Autopoiesis is a theory of life developed by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela that defines living systems as self-producing organisations. According to this view, a living system continuously generates and maintains the components that constitute it while simultaneously preserving the organisational relations that define it as a distinct unity. Living systems therefore differ from externally assembled artefacts because they actively participate in the production and maintenance of their own organisation.
The central contribution of autopoiesis was to shift biological explanation away from constituent components and toward organisation. Rather than defining life through particular materials, molecules, or structures, autopoietic theory argued that living systems are characterised by the organisational processes through which they continually regenerate themselves. This insight played a major role in establishing organisation as a legitimate explanatory concept within theoretical biology.
Autopoiesis provides a powerful account of self-production and organisational identity, but subsequent work in autonomy theory and organisational biology argued that self-production alone does not fully explain regulation, normativity, agency, or evolutionary continuity. These developments led to concepts such as constraint closure, biological autonomy, and viability-oriented organisation.
Within APS, autopoiesis is recognised as a foundational contribution to organisational biology because it established that living systems are organisationally constituted rather than reducible to their material components. APS accepts this insight while extending it through a broader account of organised persistence, agency, viability, historical continuity, and evolutionary transformation. Autopoiesis is therefore understood as an important precursor to contemporary organisational approaches rather than a complete account of life itself.