Kybernetes: Volume 36 Issue 7/8

Still not paradigmatic

A personal introduction to the Gregory Bateson memorial issue.

Adaptation, acclimation, addiction, remedy, etc.

This piece seeks to reflect upon the nature of adaptation and our usage of it with relation to design, addiction, and final cause.

Bateson's cybernetics: the basis of MRI brief therapy: prologue

To provide direct access to original documents relevant to the emergence of applied constructivist and cybernetic epistemology in the behavioral sciences.

The influence of Gregory Bateson: legacy or vestige?

To assess the recent influence of Gregory Bateson on publication within the field of psychotherapy.

Batesonian epistemology, Bushman n/om‐kxaosi, and rock art

Aims to define the conceptual tools of Gregory Bateson's epistemology – the nature of difference, logical typing, and recursion – and to apply this to understanding how we can…

Toward Batesonian sociocybernetics: from Naven to the mind beyond the skin

To construct, from Bateson's social ideas ranging from Naven to the 1979 Mind and Nature, a Batesonian sociocybernetics.

Gregory Bateson in contemporary cross‐cultural systemic psychotherapy

This paper seeks to examine the relevance of Bateson's ethnographic work to systemic psychotherapy.

Caught in the middle of a double‐bind: the application of non‐ordinary logic to therapy

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of Bateson and colleagues' double bind theory, which has been a breakthrough in the history of psychiatry and human behavior…

Practicising psychotherapy employing Gregory Bateson's epistemological models

The task is to report what with more details was exposed in one of the author's recently published works, and consist in trying to develop a new approach to psychotherapy.

Towards aesthetic seduction using emotional engagement and stories

This paper aims to provide principles and to give a case study of the application of Bateson's ideas to promote epistemological change in organisations to deal with problems which…

Still disturbing

The aim of this paper is to show how students of today react to Bateson's texts when they are not integrated in a semantic explanation.

Struggling for a Russian Bateson

This paper aims to describe the author's efforts to translate and publish books by Gregory Bateson in the difficult conditions of post‐communist Russia.

Batesonian analysis of value hierarchies and the transformation of Russia

The aim is to analyse changes of mass distributed value hierarchies in the course of social transformations in Russia during the last 25 years.

Human robustness and conscious purpose in contemporary medicine

The purpose of this paper is to ask what role robustness plays in current medicine and in how far medical practices influence human robustness and thus the ability to be adapted…

Reflections on learning and addiction: porpoises and palm trees

To provide a glimpse into Gregory Bateson's thought processes about addiction and learning.

“The logical categories of learning and communication”: reconsidered from a polycontextural point of view: Learning in machines and living systems

Bateson's model of classifying different types of learning will be analyzed from a logical and technical point of view. While learning 0 has been realized for chess playing…

Looking for “scientific” social science: The Macy Conferences on Cybernetics in Bateson's itinerary

The paper studies the participation of Gregory Bateson at the Macy Conferences on Cybernetics, that would prove to be a real turning point in his intellectual itinerary.

The two beginnings of communication theory

To clarify the parallels and differences between the communication theories of Gregory Bateson and Paul Watzlawick.

Legacy: lessons from the Bateson team meetings

To provide direct access to historically significant, original raw data from research conducted by the Bateson Team.

Language games and (hi)stories: Wittgenstein, Bateson and Schapp on the role of language in therapy

In Bateson's theory of mind, the adaptation of Russell's theory of logical types is of key importance. Korzybski represented the type‐logical difference between language and…

Second thoughts on Gregory Bateson and Alfred Korzybski

The paper is intended to show, that Bateson and Korzybski have a strong common ground for their “ecological”, respectively, “anti‐aristotelian” critique of modern mentality…

Primary natural relationship: Bateson, Rosen, and the Vedas

To propose a conceptual paradigm for unifying concepts of material, living and spiritual nature, based on the natural philosophy of Gregory Bateson and the more formal relational…

Toward a science of metapatterns: building upon Bateson's foundation

Gregory Bateson defined a metapattern as a “pattern of patterns.” But, what did he mean by metapattern (which he used only once)? Can there be a meta‐science, in which…

Choreography: a pattern language

This paper aims to outline recent developments in the field of choreography, especially focusing on the influence of Gregory Bateson's ideas. Choreography is progressing towards a…

How G. Bateson informs dogs

To show how Bateson's difference which makes a difference can be interpreted from a cybernetic view, i.e. in terms of control theory.

Metalogue: “less than one and more than two: developing a partiality for whole(some)ness”

To elaborate a systemic view of conducting psychotherapy with twins.

How to understand giants?

The paper is aimed at understanding and investigating Gregory Bateson's and Heinz von Foerster's peculiar relation to knowledge, the unknowable, and research. From this, the…

Fictional communication: developing Gregory Bateson's “Theory of Play and Fantasy”

To supplement Gregory Bateson's theory with findings from literary studies and attempt a new take on literary communication.

Bateson and the Arts

To elucidate the relationship between science and the arts in Gregory Bateson's thinking, from the viewpoint of an artist‐musician and student of Bateson.

What would Bateson's work look like today?: Inside one of the world's most violent nations, now a model for peacemaking and sustainability

To demonstrate that Bateson's path‐breaking life and breakthrough thinking have directly (and indirectly) inspired a profound shift which has specific and practical effects in the…

Slippery rigor

When the editors of this publication asked me to do a little editing for them, they also asked me to write a short piece for you about how my father's work has affected my work as…

The beginning of a new epistemology: in memoriam, Gregory Bateson (1904-1980)

Gregory Bateson

Maps of maps