly side concepts (I call 'operative'), such as creation, novelty, unpredictibility, openness, and otherness, are actually key candidates for demonstrating the relevance of Varela as a philosopher of surprise. ...the nature of the self is precisely its non-findability. There is nothing to grasp that would make persons and phenomena what they are (Sanscrit: anatman; Tibetan: bdag med gnyis)... The usual translation of anatman is 'non-self', or 'emptiness of self'. However, this is again too close to the original Buddhist language... For the practitioner, anatman is manifest, experienced as superabundant: it is a nonknowledge that holds a host of surprises. (Varela, 2000/2017, p. 134)