Bateson's Process Ontology for Psychological Practice
The work of Gregory Bateson offers a metaphysical basis for a "process psychology," that is, a view of psychological practice and research guided by an ontology of becoming - identifying change, difference, and relationship as the basic elements of a foundational metaphysics. This article...
| Subtitles: | "The Philosophy of Organism and Climate Change" |
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| Authors: | ; |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
University of Illinois Press
2023
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| In: |
Process studies
Year: 2023, Volume: 52, Issue: 1, Pages: 95-116 |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The work of Gregory Bateson offers a metaphysical basis for a "process psychology," that is, a view of psychological practice and research guided by an ontology of becoming - identifying change, difference, and relationship as the basic elements of a foundational metaphysics. This article explores the relevance of Bateson's recursive epistemology, his reconception of the Great Chain of Being, a first-principles approach to defining the nature of mind, and understandings of interaction and difference, pattern and symmetry, interpretation and context. Bateson's philosophical contributions will be drawn into relationship with Wittgenstein's philosophy of language as use, Melnyk's theory of causal levels of explanation, Korzybski's account of map and territory, the rejection of the heuristic rigidity of substantialist ontologies, and a cybernetics communication science-informed approach to contextual-bidirectionality of causality. We thereby arrive at an understanding of Bateson's process psychology that, given its ecological-systemic nature, is explanatorily applicable across the mind sciences. This process psychology equips us to answer the question: What is mind? Not by explanatory appeal to substantial entities contained within mind, but instead by recourse to the contextually relevant patterns for understanding mind to a particular purpose. We have thereby attended to the gulf between heuristics and fundamentals, between psychological models and an onto-epistemic account of reality. Insufficient attention has been given to characterizing the vital nature of Bateson's philosophical oeuvre to psychological practice. This article draws out Bateson's relevance to establishing foundational principles for a process psychology capable of reinvigorating psychological thought. |
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| ISSN: | 2154-3682 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Process studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.5406/21543682.52.1.06 |