See also: Bateson

Gregory Bateson is a psychological anthropologist, , American epistemologist , born on May 9th, 1904 with Grantchester in Great Britain and dead on July 4th, 1980 with San Francisco. Influenced by the Cybernetic , the Theory of the groups and that of the logical types, it was interested much in the communication (human and animal), but also in the bases of the knowledge of the human phenomena. It is at the origin of what one calls the school of Palo Alto.

Biography

Gregory Bateson is the third wire of the geneticist William Bateson, who has it fore-mentioned Gregory to remember the Austrian monk it Gregor Mendel of which it made known the discoveries in the United Kingdom. In its youth, Gregory is particularly influenced by the reading of the poet William Blake and the writer satirist Samuel Butler. In 1915, his/her older brother, John, die in the war, and in 1922 his/her other brother, Martin, commit suicide of a ball in the head on Piccadily Circus.

Initially dedicated with the zoology, in 1924, following a voyage to Galapagos, Bateson decides to become anthropologist. He makes studies at the university from Geneva and Cambridge where he obtains a Bachelor off Arts in Natural science in 1925 and a Master off Arts in Anthropology in 1930.

From 1927 to 1928, it carries out a work of ground among various people of Indonesia, in particular Baining. From 1928 to 1930, it goes to the Iatmul S of New Guinea. In 1929, he teaches the Linguistique Mélanésie at the university of Sydney. From 1931 to 1934, he teaches with St John' S College in Cambridge. It is in 1932, at the Iatmul S which it meets the couple of anthropologists Margaret Mead and Reo Fortune. In 1935 he marries Margaret Mead and leaves with her to do a work of ground with Bali, on the basis of which they carry out a film, Danse and Transe in Bali .

In 1938 it returns to Iatmuls. In 1940, he works with the American Museum off Natural History on the material coming from Bali. From 1942 to 1945, he works like anthropologist with the museum of modern art of New York, then of 1947 to 1948 he teaches with Harvard. From 1942 to 1953 it takes part with Margaret Mead in famous the Conférences Macy which will be at the origin of the current Cybernétique and of the cognitive Sciences.

In 1948, the psychiatrist Jurgen Ruesch gets to him an employment in his clinical research team with San Francisco and in 1951, they publish together Communication and Société . This same year, Bateson, which had divorced Margaret Mead in 1950, wife Elisabeth Summer, a former patient of Ruesch which it had engaged as assistant.

In 1952 celebrates it " starts; Bateson" project; on the study of the paradox of the abstraction in the communication, financed by the Foundation Rockefeller. Bateson joins together a team within the Veterans Hospital Administration of Palo Alto, made up of the student in communication Jay Halley, of the student in psychiatry William Fry and the anthropologist John Weakland who had followed his courses in New School for Social Research of New York in 1947.

In 1954 Bateson obtains by Frank Fremont-Smith a financing for two years on behalf of the Fondation Macy for the study of the communication among schizophrenes. This same year, William Fry leaves for US Navy and the group is joined by the psychiatrist Donald D. Jackson. In 1956, the members of the project publish their common article Towards a theory of the schizophrenia which introduces the concept of " Double constraint ".

The contribution and work of Gregory Bateson

• Concept of the Schismogenèse : who gives an account of the dynamics of social balance. Conceived at the time of the study of the people of Iatmul, using the abductive method, this concept introduces a interactionnelle analysis of the human behavior.

• Assumption of the Double constraint (Double-bind): applied to the field of the Schizophrenia, the family therapy was inspired some.

But it is considered that between all its contributions, eureka batesonien was to it the introduction of the logical typology of Russell and Whitehead into social sciences to release the “double constraints” general which can be particularized in psychology in its theory of schizophrenia and the phantasm.