Search results

The purpose of this paper is to show how to enact a Batesonian system to teaching an ecology of mind course.

The approach develops a practical framework for teaching with examples of teaching approaches and student work.

The overarching approach involves a depth-abstraction-abduction model. This model was used to engage students in examining a variety of transdisciplinary phenomena with emphasis on contexts, meaning, multiple perspectives, stories, relationships and systems, patterns, and epistemology. Epistemological shocks and shifts were a common occurrence.

This work is unique in that it focuses on a course based upon the film: “An ecology of mind: a daughter's portrait of Gregory Bateson”.

This study introduces an ecological framework for disabilities meant to provide a new model of viewing and learning about disabilities and special education. This model projects a multi-systemic view of factors that influence a person's life, where people with disabilities are active actors in the development of the world. The increased awareness about interconnectedness, globalization, inter- and trans-disciplinarity, influences on human experience, greening, sustainability, inequality, inequity and lack of opportunities is shifting how people think about potential and growth.

The methodological approach is qualitative, interpretive research.

In disability studies, the Ecological Model of Disabilities helps reframe this uniqueness as part of the spectrum of human experiences. In special education, the Ecoducation Model helps reframe the learning experience.

This research is conceptual, but it is also all-inclusive, rendering itself to a wide application in educational settings.

The Ecoducation Model for Special Education is specific to the education of children and adults with disabilities, and it is directly compatible with the broader Ecological Model of Disabilities. These ecological models can be applied to all levels of the ecological system, and to different ecodemes of population. Nevertheless, the ecological models need to be locally implemented, with general principles tailored to national traditions, laws and resources.

Advocating for the pursuit of individual well-being within the larger society, both models call for practical changes in a multitude of areas, including legislation and policy, training of professional personnel, sufficient financial input in programs designed for the care of children and adults with disabilities, change in societal mentalities to fight discrimination, disempowerment and isolation. Because the scope of ecological frameworks is incommensurate, being both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, further research possibilities are countless. The ecological perspective opens the fields of disability studies and special education to new theoretical and empirical possibilities.

Two epistemological models are described as new frameworks in disability studies: the Ecological Model of Disabilities and the Ecoducation Model for Special Education. Both are original models that look into the education and inclusion of the person with disabilities.

The development of capacities for sustainability thinking by large-scale social systems requires of the skilled practitioner complex abstract logics. There is an intricate complexity of relationships to consider in the observation of the landscape of thought. This paper aims to introduce a matrix as an orientating heuristic to guide this form of praxis and provides reflections on its use in the enactment of social learning.

The signifiers for four different orientations to learning and four abstractions in levels of learning are described. The configurations that result from their conjunction generate a matrix of 16 alternatives. These are combined into a heuristic to guide and inform reflexive praxis.

The conjunction of these two dimensions enables observations of the cybernetic interactions between levels of learning and orientations to learning. This depiction prompts considerations of the ethics and aesthetics of large-scale collaborative learning. In reflecting on the use of the heuristic device in practice, four primary observations are offered as possible considerations to inform ethical practice.

The value of this research is in enabling awareness of the relationship between levels of learning and orientations to learning. The originality is the application of apithology principles to the multi-dimensional learning landscapes found in complex thought-ecologies.

Knowledge is often seen as information with specific properties; information is viewed as a kind of preliminary stage to knowledge. Given this apparent relationship of information and knowledge it is tempting to apply computer‐based information management techniques, such as information retrieval and information filtering, to the management of knowledge as well. A closer look, however, reveals that the effectiveness of computer‐based tools is already limited in the information management domain. In order to circumvent similar limitations in the knowledge management domain, we suggest considering humans as scaffolding minds and applying tools in such a way that human cognitive and social capabilities are supported. Examples discussed range from social navigation and collaborative filtering to support for virtual communities of practice.

To determine the influence of cybernetics and systemic thinking on psychotherapy from a personal viewpoint.

Describes the author's own development.

Shows the major influence that cybernetics and systemic thinking had on psychotherapy. Beginning with the concept of simple feedback he spins the thread of circular understanding to the contributions of Heinz von Foerster and others, finally arriving at shamanistic and indigenous rites, becoming ever more a topic in the research of communication and healing.

Provides a personal viewpoint of the contribution of the work of Heinz von Foerster.

This chapter will examine ideological debates currently taking place in academics. Anthropologists – and all academic workers – are at a crossroads. They must determine what it means to “green the academy” in an era of permanent war, “green capitalism,” and the neoliberal university (Sullivan, 2010). As Victor Wallis makes clear, “no serious observer now denies the severity of the environmental crisis, but it is still not widely recognized as a capitalist crisis, that is, as a crisis arising from and perpetuated by the rule of capital, and hence incapable of resolution within the capitalist framework.”

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.

The story of this publishing project can be traced back to early 1980s and included the author's personal meeting with Michael Murphy during his visit to Moscow.

Describes the production of translated version of Bateson's works published in Russian.

Provides information of value to those interested in the human condition.

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 theories of Robert Rosen.

The paper combines Bateson's natural philosophy with the relational meta‐theory of Robert Rosen to develop the world view we believe Bateson argued for. It shows that the assumptions of this view correspond with Vedic philosophy. An integral view of nature that can underlie mechanistic and relational science is provided.

Bateson's natural philosophy can be interpreted in terms of Rosen's relational concepts to provide a unifying view of nature based on information entailments. This is described in terms of an irreducible complementarity between abstract and material aspects of nature (corresponding to Bateson's “mind and nature”) that forms a causally effective, or “necessary” unity. Encoding and decoding relations correspond with Bateson's ideas of patterns and information. The general application of this view suggests a reality not unlike the “immortal luminous being” described in the Vedas and Upanishads of India.

The paper shows why the dualistic/mechanistic view of nature is inadequate for understanding living systems and natural complexity. It describes a more general foundation from which living and generative aspects of nature can be studied. This corresponds with the Vedic concept of intrinsic value (divinity) in nature, and lends support to deep ecology ethics. As Bateson argued, the relational view can be an ethical instrument, leading away from conflict as to understand better the roots of interconnectedness.