Gregory Bateson

Gregory Bateson
Rudolph Arnheim (L) and Bateson (R) speaking at the American Federation of Arts 48th Annual Convention, 1957 Apr 6 / Eliot Elisofon, photographer
American Federation of Arts records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Born(1904-05-09)9 May 1904
Grantchester, England
Died4 July 1980(1980-07-04) (aged 76)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Known forDouble bind, ecology of mind, deuterolearning, schismogenesis
Spouses
(m. 1936; div. 1950)
Elizabeth Sumner
(m. 1951; div. 1957)
Lois Cammack
(m. 1961)
Children5, including Mary C. Bateson
Scientific career
FieldsAnthropology, social sciences, linguistics, cybernetics, systems theory

Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 – 4 July 1980) was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician, and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. His writings include Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) and Mind and Nature (1979).

In Palo Alto, California, Bateson and in these days his non-colleagues[1] developed the double-bind theory of schizophrenia.

Bateson's interest in systems theory forms a thread running through his work. He was one of the original members of the core group of the Macy conferences in Cybernetics (1941–1960), and the later set on Group Processes (1954–1960), where he represented the social and behavioral sciences. He was interested in the relationship of these fields to epistemology. His association with the editor and author Stewart Brand helped widen his influence.

  1. ^ Jay Haley was in these days a librarian, John Weakland a chemical engineer, Donald Jackson a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, William Fry a sociologist.