"It is to the Riddle of the Sphinx that I have devoted fifty years of professional
life as an anthropologist. It is of first-class importance that our answer to the Riddle
of the Sphinx should be in step with how we conduct our civilisation, and this should in
turn be in step with the actual workings of living systems.
A major difficulty is
that the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx is partly a product of the
answers that we already have given to the riddle in its various forms. Kurt Vonnegut gives
us wary advice - that we should be careful what we pretend because we become what we
pretend. And something like that, some sort of self-fulfilment, occurs in all
organisations and human cultures. What people presume to be human is what they
will build in as premises of their social arrangements, and what they build in is sure to
be learned, is sure to become a part of the character of those who participate.
And along with this
self-validation of our answers, there goes something still more serious - namely, that any
answer which we promote, as it becomes partly true through our promoting of it, becomes
partly irreversible. There is a lag in these affairs."
Gregory Bateson -
Innocence & Experience. 1987 - p.178
BIOGRAPHY
Gregory Bateson
[1904 - 1980] - Anthropologist, Social Scientist, Cyberneticist - known as Gregory - was
one of the most important social scientists of this century. Strongly opposing those
scientists who attempted to reduce everything to mere matter, he was intent
upon the task of re-introducing Mind back into the scientific equations -
writing two famous books Steps to an Ecology of Mind, and Mind & Nature
as part of this task. From his point of view Mind is a constituent part of material
reality and it is thus nonsensical to try to split mind from matter. Before being
championed by the counter-culture of the 1960s Bateson had been busy in the
20s and 30s as an anthropologist in Bali, and in helping to found the science
of cybernetics among many other things. Adopted by many thinkers in the anti-psychiatry
movement because he provided a model and a new epistemology for developing a novel
understanding of human madness, and also for his invention of the theory of the double
bind.
He helped to elaborate
the science of cybernetics with colleagues Warren McCulloch, Gordon Pask, Ross Ashby,
Heinz von Foerster, Norbert Wiener, etc. He inspired several different models and
approaches in the area of psychotherapy, notably that of the MRI Interactional school of
Weakland, Jackson, and Watzlawick, and many other later schools of family therapy
[including that of the Milan school of Palazzoli], and he directly influenced family
therapists such as Brad Keeney, Tom Andersen, Lynn Hoffman and many others.
Chapters II and III of Gregory Bateson's and
Mary Catherine Bateson's ANGELS FEAR [01.23.00]
Chapters II and III of Gregory Bateson's MIND AND
NATURE [01.03.00]
NEW FOREWORD to STEPS TO
AN ECOLOGY OF MIND by Mary Catherine Bateson [10.11.99]
An interview with Anatol Holt
by Vincent Kenny [08.06.99]
Towards an Ecology of
Conversation by Vincent Kenny [03.20.99]
Mind / Body Dualism
Conference Invitational Paper by Gregory
Bateson [9.28.98]
Gregory Bateson's Notion of
the Sacred - What can it Tell Us about Living Constructively? by Vincent Kenny
[12.24.97]
Allegory
by Gregory Bateson [9.22.97]
Number is Different from
Quantity by Gregory Bateson [9.18.97]
They Threw God Out Of The
Garden Letters from Gregory Bateson to Philip Wylie and Warren
McCulloch [9.13.97]
For God's Sake, Margaret
Conversation between Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead [9.09.97]
Six Days Of Dying
- by Mary Catherine Bateson
Personal Snapshots from Old
Hawaii Memories of Bateson, Dolphins & Aloha shirts
Links
to find out more about Bateson's approach
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gregory Bateson [1973]. Steps to an Ecology of
Mind. Paladin Books.
Gregory Bateson [1980]. Mind and Nature - A
Necessary Unity. Bantam Books.
Gregory Bateson & Mary Catherine Bateson
[1987]. Angels Fear - Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred. Macmillan Publishing Co. New
York.
Gregory Bateson [1991]. A Sacred Unity - Further
Steps to an Ecology of Mind. HarperCollinsPublishers.
Mary Catherine Bateson [1972/1991]. Our Own
Metaphor - A personal account of a conference on the effects of conscious purpose on human
adaptation. Smithsonian Institution Press. Washington & London.