Abstract
Gregory Bateson complained that scientists caused problems by seeking ways to solve narrow human difficulties. A better approach was for science to use metaphors to help people expand their thinking and illuminate the connections among various parts of the universe. The dangers appeared when people thought they could use the environment for their own purposes. This process caused them to separate themselves from the environment on which their lives depended. This was a moral flaw because it encouraged actions whose effects no one could predict. Such narrow thinking could lead to the destruction of the environment and of humanity.
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Notes
John Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (1944 repr., New York: The Free Press, 1916), 151.
Gregory Bateson, “Appendix: Time is Out of Joint,” in Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, ed. Gregory Bateson (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2001), 201–210.
Gregory Bateson, “Form, Substance, and Difference,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 454–471;
Gregory Bateson, “Style, Grace, and Information in Primitive Art,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 128–152.
Victor Kobayashi, “Recursive Patterns that Engage and Disengage: Comparative Education, Research, and Practice,” Comparative Education Review, vol. 51, no. 3 (August 2007): 261–280, Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/518464, accessed 7 January 2015.
Mary Catherine Bateson, “Foreword,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, ed. Gregory Bateson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), vii–xv.
Gregory Bateson, “Experiments in Thinking about Observed Ethnological Material,” in Steps to an Ecology of the Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 73–87.
Gregory Bateson, “A Re-examination of Bateson’s Rule,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (repr., 2000, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 379–399.
Gregory Bateson, “Effects of Conscious Purpose on Human Adaptation,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, ed. Gregory Bateson (2000, repr., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 446–453.
Gregory Bateson, Naven, 2nd edition (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1958), 1–10.
Gregory Bateson, “Culture Contact and Schismogenesis,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 61–72.
Gregory Bateson, “Metalogue: What Is an Instinct,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 38–58.
Bateson, Naven, vii; Gregory Bateson, “Social Planning and the Concept of Deutero-Learning,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 159–176.
Bertrand Russell, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1993, repr., New York: Dover Publications, 1919), 135–138;
Gregory Bateson, “Minimal Requirements for a Theory of Schizophrenia,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 244–269.
Gregory Bateson, “Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind ed. Gregory Bateson (2000, repr., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 201–227.
Gregory Bateson, “The Cybernetics of ‘Self,’” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind ed. Gregory Bateson (2000, repr., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 309–337.
Michael Houseman and Carlo Severi, Naven of the Other Self: Relational Approach to Ritual Action (Boston: Brill, 1998).
Gregory Bateson, “This Normative Natural History called Epistemology,” in A Sacred Unity: Further Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York: A Cornelia and Michael Bessie Book, 1991), 215–229.
Gregory Bateson, “Pathologies of Epistemology,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 486–495.
Gregory Bateson, “Logical Categories of Learning and Communication,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 279–308.
Gregory Bateson, “The Moral and Aesthetic Structure of Human Adaptation,” in A Sacred Unity: Further Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York: A Cornelia and Michael Bessie Book, 1991), 253–257.
Gregory Bateson, “Ecology and Flexibility in Urban Civilization,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 502–513.
Martin Buber, I and Thou, 2nd edition, trans. Ronald Gregor Smith (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958), 3–18.
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© 2015 Joseph Watras
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Watras, J. (2015). Science, Imagination, and the Environmental Movement: Gregory Bateson’s Views. In: Philosophies of Environmental Education and Democracy: Harris, Dewey, and Bateson on Human Freedoms in Nature. The Cultural and Social Foundations of Education. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137484215_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137484215_5
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