Introduction

The Theory of the contexts is integrated in the Épistémologie constructivist.

She was formulated by Anthony Wilden following her collaboration with Gregory Bateson in the development of the Cybernétique (study of the systems and information) of the second generation, that of information with significance of the " signe" psychic, contrasts about it with the " signal" physics of order. This cybernetics of the second generation gave a ecosystemic Approche in the discovery of the problems and the design of their solutions. Gregory Bateson, with his/her colleagues and disciples, launched this second scientific revolution of information by introducing the logical typology of Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead.

The Theory of the contexts is a revolt against reducing over-simplification (reductionnism): she denounces the flatness of the complex levels at the simplest level.

• " Reductionnism: To give an account of the known data, any scientist must provide the most economic explanation simplest possible, and (generally) most elegant possible. But the reductionnism becomes a defect if one attaches an excessive importance to the principle which the simplest explanation is the only possible one. It happens that one must consider the data in Gestalt more grande". (Gregory Bateson, p. 235, Nature and the Thought , Threshold, Paris, 1984).

This Theory of the contexts is at the same time a Métaphore displacement and a Métonyme of the condensation of the ecosystemic Approche which is only a Méthodologie of a Modèle ecosystemic. Consequently, it is on a level of abstraction and general information even higher than that of the ecosystemic approach. Like metaphor of displacement, this theory of the contexts is a simpler representation of the ecosystemic approach and like métonyme of condensation, it is more abstract and more general. This theory is under the cover of the Paradigme of the Information, as the methodology of the ecosystemic approach is under the cover of the model of the Communication, in the relation in hierarchical levels of the logical type, of paradigm in theory and model. As an anglophonia, this Theory of the contexts one is celebrated, largely known and employed. (in) http://www.net4dem.org/cyrev/archive/issue3/articles/Paradigm/Paradigm1.htm.

The Theory of the contexts of Anthony Wilden is a Theory of the complexity which one cannot simplify without mutilating it. It extends on a large range from social sciences (in) http://www.yorku.ca/jspot/1/dayletts.htm. France is likely to be late of a science, compared to the other countries which had many translations and conferences on this subject. It is like the delay of a war in 1940 and also the delay of a remote colonization, overseas, at the 16th century. It is that also the Theory of the contexts where it is the historical context and Culturel to give an account of enfermement on oneself in 1940 and a continental power at the 16th century, rotated in tilling and the pasture, without interests for remote adventures, like England, Spain, Holland and Portugal which were maritime powers.

The Theory of the contexts, into ecopolitic, returns meaning and significant the policies and gives an account of the various orientations. It also gives an account of the exploitations and oppressions of the ones by the others. It is also a critic of the Marxism which is the inversion of the Capital compared to the Travail. According to la" regulate extinction" theory of the contexts, it would not have there a Capital without Work, as if there would be no life of the Biosphère without the mineral substrate of the Lithosphère. As the Capital is accumulated Travail, then it results from it that in absence of Work there is no Capital. Karl Marx reversed the hierarchy of the levels of the logical type, constraint or dependence. It is also that a use of the theory of the contexts in Asian political economy where it is way in which the ones bind to the others, in the Sociosphère, which they bind with the objects and the ideas and which they think the production and produce the thought of the Noosphère.

The theory of the contexts is an epistemological criticism Western companies where the communication and the exchange are controlled by the capacity which holds part of the ecosystem biosocial to define some other parts like a " Environment " to exploit: biosphere, other social classes, other races, the Third world, the " second" sex - in other words, exploitation of (what we call) the " corps" by (what we call) the esprit". In the relation Paradigm, Theory and Model, the theory of the contexts is spread in models ecopolitic whose Antipsychiatrie is an example in Psychologie, as well as the movements Féministe S and antiracists. The Relativité of normal and pathological the reveals this capacity to indicate one and the other. It is a critical prospect and a product transdisciplinaire, a true amount of ecosystemic which one can regard as a fundamental epistemological tool, with axiomatic (or body of Axiome S, in the bet of " to survive the 20th siècle" , according to the expression of Edgar Morin.

Preamble

The " Theory of the logiques" types; of Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead (Principia mathematica), (in) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/principia-mathematica/, into metamathematic or mathematics of mathematics, is made of a hierarchy of levels of the logical type members with class and class of classes, of méta in méta-méta. She postulates that a class (a unit) cannot be member of her even. This historiette invented illustrates the hyperabstraction of the " Theory of the logiques" types; or " typology logique". It is with very an high level of abstraction of the Logique in philosophy and request a main intellectual effort.

• a librarian draws up the catalog of the books of which he with the load and, when he finished, wonders where to locate his catalog. Indeed, its catalog has well the appearance of a book, but it is not of the same order or level only the books which it classifies and indexes. The catalog of the books is not a book. It is the book of the books or " méta-livre". It cannot index itself and be at the same time one of the members and the class. It is of a level of the logical type higher than that of the books than it classifies. It is the representation of the books, it cartography the books, like the chart for the territory, the menu for the meal. It is a representation of the books which are represented there. In the same way, the " méthodologie" is a métaméthode or method of the methods while being a repertory of the methods valid and available. Like method of the methods, it is the method to conceive and implement methods. In kitchen, it would be the receipt of the culinary receipts, starting from the food chemistry and of the food Anthropology which are on another level of abstraction and general information that the receipts of cooking and composition of the ingredients.

As the catalog is not of the same order or level only the books which it classifies and indexes, this historiette of librarian is not of the same order as the text that she comments on. It is to underline this distinction, in radical rupture, between the message (the text) and the méta-message (the comment) or message on (or about) the message which was introduced a marked typographical rupture. In the same way, the rules of the game are not play and are not concerned, like the méta-message which " cadre" the message and locates it by indicating the manner of including/understanding the message.

A dissension in a debate is not of the same order or even level that a dissension on the behavior even of a debate.

The first dissension is about the democracy, of the freedom of thoughts and their expressions, while the second dissension on the behavior even of a debate is, him, about the dictatorship and of the censure.

To act, think or speak about the one in the terms of the other led to the Paradox épiménidien (Épiménide Crétois) and russellien in the confusion of the member with the class from which the properties and characteristics are radically distinct, as Korzybski underlined in connection with the chart and the territory, of the representation and what is represented, more generally.

In logical typology, God did not create the equal dissensions. The first belong to the democracy and the second with the dictatorship.

Starting from this postulate of the theory of the logical types, it follows that the class and the members cannot have the same properties and characteristics. The following expressions illustrate this postulate:

• "The cat scrapes and the word “cat” does not bite pas" (Gregory Bateson)

• " The chart is not the territoire" (Alfred Korzybski).
• " The menu is not the repas" (Paul Watzlawick)
• " The Rules are No Game" (Anthony Wilden)
• " This is not a pipe" (Rene Magritte). The representation is not what is represented. http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/visualarts/magritte-pipe-sm.jpg

After the period of collaboration with Jacques Lacan in Baltimore, MANDELEVIUM, and in its Californian period, Anthony Wilden worked with Gregory Bateson with the development of the cybernetics of second generation, collaboration which gave " System and Structure. Essays one Communication and Exchange" whose first edition of 1972 was followed the different one and many republications and translations of which French translation of 1983.

From there, it built the Théorie of the contexts starting from the ecosystemic Approche: it is a methodology, a " métaméthode" , method of the methods, or classifies methods, a kind of limps with tools of which each tool is a singular method adapted to solve a particular problem.

This Theory of the contexts presents three rules, of which the " regulate extinction" who allows to build a hierarchy of levels of the logical type, constraint or dependence and to check his orientation.

Systems and metasystems

• the " system minéral" Lithosphère directs and delimits the possibilities of life of the " system organique" Biosphere. This organic system, even, directs and delimits the possibilities of association of the congeneric animals and plants to him of the " system social" Sociosphère. The " system organique" is then the context of the " system social" or " metasystem social" i.e. the system of the social system and the mineral system like " metasystem organique" or " métaméta-system social".
  Ainsi, the écosystémique one of the forestry and the fisheries, with the base, deals with the social system of the association of the trees and fish with its environment; this environment is the organic system, which is itself in an environment which is the mineral system of the lithosphere which directs and delimits the possibilities of life towards planet.
  Thus, we can go from system in metasystem and métaméta system, in a retreat ad infinitum for better perceiving, by connecting the levels for better including/understanding and by locating the enigma to be deciphered on its level for better acting.

• the systemic simple one of the engineers deals of the physical processes or financial flows whose environment considered is right the entourage of comparable nature that of the contents of flows and process. It is the flatness of the levels of constraint, dependence or complexity on the level where takes place the studied phenomenon.

• ecosystemic the hypercomplexe of human takes account of the level Culturel of the Noosphère of the ideas, which depends itself on the social status and holds account in addition to the level symbolic system. Indeed, the level Symbolique is that of the beliefs and codes of conduct which direct and delimit the significances and the possible values of the level Culturel.

• Georges Clémenceau said: " The war is a too important business to be entrusted to militaires" who cannot perceive the forest with the nose stuck on the tree. Clemenceau made the écosystémique one without the knowledge, like the middle-class man gentleman of Molière made of prose without the savoir.
  Indeed, in the Theory of the contexts, Anthony Wilden brings to the political level the choice of peace and the war and the attribution of the suitable resources. The political level directs and delimits the military and diplomatic strategies possible on the level of the strategy of the choice of the battles to be engaged with resources which are allotted to them. These battles of the level of the strategy direct and delimit the engagements at the tactical level. The soldiers of the lost wars are those which do not approach the political level of the goals of war and peace.

• the écosystémique one in psychology studies and intervenes on the mineral mud Man made, according to much of mythologies, but also of blood, bones and skin biological of the associated fabric cells and fabrics in bodies and apparatuses biological. All these bodies exist only for " to form a tout" , outwards they are not used for nothing.

• With the social status, the écosystémique one makes it possible to study the association of the " collègues" : those which share the same law (lex, legis) and the same heritage (legacy). Law and heritage are at the cultural level about the ideas. It is the level of the homo sapiens, ludens and contradict, that of the madness, the play and wisdom directed by the beliefs and codes of conduct of the level symbolic system.

• " As orders of ideas and representations generated by the activities of the social beings, the culture can be maintained and reproduce only thanks to the three others ordres" (Anthony Wilden." p. 521,1983)

Communication and metacommunication

The levels of the logical type or constraint are distinct in quantum jump from the type or, well one or the other, in discontinuous variation " digitale" , like the five " doigts" hand, contrasts about it with the continuous variation on the palm of the hand, the root of the fingers before they fork and are disjoined.

• the " distinction" is " digitale" discontinuous variation in quantum jump of the type or on a level, or with the other, like the progression on the steps of a staircase. The language of the words of the word digital, is médiatisée by a code Linguistique of a convention mutually accepted by speakers of this language. In this way, the words are mediatized representations, without report/ratio continues ace what is represented. " There is nothing tabuliforme in the word `table' " , Gregory Bateson said, to express this distinction

• the " Difference " is " analogique" continuous variation, like the progression on a tilted level. The language of the icons (images, sounds, flagrancies), gestures, mimicry, postures etc is analogical in a continuous progression between the representation and what is represented, like a photograph, a drawing, a painting and a sculpture.

• the direction is the product of information with iconic prevalence as in the body communication and our experiment of the icons of the emotion (" states émotifs"). The significance is the product of information with digital prevalence, like the definitions of the dictionary. (The translations between these order of perception often generate paradoxes, and the bad translations can involve a pathology)… ". (Anthony Wilden, p. 546,1983). It follows then the Paradoxes and double constraint.

• - At the biological level are the perceptive processes necessary and insufficient of the reception of the physical signals of sound and light, on the first physical level of the Communication.

• - With the social status of the direction are the esthetic and ethical values second level of the Communication which is the pooling of the directions and the values.

• - On the level Culturel of the ideas are the beliefs and the codes of conduct of the third level of the communication which is the communion around these beliefs and rules, forming a social community, nation with the family group.

For Ray Birdwhistell, the relation between " communication" and " culture" is about that between " fonction" and " structure".

• " The Communication could be considered, to the full extent, as the active aspect of the structure Culturelle… what I try to say is that the Culture and the Communication are terms which represent two points of view or two methods of presentation of the structured and regular human interrelationship. In " culture" , the stress is laid on the structure, in " communication" , on the processus." (Ray Birdwhistell, 1970, p. 251, " Kinesics and Context. Essays one Body Communication" Motion; , University off Pennsylvania Near, Philadelphia.).

Paradigm, theory and model

A paradigm is a class of fundamental ideas whose theories are members, as a theory is a class which directs and delimits a certain number of possible models which are members of this theory.

Of linguistic origin, the term “Paradigm”, means class of rules which organize the possible significances. It was launched in the philosophy of sciences by Thomas Samuel Kuhn in the structure of the scientific revolutions . At Edgar Morin, the paradigm is simply a “air of time”, a intellectual fashion in Philosophie of sciences. For others, the paradigm is an authoritative and totalitarian scientific ideology.

• the paradigm of Newtonian mechanics and Cartesian logic of the “social Physics” of Auguste Count renamed in Sociology which still trails with metaphors inappropriate of the type “mechanism” for “device”, “mass” for “population”, “cultural inertia” for “hysteresis of the ideas” which is a delay of change. This paradigm of Newtonian mechanics still trails with the idea omni present of FORCE and " impact" who is only effects and psychic or social repercussions of a fact. In illustrative example, the metaphor Motivation " Newtonian mechanics is inappropriate to represent a configuration of Besoin S, interests and desires which leads somebody to act to achieve goals. It is a confusion between the psychic level with the physical level. To act on one in the terms of the other would be catastrophic and to think one in the terms of the other would be a Aliénation. It would be like confusion between a " adhérence" physics of an adhesive and a " adhésion" psychic of an intense participation.

• the thermodynamic paradigm with the theories freudiennes and marxiennes of the conflicts borrowed from the hot sources and cold with their pressures, impulses, overpressures and depressions. He always trails in the obsession of ENERGY where the human will and the determination in the action are not energy " mentale" quantifiable and measurable in " Joule s" who is the unit of energy expressed before in " Calorie ".

• the paradigm of the information of the years 1940 with the Cybernetic of Norbert Wiener and the Information theory which gave systemic engineers.

The " paradigm newtonien" as well as the " paradigm thermodynamique" are incomplete to give an account of the more complex systems of simple biology and even less sociology. The simplest animal, as the Amibe is much more than one clock mechanical backed up with a heat engine. The social animals, same simplest of the hives and the anthills, require the introduction of the idea of Information.

In its series " The Method” Edgar Morin named this paradigm of the communication by " Paradigm of the complexité" , by contrast with the simplicity of Newtonian mechanics and the Cartesian logic of the “excluded third which transforms the paradoxes in contradictions and oppositions irreducible.

This complexity is represented, in psychology of the human behavior, by the paradoxes of Double constraint, resulting from the levels of the communication, which cannot exist in mechanics, thermodynamics and in the Information theory of Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver.

• " The difference between the Newtonian world and that of the Communication holds, simply, with the fact that the first allots a reality to the objects and arrives to a certain theoretical simplicity by excluding the context from the context, therefore in fact, any metarelation and, a fortiori, any retreat ad infinitum in the chain of such relations." (Gregory Bateson, 1980, p. 72, " Towards an ecology of the esprit". 2, Threshold, Paris).

• the paradigm of the Communication of ecosystemic gave metaphors in biology of the “genetic code” of the DNA “transcribes” in the ARN messenger to be” read”. The difference is thus clarified. The theory of the contexts is deliberately in this world of the communication.

The question of the human behavior was put and studied in a great number of scattered, scattered and disjoined disciplines that it would be not very useful and tiresome to enumerate. It is enough to make an inventory of the " sciences humaines" or perhaps more exactly of the " sciences sociales" who is the French term to indicate what the Anglo-Saxons name under the term of " behavioral sciences" who is some time returned literally like " sciences of the comportement".

• " To make progress the question, we thus propose to use only one system to include/understand the multiple aspects of the human behavior. Today, we believe that the communication is only the model scientist who allows us to explain the physical aspects, intrapersonnels, interpersonal and cultural of the events in the same system. By employing a single system, we eliminate the multiplicity of the separated universes, the vocabularies diversified and the polemics which occur because we, specialists in the social sciences and clinicians, cannot include/understand us.” (Gregory Bateson & Jürgen Ruesch, 1988, p. 17, Communication and company , Threshold, Paris. Transl. france of " Communication. Social The Matrix off Psychiatry" , 1951,1968,1987.).

The lighting subtitle of " social matrix of the psychiatrie" was retracted in the French translation. " The term of " social matrix " thus return to a more important scientific system which at the same time the psychiatrist and the patient left intégrante" (1988, p. 16). In addition and in the English editions (1951, 1968, p. 13), he was written this: “The gasoline of our message to the reader is that the communication is the matrix in which all the human activities are enchased”.

As an aspect of the Communication, a behavior becomes significant and meaning only in context, in such a way that Ray Birdwhistell proposed to move l'" Analysis of contents " with a " contexte" analyzes; , i.e. the analysis relates either to the contents of the exchange, the relation or the interaction, but on the " système" who made the exchange possible. The Communication and the behavior are expressed then in systemic and cybernetic terms through the principles of their epistemology and the use of the descriptive Linguistique.

Consequently, a gesture, a word and any behavior are considered not in themselves, but in their relation with others gestures, other words and other behaviors. It is not possible any more, as in the behaviorisms and the psychoanalyzes, to consider the individual and his acts without inserting them in a polyadic context. It seems that the behavioral sciences remained, on the whole, based on a monadic design of the individual (the " thing in soi" or " Ding year sich") and on the worthy method which consists in isolating from the variables. The language and the spirit of psychology are remained monadic.

In illustrative examples, concepts like " leadership" , " dépendance" , " maternage" , etc were the subject of specific and deepened studies and end up acquiring a pseudo-reality and, intellectual constructions, they become finally measurable quantities of the human spirit, itself conceived like an isolated phenomenon. Once réifiés of the kind, these concepts become " things in soi" quantifiable and sectile with leisure by losing their character of particular form of a relation in progress. The " leadership" , the " dépendance" , the " maternage" are the expressions of a form of relation or interaction between individuals in a situation with rules which control it, i.e. constraints directing and delimiting the possible activities and configurations, and which constitute the context of these interactions.

With all fine practice, any behavior has value of " signe". The following example illustrates the basic difference between information and energy, the world berkeleyen of the communication and the Newtonian world of matter, energy and force: a kick with a stone moves it by transfer of energy; it is very different kick with a dog which moves with the energy of its own metabolism to flee, play or bite according to the significance and the value that it confers on this signal in the context of the relation in progress. In other words, the kick is a segment of behavior which communicates information with the dog which answers it by another segment of behavior which has value of communication in a sequence of reciprocal actions or interactions between the dog and the person

Genesis

The theory of the contexts takes part of this second scientific revolution of information, that of the Information with significance, whose first is the functional cybernetic signal of production and regulation. These scientific revolutions of information are revolts against a usual tendency to simplify wrongly, by reducing the human behavior to that of the billiard balls. An example: the kick with a stone makes it move by transfer of energy to the impact or the shock, while a kick with a dog made move the dog with the energy of its metabolism to play or attack, according to the significance and the value conferred by the dog on the kick, in the context of the relation in progress. This second scientific revolution of information is also known like the Cybernétique of the second generation.

This abusive simplication proceeds of a inappropriate similarity between the phenomena of the physical reality of the objects and those of the imaginary reality of the subjects which confer significances and values on the objects of physical reality. The abusive simplication (or over-simplification) reduced the world of the subjects to that of the objects, the world of thinking of that of matter-energy.

Since the Immunology, we know that, already, the cells " computent" and cogitent" , i.e. the signs recognize, treat them and answer the signs. The " pomme" of Newton became