Autonomy and Adaptive Behaviour Towards a naturalized and biologically inspired definition of behavioural adaptive autonomy Xabier Barandiaran xabier @ barandiaran.net http://barandiaran.net Autonom´ ıa Situada grey-walter @ sindominio.net http://sindominio.net/autonomiasituada 08–07–03 Abstract Within a naturalized dynamical approach to adaptive behaviour and cogni- tion, behavioural adaptive autonomy is defined as: homeostatic maintenance of essential variables under viability constraints through self-modulating behavioural coupling with the environment, hierarchically decoupled from metabolic (constructive) processes. This definition allows for a naturalized notion of normative functionality, structurally and interactivelly emergent. We argue that artificial life techniques such as evolutionary simulation mod- elling provide a workable methodological framework for philosophical re- search on complex adaptive behaviour. Keywords Autonomy, adaptive behaviour, philosophy of biology, philosophy of cogni- tive science, cognition, dynamical systems, naturalization. 1