Rating: 
Summary: Another Look at Knowledge.
Review: Excellent and superb are words that come to mind while reviewing this work. The authors, Drs. Humberto R. Maturana (biologist, University of Chile) and Francisco J. Varela (Foundation de France Professor of Cognitive Sciences and Epistemology, Paris) attempted and succeeded in providing a clear and concise work in a difficult field. Their goal was to "propose a way of seeing cognition not as a representation of the world 'out there,' but rather as an ongoing bringing forth of a world through the process of living itself."
Knowing how we know, or how we perceive is the subject of this intriguing work. In writing on this subject, the authors present a refreshing and new approach to cognition-one which has dramatic cultural, social and ethical ramifications.
The work, originally published in 1987 and re-released in 1992 as a revised edition, is attractive, colorful and well-illustrated. Unlike many books, whose pictures, graphs and figures merely fill space, each illustration performs a beneficial and needed service. In ten chapters, the reader is led slowly through the concepts and disciplines of perception, classification, heredity, biology, psychology, sociology and philosophy.
Since its initial publication, The Tree of Knowledge has received favorable attention from the public, has been out of stock in most bookstores and has been used as an undergraduate text at the University of California. While stimulating the imagination of readers it has, however, not received the scholarly acclaim it richly deserves.
Dr. Carl Edwin Lindgren, DEd
Former Member of the Royal Institution of Great Britain
Rating: 
Summary: Do not forget the partner and the parent
Review: However Amazon writes "by Humberto Maturana" we cannot forget the other writer (Francisco Varela) dead about three years.Both come from the research started by Stafford Beer in Chile and they are not alone: People as Terry Winograd or Fernando Flores are in the same package and all of them give powerful reasons against the so-called GOFAI (Good-Old-Fashioned-Artificial-Intelligence). Maturana and Varela are not the first but, for sure, they are among the brightest.
Rating:
Summary: The song of knowledge
Review: If there was a simpler way of talking about knowledging, Maturana and Varela would have made a song instead.
Rating: 
Summary: poor psychology....
Review: if you want psychology paul watzlawick is really worth.
Rating:
Summary: Hopefully more people will read this...
Review: It's strange why autopoiesis has taken so long to be taken seriously when there is overwhelming evidence from many fields that we need to move away from our old paradigms of thought, particularly our reliance on Aristotelian logic. Whether one looks at Prigogine, Perlovsky, Chaitin or Jantsch there is clear evidence that we (and I mean those embedded with the 'grand' tradition European thought) of desperately need to change our way of looking at the universe. This book presents a clear overview of how Maturana and Varela arrived at their conclusions. There are many sidebars that fully explain important points; it is obvious these two are good professors and know where they need to go into more depth so the reader may grasp salient arguments. Their views on cognition and knowledge are very different from the child-like expositions put forward by the vast majority of Western philosophers and this book develops the groundwork for understanding autopoiesis. Post-rationalist thought is just beginning to be a "field" in Western philosophy and this book should be on the shelves of anyone interested in trying to really understand the universe.
Rating:
Summary: A compelling piece that offers insight on a way of being
Review: Maturana and Varella offer stunishing insights as to the recursive nature of reflection and how this phenonenom is rooted in the very nature of what it means to be human. By establishing a connection that cognition is rooted in relationships at the cellular, level a picture of complexity is painted that offers suggestions as to our very nature. The implications on human dynamics and organizational transformation are astounding. A must read for anyone who is serious about understanding the complexities of organizational transformation.
Rating:
Summary: New insight or new fashion? That's the question...
Review: Perfect in their explanations, the authors of tree of knowledge reveal the bases of a " new theory " of the knowledge. It is a text for beginners not very to the academic philosophy. Seemingly it is a book for students of the high school or fans of the " new age" after Fritjof Capra's style. The book sins for its superficiality and for the attempt of showing as a pioneer of the phenomenology that defends. In that way, he tries to self-sustain independent of the philosophical bases of the western tradition and it starts of a philosophy of the biology as if this went an appropriate base. Particularly I liked the book a lot, however, I await another one better approachment, in a more courageous and less lyrical way. "Life is cognition" hasn't got the power of "Cogito ergo sum" but it is a true try to think.
Rating:
Summary: El arbol del conocimiento
Review: Soy estudiante de Psicología, y considero que este libro es un aporte riquisimo para dicha ciencia. Quisiera leer el libro completo y probablemente utilizar la información para trabajar en mi Tesis de gado
Rating:
Summary: A Real "Gem"
Review: The entire text is based on the following invalid inference:
1. All knowing is doing and all doing is knowing
2. Therefore, we can't know reality.
They might just as well have argued:
1. I must use my eyes to see the world.
2. Therefore, I can't see the world.
Rating:
Summary: Forty years ahead of its time
Review: The most articulate and holistic account of the phenomenology of human behavior I have encountered. Simple and complete. Highly readable. Illuminating and well grounded.
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