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A personal introduction to the Gregory Bateson memorial issue.

Outlines Bateson's work and the content of the memorial.

Connects Bateson's legacy with the work of current authors and the general problems the world faces today.

Describes the necessity to use ecological principles as presented by Bateson.

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 and survive under changing conditions.

In order to do this Bateson's concepts of learning and network pathologies are applied to the medical topic of immune reaction.

Current medical research does not take sufficiently into account that natural stimuli and therapeutic interventions might lead to a large‐scale of changes. This is mainly due to the lack of related epistemological tools.

This lack leads to a restricted validity of many medical findings. There is even some evidence that the current therapeutic approach might lead to a decline of human robustness.

This paper shows how systemic concepts can contribute to a deeper understanding of the therapeutic processes.

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.

Students of social work at the University of Dresden were asked to develop plans for a certain social problem. Afterwards they studied certain texts of Bateson. Finally, they had to review their former plans.

Bateson's thoughts are still disturbing for today's students. However, if they are able to connect his thoughts with their own problems there is a good chance of opening ways for a more complex thinking.

The paper shows how Bateson's legacy might be used today.

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 question of how to carry on their heritage is raised.

The whole paper is designed as an epistemological experiment starting from reflections on Gregory Bateson's metalogues and adopting a methodological style of reasoning. A strong focus is laid on the combination of loose and strict thinking which is characteristic of both Heinz von Foerster and Gregory Bateson.

In order to preserve and further develop their heritage, it is necessary to deal with Bateson's and Foerster's view(s) on the relations between the unknowable and the meaning of research. This has to be done in a manner in which epistemology and research become a personal as well ecological matter in which the relationship between the single individual and its greater context becomes explicit.

This paper refuses to view science and cybernetics within predefined boundaries. It suggests that the form of science and its relations to the individual and the community should be viewed as processes of constant re‐generation.

The value of this paper lies in viewing the similarities of Bateson's and von Foerster's peculiar style as general guidelines for future research and an understanding of epistemology.

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 a filmmaker.

A short and informal note form Nora Bateson.

In the end it turns out, from my perspective at least, that the most important thing he said was nothing he said, (though a lot of it is inherently fascinating and hugely useful). What is truly important is how he approached EVERYTHING.

A personal look into how Gregory Bateson's ideas and his lifestyle worked together.

It was the aim to apply basic epistemological concepts, as presented by Heinz von Foerster, to current problems of medicine and biology.

The relation of genes and human behaviour is an important issue in current medical discourse. Many states and diseases are claimed to be caused by a genetical disposition. To prove the soundness of such claims, a strict methodology has to be applied.

The usual approach of combining genetical findings with observed behaviour is based on an insufficient epistemology. The neglect of recursive processes leads to misinterpretations that have far‐reaching consequences, especially if disease and therapy are concerned.

A precise analysis of recursive traits would allow more reliable models of the relation between genetical disposition and environmental influence.

The paper reflects trivial or non‐trivial relations in social behaviour that are often neglected.

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

This previously unpublished document was found amongst the manuscript papers for Mind and Nature in the Bateson Archives at the University of Santa Cruz Library Special Collections.

It appears that “adaptation” was a concept generated by lineal thinking and that as we move forward into a world of causal circuits, i.e. of mental process as that notion is here defined, we discover that “adaptation” is only another face of addiction.

It reflects on the issue of adaptation from a very different angle than in the usual scientific discourse.

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 physical world – as well as in the world of ideas.

The paper describes an outstanding initiative inspired by Bateson's ideas and work.

Colombia's Gaviotas, situated far from the traditional centers of power and prestige, is the scene of an extraordinary whole system's experiment which is successfully applying Batesonian ideas in a harsh and troubled setting. Colombia is a country where environmental degradation, violence and instability are rampant. The paper examines some of the successes already achieved in Gaviotas, the path that lies ahead and the new opportunities being pursued by the Gaviotas project's developers. The paper attempts to understand how scientists are actively using Bateson's epistemology in their work.

This paper aims to enrich the Bateson memorial by demonstrating that cutting‐edge ecological thinking, as pioneered by Bateson, is being applied around the globe in ways both surprising and profound.

This paper identifies a unique attempt to manifest, in the most difficult circumstances, that Bateson's ecological concepts and values are not abstraction s and that change is a process which can occur in the most unlikely places.

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.

The method of this research is to employ Gregory Bateson's epistemological models to acquire new ideas to think and practise psychotherapy.

In the course of the work it was found that, in a Batesonian perspective, psychotherapy can be considered, at the same time, ethical and aesthetic: ethical because one type of the therapist's action is founded on a conscious purpose; aesthetic because another type of the therapist's action is “spontaneous”.

The practical implication of these reflections consist in the use of the Batesonian method of double description in psychotherapy.

The original value of the paper is that the ethical nature of Batesonian psychotherapy imposes two different types of responsibility on the therapist: the first concerns the actions he takes based on the extrovert purpose and the second concerns his actions with regard to the introvert purpose, which creates the conditions for the flow of “spontaneous” action.

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.