Since at least the autopoietic turn, Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems has been based on a constructivist epistemology. Still, Luhmann appears ambivalent because he uses realist motifs in his oeuvre. This ambivalence has been interpreted as epistemologically contradictory and has led to intensive debates about how to resolve this unsatisfactory tension. Vitor Barros strictly adheres to Luhmann's standpoint to unravel the apparent paradox. By contrast, I try to "solve" the contradiction from a constructivist perspective. To do so, I refer to a comprehensive understanding of constructivism that acknowledges the variety of approaches including Luhmann's "operative constructivism" (or, as Barros calls it, "factual constructivism").
While appreciating Almeida's provocative approach to cancer as an oxymoronic autopoietic-sympoieticrhizomaticsystem-and a life form in its own right-we point out some limitations of her target article. These include the conflation of "cancer" with "tumor" and the assertion that cancer is a "life form," without specifying the intended sense of the term. Furthermore, we pose some questions regarding the oxymoronic nature of her cancer model, the metaphorical extension of her characterization of cancer to diverse realms, such as sociology and education, and the understanding of cancer as a systemic "toll."
In their target article, Cavaletti and Heimann describe adaptations to the micro-phenomenological method to address specific research questions. Here I discuss how such adaptations might fit into the broader evolving neurophenomenological landscape.
Barros departs from the perspective for which Luhmann argued at the end of his life and asks whether this perspective has been consistently applied throughout most of his other publications. I argue for a reverse perspective, which starts from Luhmann's early work and the ways certain early topics,such as reflexivity, defined how he later discussed constructivism.
I discuss how the current formulation of factual constructivism underestimates the theoretical density ofthe concept of operation. I identifythis shortcoming in three aspects of Barros's proposal: methodology, meaning, and world.
