Autonomy and the ambiguity of biological rationalities: systems theory, ADHD and Kant

ABSTRACT

We present a theoretical review of notions of autonomy to show how they organize discourses within social sciences around the biological reality of ideal self-regulating individuals. First, we reconstruct key meanings of autonomy in biological theory, focusing on theories of autopoietic systems and their connections to constructivist epistemologies in the social sciences. Second, we discuss developmental and neuropsychological theories of self-regulation, demonstrating conceptual links with biological and systems theory. Third, we discuss the implications for education, using the case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as an example on how the construction of the biological, as the natural foundation of individuality, is intensified by the ideal integration of individuals as self-regulated agents. We argue that autonomy, theoretically rooted in modern philosophy, and expanded through system theory to biological and social sciences, has become a biopolitical project contributing to contemporary biological rationalities that produce the educated subject.

KEYWORDS:

• Autonomy
• attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
• biopolitics
• individuality
• self-regulation
• systems theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Chilean funding schemes through different grants all except the last from the Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (CONICYT): Andrés Haye, FONDAP 15110006 (Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Studies, CIIR); Claudia Matus, PIA Grants SOC 1103 and CIE 160007 (Center for Advanced Studies in Educational Justice) and FONDECYT 1160732; Pablo Cottet, Programa de Cooperación Científica ECOS-CONICYT C13H01 and the Research/Creation Grant (continuity), Iniciativa Bicentenario JGM (LaPSoS, Universidad de Chile).