GREGORY BATESON, CYBERNETICS,

AND THE SOCIAL/BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

ABSTRACT

Gregory Bateson's interdisciplinary work in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and

Epistemology was profoundly influenced by the ideas set forth in systems theory,
communication theory, information theory and cybernetics. As is now quite common,
Bateson used the single term cybernetics in reference to an aggregate of these ideas that grew
together shortly after World War II. For him, cybernetics, or communication theory, or
information theory, or systems theory, together constituted a unified set of ideas, and he was
among the first to appreciate the fact that the patterns of organization and relational
symmetry evident in all living systems are indicative of mind.
Here, we must not forget that due to the nineteenth century polemic between science
and religion, any consideration of purpose and plan, e.g., mental process, had been a priori
excluded from science as non-empirical, or immeasurable. Any reference to mind as an
explanatory or causal principle had been banned from biology. Even in the social/behavioral
sciences, references to mind remained suspect. Building on the work of Norbert Wiener,
Warren McCulloch, and W. Ross Ashby, Bateson realized that it is precisely mental process
or mind which must be investigated.
Thus, he formulated the criteria of mind and the cybernetic epistemology that are
pivotal elements in his "ecological philosophy." In fact, he referred to cybernetics as an
epistemology: e.g., the model, itself, is a means of knowing what sort of world this is, and
also the limitations that exist concerning our ability to know something (or perhaps nothing)
of such matters. As his work progressed, Bateson proposed that we consider Epistemology as
an overarching discipline of the natural sciences, including the social/behavioral sciences: a
meta-science whose parameters extend to include the science of mind in the widest sense of
the word. Apparently, many scholars and practitioners of the social/behavioral sciences, as
well as the humanities, were first introduced to the cybernetic paradigm through Bateson's
work. Yet, he seldom offered his audience more than a cursory reference to the key principles
underlying cybernetics. Hence, the aim of this essay is to incrementally and historically
delineate the fundamental principles underlying what is now often referred to as the 'first'
cybernetics.

Lawrence S. Bale, Ph.D.

101 Elmwood Ave., Apt. A
Narberth, PA 19072-2409
ph. (610) 664-0585
[email protected]
 GREGORY BATESON, CYBERNETICS,
AND THE SOCIAL/BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

The ideas were generated in many places: in Vienna by Bertalanffy, in

Harvard by Wiener, in Princeton by von Neumann, in Bell Telephone labs by
Shannon, in Cambridge by Craik, and so on. All these separate developments
dealt with communicational problems, especially with the problem of what
sort of thing is an organized system.1 [emphasis mine]
Gregory Bateson

Gregory Bateson was among the first to appreciate the fact that the patterns of
organization and relational symmetry evident in all living systems are indicative of mind.
Here, we must not forget that due to the nineteenth century polemic between science and
religion, any consideration of purpose and plan, e.g., mental process, had been a priori
excluded from science as non-empirical, or immeasurable. Any reference to mind as an
explanatory or causal principle had been banned from biology. Even in the social/behavioral
sciences, references to mind remained suspect. Building on the work of Norbert Wiener, W.
Ross Ashby and Warren McCulloch,2 Bateson realized that it is precisely mental process or
mind which must be investigated. Thus, he formulated the criteria of mind and the cybernetic
epistemology that are pivotal elements in his "ecological philosophy." In fact, he referred to
cybernetics as an epistemology: e.g., the model, itself, is a means of knowing what sort of
world this is, and also the limitations that exist concerning our ability to know something (or
perhaps nothing) of such matters. As his work progressed, he proposed that we consider
Epistemology as an overarching discipline of the natural sciences, including the
social/behavioral sciences: a meta-science whose parameters extend to include the science of
mind in the widest sense of the word.
With its focus on communication and information as the key elements of the self-
regulation and self-organization in cybernetic systems, the cybernetic paradigm exemplifies
the hierarchical patterns of organization evident in living systems. The elaborate differences
of pattern, organization and symmetry embodied in living systems are also indicative of
mental process. Thus, Bateson employed the aggregate of ideas referred to under the rubric
of cybernetics as a unifying model of mental phenomena, and as a tool for "mapping" and
explaining the previously inaccessible "territory" of mind. Taking his lead particularly from
Warren McCulloch,3 Bateson's work led to the conclusion that epistemology is, in fact, a
normative branch of natural history. For Bateson, McCulloch's work had "pulled
epistemology down out of the realms of abstract philosophy into the much more simple
realm of natural history," and established "that, to understand human beings, even at a very
elementary level, you had to know the limitations of their sensory input."4
Apparently, many scholars and practitioners of the social/behavioral sciences, as well
as the humanities (myself included), were first introduced to the cybernetic paradigm
through Bateson's work. Yet, he seldom offered his audience more than a cursory reference
to the key principles underlying cybernetics. Hence, the aim of this essay is to delineate the
fundamental principles underlying what is now often referred to as the 'first' cybernetics.
Clearly, Bateson's interdisciplinary work in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and
Epistemology was profoundly influenced by the ideas set forth in systems theory,
communication theory, information theory and cybernetics. As is now quite common,
Bateson used the single term cybernetics in reference to an aggregate of these ideas that grew
together shortly after World War II, and for him, cybernetics, or communication theory, or
information theory, or systems theory, together constituted a unified set of ideas. The
quotation headlining this essay is intended to indicate that our topic deals with essentially
communicational problems, "especially with the problem of what sort of 'thing' is an
organized system," i.e., a mind system, a communications system, a social system, and an
ecosystem. Since we will be considering an aggregate of disciplines, I proceed
chronologically, with the first of these disciplines to emerge, i.e., general systems theory, and
then move to consider how the recursive regularities of negative and positive feedback
mechanisms, and circular causal systems (principles established first in mathematics,
communication theory, and information theory)5 led Norbert Wiener to coin the term
cybernetics, and serendipitously offered a firmer theoretical foundation for systems theory.

2
The Classical Paradigm of Science, and the
Emergence of General Systems Theory
General systems theory emerged out of the need to map and explain biological
phenomena that cannot be suitably understood using the classical mechanistic model of
reality. "The analytic, mechanistic, one-way causal paradigm of classical science," as the
Austrian biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy describes it, assumes that reality can be quantifi-
ably analyzed; that a whole can be understood in terms of its parts; and that the nature and
function of a substance or an organism can be comprehended by reducing it to its material,
externally observable components.6
Systems analysis acknowledges the impressive gains in scientific inquiry, and the
subsequent technological advances, afforded by the classical scientific paradigm. Granted,
highly sophisticated methods of dissecting and quantifiably analyzing natural phenomena
have provided important insights into the construction of our world. Such insights have also
afforded a considerable, though limited, capacity to predict and control small pieces of
reality, at a given moment in time. Yet, these gains have been achieved at considerable costs,
costs that notably include: overspecialization and narrow professionalism in scientific
research; the fracturing and fragmentation of science's vision of nature; and a subsequent
sense of alienation from the beauty of nature's underlying unity.
Systems analysis observes that with the classical paradigm of reality, wider more
inclusive patterns interaction are disregarded as immeasurable. Also, virtually all
considerations of purpose and plan, e.g., mental process, and final causes, are a priori
excluded as non-empirical, or again, immeasurable. Coupled with Cartesian mind-body
duality, the one-way causal paradigm of classical science assumes the nature of a
substanceand this includes organismsis reducible to forces, impacts and regularities that
are inevitably subject to the second law of thermodynamics. It also assumes that all causes,
effects and potentialities can be traced back, in linear fashion, to initial conditions.
While these assumptions are adequate for explaining carefully isolated phenomena,
and the causal relationships between one "thing" and another "thing," science has found it
difficult to apply this model of reality in situations displaying more than two variables.7
Mapping multivariable complexes in terms of linear relations involves a piecemeal,
3
fragmented analysis, in which the units involved are reduced to sequences of interacting
pairs. Any process that is more complex than a hydrogen atom, with one electron orbiting its
nucleus, embodies a complexity that escapes sufficient explanation. This method affords
useful information, but it cannot sufficiently map the flow of an interactive complex.
Moreover, the successes garnered by the classical scientific paradigm revealed its
inadequacies. As refined tools have opened wider panoramas of research, exhibiting data of
increasing complexity, science has been driven to search for new ways of conceptualizing
reality. In short, the classical paradigm of science has proven inadequate to the task of
mapping the natural world. It is particularly inadequate when applied to describing and
explaining the multivariable processes of human interaction, e.g., communication, and
humankind's intricate interrelationship with local and global ecological systems.
Under closer observation, it has become evident that natural phenomena do not
behave as they are though subject to the narrow determinism postulated by the paradigm of
classical science. This has led to a tangential or corollary view, a view that completely
abandons causality and envisions the cosmos as random. As Joanna Rogers Macy has noted,
the unidirectional paradigm of classical science has culminated in two distinct alternatives:
"either we live in a clockwork universe, wholly predetermined by initial conditions, with no
scope for genuine novelty, or the cosmos is a blind and purposeless play of atoms, and
determinable only statistically, by the laws of chance."8 Macy, identifies these dismal
alternatives as a major contributing factor in the spiritual and psychic dislocation, or the
sense of alienation experienced by contemporary humankind. These limited alternatives also
serve as key barriers, blocking meaningful dialogue between science and religion.
I should also note that while the assumptions of the classical scientific paradigm have
provided a capacity to predict and control the natural world, the impressive technological
gains they afford are largely responsible for a familiar litany of alarming environmental
crises: overpopulation, pollution and degradation of the environment, global warming and
ozone depletion, etc.9 We must recognize the role played by religion, as well as economics
and other cultural factors, in shaping the attitudes that have fostered the ecological crisis we
now face. Still, the now commonly held mistaken notions (concerning humankind's

4
relationship with the biosphere, as well as what constitutes an appropriate and thoughtful
application of scientific knowledge) are directly attributable to the myopic excesses of the
classical scientific paradigm.
It is one thing to fantasize that we have the right to dominate nature. It is quite
another thing, when techniques developed by science actually give us the ability to play out
our dominant fantasies: altering and destroying vast sections of the natural order evident in
the biosphere. Humankind's successes in scientific exploration have allowed for, and
apparently encouraged, unwise intervention in natural systems that we do not fully
understand. Our overconfidence in the veracity and reliability of a limited scientific
paradigm, and our haste in applying techniques borrowed from this modelnotably
prediction and controlhave fostered a pseudo-scientific and overly technological culture of
consumerism. Such have been the costs of our over-reliance on the reductionist, mechanistic,
one-way causal paradigm of classical science.
The perspective offered by advocates of general systems analysis identifies at least
four areas where the inadequacy of the classical scientific paradigm is most apparently
manifest, areas where its failings have stimulated the development and acceptance of
systems analysis and subsequently cybernetics:
1. As previously noted, natural phenomena displaying a multiplicity of variables cannot be
adequately understood through an analysis of their variables as separate entities. While
analysis of the physical nature of differentiated "parts" comprising a whole may be useful, it
is limited in what it reveals about the whole. Since focusing on isolated traits obscures or
eclipses attributes characteristic of the whole, our focus should move to examining the
combined interaction of these variables.
2. A linear concept of causality cannot adequately explain the interactions of a complex
system or Gestalt. The classical scientific paradigm is sufficient only for understanding
carefully isolated phenomena, where unidirectional cause and effect relationships occur
between interacting pairs, e.g., between one thing and another thing.
3. Entropy, or evidence of negentropic processes in the growth and evolution of living
organisms, is also a realm of explanation where the classical paradigm of science has proven

5
to be inadequate. While not eluding the laws of physics, the complex interactions of biologi-
cal systems involve regularities other than the second law of thermodynamics. According to
the second law of thermodynamics, entropy always increases: with every transformation of
energy there is a measure of that energy which is lost; therefore differences in heat become
gradually equalized and the universe is seen as ultimately tending toward sameness,
randomness and disorganization. In the physical sciences, this law has never been
contradicted or disproved, and it is generally regarded as holding a "supreme position among
the laws of Nature."10 Yet, the second law of thermodynamics cannot adequately explain the
evidence of continued biological negentropy. In their forms of life and patterns of interaction
living organisms have not tended toward sameness, randomness and disorganization. Living
systems differentiate, evolve and maintain increasingly complex forms of social and self-
organization. Such self-organization in biological phenomena has been studied since the
1920's, and the anti-entropic evidence in the evolution of order and increased complexity
within biological systems simply cannot be explained with traditional linear concepts such as
the second law of thermodynamics, where effect is understood to pre-exist in cause.
4. The classical paradigm of science has led to overspecialization and departmentalization,
blocking the perception and investigation of interdependence in natural phenomena. The
shared presuppositions: that reality can be quantifiably analyzed; that a whole can be under-
stood in terms of its parts; and that the nature and function of a substance or organism can be
ascertained by dissecting it into smaller and smaller components, has bred acute speciali-
zation. As specialists have learned "more and more about less and less," the separations
between their disciplines become virtually impenetrable. A specificity of disciplines and
terminology impedes communication among scientists, limiting understanding of scientific
inquiry to a limited class of experts. Perhaps the most damaging result of over-specialization
in scientific inquiry is that it has obstructed the perception and study of the non-substantial
phenomena intrinsically manifest in relationships. As Ervin Laszlo notes,
We are drilling holes in the wall of mystery that we call nature and reality on
many locations, and we carry out delicate analyses on each of these sites. But it
is only now that we are beginning to realize the need for connecting the probes
with one another and gaining some coherent insight into what is there.11

6
General Systems Analysis:
Homeostatic and Self-Organizing
Open Systems in the Phenomena of Life

General systems theory first originated in biology, a science where the need to move
beyond a reductionist and atomistic approach is perhaps most evident. In the 1920's, Austrian
scientist Ludwig von Bertalanffy directed his attention to the organization of organisms,
rather than their substancefocusing on wholes, and the manner in which wholes function,
rather than on parts. Concerning the early stages of his work von Bertalanffy wrote:

[I] became puzzled about obvious lacunae in the research and theory of
biology. The then prevalent mechanistic approach . . . appeared to neglect or
actively deny just what is essential in the phenomena of life. [I] advocated an
organismic conception of biology which emphasizes consideration of the
organism as a whole or system, and see the main objective of biological
sciences in the discovery of the principles of organization at its various
levels.12

Of course, von Bertalanffy's thinking was not entirely isolated. Process-oriented,

holistic approaches were being considered in many places. Whitehead's process philosophy,
Jung's Gestalt therapy, and more to the point, Cannon's work on homeostasis (an integral
element of systems thought) first appeared at this time.13
Von Bertalanffy's work established that the behavior of living phenomena is best
comprehended in terms of wholes, rather than parts. He also discerned that biological
wholesanimal or vegetable; cell, organ, or organismare best described as systems. The
system, as described by von Bertalanffy, is less a "thing" than a pattern of organization.
Systems are comprised of a unified pattern of events, and their existence, as well as their
character are derived more from the nature of their organization, than from the nature of their
components. As such, a system consists of a dynamic flow of interactions that cannot
themselves be quantified, weighed or measured. The pattern of the whole is "non-
summative" and irreducible. Hence, as a pattern of organization, the character of a system is
altered with any addition, subtraction or other form of perturbation in any of its constitutive
elements.
7
 Doubtless, a living system is more than simply the sum of its parts. However, this
more is not something extra, such as an elan vital or a vitalist principle. Even after signi-
ficant disruption, an organism in nature can continue to develop in a manner normal for its
speciesevidence the fact that organisms can heal themselves. Since this sort of
phenomenon seems to contradict the classical laws of physics, giving organisms an aspect of
independence from the external operation of cause and effect earlier biologists attributed it to
a soul-like vitalist factor.
Having found this sort of explanation inadequate and unwarranted, von Bertalanffy
attributed the phenomenon to a function of the dynamic organization of the system as a
whole.14 That is, through the combined interaction of the differentiated elements that
comprise the system, a new level of operation is formed. Namely, a unique status of
existence is facilitated by the fully integrated interdependence of its "parts." Thus, the very
nature of a system is immanent in the combined interaction of the system as a whole, and
hence, the system's true character is lost from view when its distinguishable components are
investigated independently of each other. Von Bertalanffy came to understand that the
organic interdependence which governs the internal functioning of a living system also
exemplifies its relations with its environment. Whether an organism or an organ, a cell or an
organelle, a living system functions and evolves within a larger systemlinked in
relationships which embody both dependence and indispensability. Living systems both
envelop, and are enveloped by, other living systems with which they are in steady
communication, thus forming a natural hierarchical order.
Thus, the diverse morphogenesis apparent in the discernable wholes studied by the
biological sciencesorganelle or cell, organ or organism, vegetable or animal, species or
genus, etc.are not only systems, they are open systems.15 They organize and sustain
themselves by exchanging matter, energy and information with their environment. Moreover,
it is precisely the processes involved in these exchanges which constitute the life and
continuity of such living systems. For although a living system may replicate itself, no single
component of the system is permanent.

8
 The manner in which these exchanges and transformations take place, the principles
by which an incessantly changing pattern both retains its configuration or identity and
evolves its order, have been a central focus of systems inquiry. As for what exactly is
exchanged, since the distinctions between matter, energy, and information have become
blurred, answers to this question are not entirely clear. Yet, it is clear that all three flow
through the system and are subsequently transformed by it. Von Bertalanffy's major
discovery was that regardless of a system's material ingredients or external appearance, in
their relational patterns and processes, the regularities or invariances which govern these
operations are essentially the same. Furthermore, in maintaining and organizing itself, an
open system is distinguished by what von Bertalanffy identified as Flie-Gleichgewicht
(literally, "flux-balance"), or steady state. Because a living system is incessantly involved in
processes of exchange and transformationin states of inflow and outflowthe system is
recognized as maintaining a continual state of flux. Never stationary or fixed in chemical or
thermodynamic equilibrium, its components are constantly altered by metabolic events.
The terms balance and steady are here most significant. These terms underscore the
fact that the system maintains itself in tension between opposing forcesbetween the
formation and the dissolution of its constitutive components, i.e., its "substance." A system
compensates for its deterioration by importing and processing energy. Thus, it attains and
sustains a steady balancea dynamic equilibriumbetween its own improbable state and
the surrounding environment.16 While its elements dissipate, its pattern endures and can even
evolve in complexity. The morphogenesis embodied in living systems exemplifies negen-
tropic or anti-entropic qualities that apparently defy the physical laws of nature. Living
systems represent a successful maintenance and increase of order within the prevailing
thermodynamic drift toward randomness and disorganization. Their orderliness persists, not
only in spite of disintegrative forces, but actually by means of utilizing them.
The processes through which living systems generate and sustain order are two-fold.
One is self-stabilizing or homeostatic, where the continuity of the system's pattern or
configuration is maintained. The other is self-organizing, where the overall pattern of the
system itself is modified, and its organization increased. Increased complexity fosters a

9
decrease in structural stability, and complexification moves the system toward greater
variety, improbability, and possible inviability. The more complex and intricately refined
system is more vulnerable to physical disorganization. Yet, this tendency is also counter-
balanced by subsequent increases in the system's flexibility, and its heightened capacity to
process information and adapt.
Systems theorists observe that it is within closed systems, like a machine without an
outside source of energy, that entropy inevitably increases. This highlights the fact that while
open systems do manifest entropy, they can also import energy from their environment, and
through orderly differentiation they can increase in complexity. Unless the universe as a whole is
taken as one, the concept of a closed system is an abstraction that does not exist in nature.17
The self-organizing and homeostatic (self-stabilizing) processes exhibited by open
systems constitute evidence of persistent phenomena which are contrary to the mechanically
and statistically demonstrable dissolution of the universe, postulated by the second law of
thermodynamics. Also, open systems provide evidence that demonstrates the existence of
anti-entropic (negentropic) tendencies within our perceived universenegentropic
tendencies in which order, complexity, and improbability are sustained and increased. Hence,
we may safely assume that the existence of open systems resolves the apparent contradiction
between data from physics which supports dissipation, disorganization and randomness, on
the one hand, and ample documentation of increased order and complexity in biological
evolution, on the other.
Cybernetics: Circular Causal Systems
in Biological and Social Systems
Gregory Bateson embraced the concepts and vocabulary of cybernetics because this
interdisciplinary field offered a more rigorous formulation of theoretical concerns with
which his work had already been dealing. In fact, Bateson's biography offers ample evidence
that long before he first encountered cybernetic theory, a systems approach to the biology
and the behavioral sciences were for him not a foreign concept.18 His father William Bateson
was a preeminent British biologist and a pioneer in the study of genetics (he introduced the
term to the English speaking world). Of his father, Bateson has written that he, "was

10
certainly ready in 1894 to receive the cybernetic ideas."19 It is also interesting to note that as
early as 1906, the elder Bateson had written:
We commonly think of animals and plants as matter, but they are really
systems through which matter is continually passing. The orderly relations of
their parts are as much under geometrical control as the concentric waves
spreading from a splash in a pool. If we could in any real way identify or
analyze the causation of growth, biology would become a branch of
physics.20 [emphasis mine]

Judging from the above, it does appear that Bateson was raised in an atmosphere where the
concerns and ideas central to systems analysis, and later cybernetics, were familiar topics.
Moreover, at Cambridge University in the 1920's, the pattern of his education in science had
encouraged broad, general, interdisciplinary interests.21 No doubt, having been raised and
educated in such an environment favorably prepared Bateson for the advent of cybernetic ideas.
Well before 1946, when he was invited to attend the first formal conference on
cybernetics sponsored by the Macy foundation, Bateson's work in cultural anthropology
dealt with the processes by which social systems organize and stabilize themselves.
However, he was not satisfied with his interpretations of his own social anthropological
fieldwork.22 It was not until cybernetics offered the possibility of extending the precision of
mathematics to these processes, that he became actively involved in the movement to apply a
variety of concepts originating in mathematics and engineering to biology and the behavioral
sciences.23 Still, Bateson was by no means a mathematician. He understood relatively little
mathematics and his distaste for engineering is well documented:24
. . . his interest was in the concepts from logical and mathematical theories
which he could use, as metaphors or in an heuristic way, to formulate
conceptual schemes in the behavioral and social sciences. His tool was and is
the English language, and he tried to achieve clarity and precision in its use,
as far as was possible, but never mathematical rigor.25

Bateson not only assimilated the conceptual schemes of cybernetics into his work, during the
remainder of his career he refined the newly developed lexicon of cybernetics, so that it
could be used with both scientific rigor and poetic imagination,26 and cybernetic principles
became the central metaphor in his proposed meta-science of Epistemology.

11
 James Watt's invention of the governor on a steam engine (given precise
mathematical analysis by Clerk Maxwell in 1868) and Cannon's discovery of homeostasis in
the maintenance of the chemical balance of the blood, had already revealed the principles
underlying the processes of self-regulation.27 These principles were more rigorously clarified
through research initially carried out on the improvement of anti-aircraft artillery during
World War II. To delineate further the operation of self-corrective or "Teleological
Mechanisms," research was directed to the ways in which such devices receive, exchange
and use information to adjust to multivariable contingencies in the environment. Devices
were built that could monitor their own performance, correct for deviations and changing
conditions, and within set parameters, alter their goals. The method used to accomplish all of
this utilized the properties of closed self-corrective circuits, referred to as feedback
mechanisms, and in time as cybernetics.
The term Cybernetics was coined by Norbert Wiener, at the end of World War Two,
in reference to the, "entire field of control and communication theory, whether in the
machine or in the animal."28 He was, of course, referring to a remarkable set of discoveries
concerning the nature of self-corrective machines that he and many others had made while
working on defense projects. During the war Wiener had been part of an interdisciplinary
team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who had worked on the mathematical
aspects of guidance and control systems for anti-aircraft fire. His earliest public use of the
term Cybernetics was in March 1946,29 at the first of the Macy conferences, entitled,
"Feedback Mechanisms and Circular Causal Systems in Biological and Social Systems."30
Ironically, it was their consideration of guided ("purposeful") anti-aircraft projectiles, and
other weapons being developed for the war, which had alerted Wiener and his associates to
the similarity of organisms and machines:
Rosenblueth, Wiener, and Bigelow had, in effect, announced a new paradigm
in science, according to which one seeks an overarching theory to include
machines and organisms; the theory would clearly involve ideas of informa-
tion, control, and feedback.31

The introduction of cybernetics as an interdisciplinary field led to considerable

enthusiasm among the scientists who attended the Macy conferences. Many, including

12
Bateson, believed the ideas offered were sufficiently deep, yet acceptably overarching, that
out of them might come a vocabulary suitable as a unifying conceptual framework for the
biological and social sciences. Norbert Wiener perhaps best captured the mood of enthusiasm
when he wrote:
If the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries are the age of clocks,
and the later eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries constitute the age of
steam engines, the present time is the age of communication and control.
There is in electrical engineering a split . . . between the technique of strong
currents and the technique of weak currents, and which we know as the
distinction between power and communication engineering. It is this split
which separates the age just past from that in which we are now living.
Actually, communication engineering can deal with currents of any size
whatever . . . what distinguishes it from power engineering is that its main
interest is not economy of energy but the accurate reproduction of a signal.32
[emphasis mine]

Here, I want to call particular attention to the fact that in this quotation Wiener
emphasizes the accurate reproduction of a signal, i.e., communication, as the separation
which distinguishes cybernetics from the laws of thermodynamics. Later, when he stated that
"the study of messages, and in particular effective messages of control, constitutes the
science of Cybernetics,"33 Wiener was referring to the principles exhibited in the recursive
processes of feedback.
Clearly, the fundamental concepts of cybernetic theory include the closely related
phenomena of communication, information, and feedback. Simply put, "the feedback
principle means that behavior is scanned for its result, and that the success or failure of this
result modifies future behavior."34 As straight forward as this may seem, the actual processes
involved in feedback are considerably more complex. Consider the following observation
from von Bertalanffy,
The minimum elements of a cybernetic system are a "receptor"
accepting stimuli (or information) from outside as input; from this
information a message is led to a "center" which in some way reacts to the
message . . . ; the center, in its turn, transmits the messages to an "effector"
which eventually reacts to the stimulus with a response as output. The output,
however, is monitored back, by a "feedback" loop, to the receptor which so
senses the preliminary response and steers the subsequent action of the

13
 system so that eventually the desired result is obtained. In this way, the
system is self-regulating or self-directing.35

If we consider the tangible instances of cybernetic systems, found both in technology and
biology, the configurations outlined above are usually of extraordinary complexity. Yet,
cybernetic and systems theorists have discovered that they can always be analyzed into
feedback circuits.36
According to Wiener, the operations of biological and technological systems are
precisely parallel. "Feedback" indicates the operation of a system whereby its actions are
scanned by sensory receptors as one state in its cycle of operation. The system can monitor
itself and direct its behavior: that is, the system must have a special apparatus for collecting
information at low energy levels, and for making this information available in the operation
of the system. These messages are not selected and conveyed in an unaltered state. Rather,
through transforming operations which are integral to the system, the information is
translated and encoded into a new form that is available for further stages of the system's
performance. Thus, the system can modify its future behavior. "In both the animal and the
machine this performance is made to be effective on the outer world. In both, their
performed action on the outer world, not merely their intended action, is reported back to the
central regulatory apparatus."37
The above description of feedback again indicates the extent to which the cybernetic
paradigm employed Shannon and Weaver's information and communication theory, in which
the pivotal concept is codification, i.e., the transformation of perceived events into symbolic
information.38 The degree to which the principles of communication theory are integral to
the cybernetic model are evidenced above, in that: (a) the entire process hinges upon the
communication of messages, e.g., information, (b) emphasis is placed upon information
collected at low energy levels, (c) information from outside the system is not selected and
conveyed in an unaltered state, (d) if such information is to be available to the system, it
must be transformed, i.e., translated and encoded into a new form. At this juncture, a
quotation from Bateson's work may help to illustrate the significance that Shannon and

14
Weavers theories hold for cybernetic theory, and also to indicate the radical shift in
perspective that information and communication theory require:
This world, of communication, is a Berkeleyan world, but the good
bishop was guilty of understatement. Relevance or reality must be denied not
only to the sound of the tree which falls unheard in the forest but also to this
chair which I can see and on which I am sitting. My perception of the chair is
communicationally real, and that on which I sit is, for me, only an idea, a
message in which I put my trust.39 [emphasis mine]

Positive Feedback, Negative Feedback

and Mutual Causal Loops
As we have seen, feedback is a recursive process whereby a system's behavior is
scanned and fed back through its sensory receptors. Data about the system's previous actions,
as a part of the input it receives, is monitored, allowing the system to "watch" itself, and thus
signal the degree of attainment or non-attainment of a given operation relative to pre-
established goals. This process allows a system to alter its output and thereby regulate or
steer its behavior in relation to its pre-encoded goals. Thus, two forms of feedback are
recognized, negative and positive.
Negative feedback signals the absence of deviation, or the absence of any perceived
mismatch, between the system's actual behavior and its targeted goal(s). In effect, the
negative message of "no problem" is reported back to the systems central regulatory
apparatus (servomechanism, computer, autonomic nervous system, brain, etc.,) signaling that
no change in the system's output is necessary. Thus, negative feedback stabilizes the system,
allowing it to remain steady or constant within its prevailing course of trajectory. Conversely,
positive feedback signals a mismatch between the system's actual behavior and its intended
performance.40 Positive feedback messages initiate modifications in the system's operation,
until the feedback is again negative and the system is on target. In fact, within highly
complex systems, positive feedback can actually modify the goal(s), and hence the aim(s), of
the overall system, itself.
Before further considering the properties of negative and positive feedback, we again
underscore the fact that cybernetics has opened new horizons for the examination and
explanation of living systems. Charting the traits of negative and positive feedback loops has

15
unveiled pattern-building, or isomorphisms and invariances unlike any accepted by the
linear, or lineal paradigm that continues to dominate Western culture.41 Hence, phenomena
such as circular and mutual causality, dynamic stability, and complexly interrelated systemic
hierarchies are now open to more rigorous investigation.
For many people, the analogy of feedback as a "loop" or circle may tend to suggest a
"vicious circle," or reversion to a pre-existing statean incessant return to the same point,
and the exclusion of novelty. However, as we will discover, feedback generates information
and innovates novelty. Through the recursive operation of negative and positive feedback,
elements within a system, be they cells in a body or members of a society, become informed
and differentiated. Hence, they are able to grow and evolve.
An accessible example of the cybernetic model is the thermostatically controlled
heating system. The entire unit, weather-house-heater-thermostat-homeowner, is here under-
stood as a system of communication. The thermostat contains a thermometer (a receptor or a
sort of sense organ), which responds to messages or transforms of difference (e.g.,
information) between a specified ideal temperature and actual changes in room temperature.
Note that it is the homeowner who specifies, sets or encodes, the thermostat's ideal
temperature. Hence, as the following observation from Bateson indicates, from one
perspective the system's circuitry is closed; but, the system is also open to changes in both
weather patterns and the homeowner's personal preferences.
When the phenomena of the universe are seen as linked together by
cause-and-effect and energy transfer, the resulting picture is of complexly
branching and interconnecting chains of causation. In certain regions of this
universe (notably organisms in environments, ecosystems, thermostats, steam
engines with governors, societies, computers, and the like), these chains of
causation form circuits which are closed in the sense that causal interconnec-
tion can be traced around the circuit and back through whatever position was
(arbitrarily) chosen as the starting point of the description. In such a circuit,
evidently, events at any position in the circuit may be expected to have effect
at all positions on the circuit at later times.
Such systems are, however, always open: (a) in the sense that the
circuit is energized from some external source and loses energy usually in the
form of heat to the outside; and (b) in the sense that events within the circuit
may be influenced from outside or may influence outside events.42

16
 In our example of a cybernetic system (weather-house-heater-thermostat-
homeowner), when the temperature of the house is too warm or too cold, the thermostat will
respond to its own codification of the changenot to a physical energy transferand will
signal the heater to turn off or on, thereby equilibrating to conserve the system's ideal
temperature. This typifies the interactive oscillation between messages communicating the
real to the ideal and the ideal to the real within the comprehensive circuitry of a cybernetic
systemexemplified in steady state, homeostasis or morphostasis. In this system the
messages of temperature change, i.e., deviation from the ideal, represent positive feedback,
and are counteracted through self-stabilizing messages of control, e.g., negative feedback,
which activate or deactivate the heating element so as to maintain a balanced approximation
of the system's encoded ideal.
Feedback "mechanisms" are circular and self-referential by nature. In the closed
"circuitry" of a feedback loop, "cause" and "effect" cannot be categorically isolated. They
modify each other in a continuous process whereby input and output, percepts and
performance, interact. This complex interaction between perception and action, evident in
exploratory and learning behaviors, is the means by which a systemanimal or machine
has the capacity to adapt, organize and increase its complexity. It is the key to a system's
self-organization and its self-stabilization. Thus, cybernetic models mandate explanation in
terms of serial and reciprocal sequences of cause and effect:
All that is required is that we ask not about the characteristics of lineal chains
of cause and effect but about the characteristics of systems in which the
chains of cause and effect are circular or more complex than circular. If, for
example, we consider a circular system containing elements A, B, C, and D
so related that an activity of A affects an activity of B, B affects C, C affects
D, and D has an effect back upon Awe find that such a system has
properties totally different from anything which can occur in lineal chains.43

Precisely because lineal one-way causal premiseswith categorical distinctions

between cause and effectcan only be applied piecemeal to two variables at a time, they
have proven inadequate for explaining the properties of circular or more complex than
circular systems. The interactions of cybernetic pattern-building disclose a different kind of
causality, one involving interdependence and reciprocal relationships between causes and

17
effects. The recursive processes involved in feedback serve to link causal variables in a
continuous flow of information and energy. Not unlike an electrical circuit, feedback loops
connect output with input, and the information they communicate sustains an interactive
oscillation between the systems targeted ideal(s) and the success or failure of its behavior(s).
Consequently, the circular or more complex than circular processes of feedback
exhibit properties that far exceed the general notion of interaction, or the mere presence of
influences in two directions. They function in terms of mutual causal loops, and as such,
these influences actively influence each otherboth within a given system, or a subsystem,
and between systems. A may affect B in a way that is unrelated to B's influence on A. Yet,
only where A's effect on B is qualified by B's effect on A (or, where A is modified by its
effect on B), is there a feedback loop and mutual causality in a strict sense.44

Regenerative Feedback,
Deviation Amplification,
and Cybernetic Stability
Although developed from work with self-corrective, purposive or "teleological"
machines, the application of feedback principles was quickly recognized as a valuable tool
for describing the function of living open systems.45 In an organism, sensory signals, such as
the pain which results from touching a hot object, constitute feedback. In social relations,
feedback reports the resultor the perceived resultof our behavior on other persons, such
as our perception of a smile or frown in return for our own.46 Particularly in relation to the
self-stabilizing and self-organizing nature of a system (i.e., cybernetic stability), the mutual
causal effects of feedback have been recognized as invaluable tools for appropriately
explaining the interaction observed in the relationship of a system with its environment.
They also offer concepts with which the extraordinary self-regulative capacities of living
systems can be comprehended and investigated. Hence, cybernetics serendipitously provided
a firmer theoretical foundation for general systems theory.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that some general systems theorists adopted
cybernetic principles with firm reservations. For example, von Bertalanffy asserted that:
Cybernetic systems are "closed" with respect to exchange of matter with
environment, and open only to information. For this reason the cybernetic
18
 model does not provide for an essential characteristic of living systems
whose components are continually destroyed in catabolic and replaced in
anabolic processes, with corollaries such as growth, development,
differentiation, etc.47

According to von Bertalanffy, the cybernetic model introduced circular causality by

way of the feedback loop, which accounts for the self-regulation, goal directedness, etc., of
the system. Yet, the feedback model is only one, "rather special," type of self-regulating
system; and it is too "mechanistic" in the sense that it presupposes structural arrangements
(receptors, effectors, control center, etc.). In contrast, he maintained that the concept of
general systems is broader and non-mechanistic, in that regulative behavior is not determined
by structural or "machine" conditions, but a dynamic interaction between many variables.
John Milsum and others seem to have resolved these issues, but von Bertalanffy's resistance
persisted.48
Be that as is may, Von Bertalanffy's remarks do highlight some of the key objections
voiced when the cybernetic model is applied to living systems. Once again, the general
confusion regarding information, matter, and energy is apparent, and although von
Bertalanffy neglects the crucial point that matter may serve as information, his objections
underscore the fact that a sharp distinction must be drawn between matter and energy, and
information.49 As for his claims that the cybernetic model does not provide for growth,
development or differentiation, and that regulative behavior in the feedback model is too
structural and mechanistic, they are simply overdrawn.50
Von Bertalanffy made use of the cybernetic model, and he was well aware that it is
intended as an analogy. His objections cannot have been an instance of mistaking map for
territory. Yet, as the founder of general systems analysis, he was inclined toward maintaining
its uniqueness and superior comprehensiveness. In his favor, we should recognize that as a
conscientious pioneer of scientific thought he was also concerned with avoiding overly
ambitious applications of both general systems analysis and cybernetics.51 It is interesting to
note that Bateson chose to avoid this particular mode of systems/cybernetics controversy,
and was among those who integrated the elements shared in common by these "related
disciplines." Von Bertalanffy's objections are echoed in the criticisms leveled at employing a

19
cybernetic model in the social/behavioral sciences. However, at this point my aim is to
delineate the premises upon which cybernetics is based, and attempting to resolve these
issues moves beyond our present topic.
As systems theory assimilated cybernetic principles, the self-stabilization of a system
came to be understood as an operation of the deviation-counteracting processes of negative
feedback.52 Natural systems respond to change in the environment in much the same way as
a thermostat. Both adjust their behavior so as to minimize deviations between their
perceptions or measurements of the environment (the input) and their internal requirements
encoded in a control center (brain, servomechanism, etc.). Thus, they maintain a steady state
of morphostasis in the ongoing relationship of their systems' mutually affecting variables, the
continuity of their pattern is ensured, and their systemic integrity is actively "stabilized."
Yet, cybernetic systems exhibit a capacity for pathology and self-destruction. In the
example of a home thermostat, if the polarity of the system's codifier is reversed so it
responds to positive feedback with positive feedbackincreased room temperature triggers
the heating element, which raises room temperature and triggers the thermostat, etc; the
system will shift into a state of runaway, like a steam engine without a governor, and
exponentially self-destruct. This attribute of positive feedback is termed regenerative
feedback. If left uncorrected, it leads to pathology and ultimately self-destruction. Mapping
and explaining the capacity for systemic pathology is a recognized contribution of
cybernetics. Indeed, it seems Wiener focused on the study of effective messages of control, as
constituting the science of cybernetics, precisely because he assumed that self-regulating
systems tend toward entropy. Thus, in cybernetic explanation questions are framed in terms
of what restraints are activated in order to maintain a system in steady state.53
Although degrees of pathology are a potential consequence of positive feedback, a
related phenomenon, oddly enough, is the system's capacity for self-organization. This
particular aspect of positive feedback is a result of the deviation-amplifying processes of
regenerative feedback. Recognized in growth, learning, and evolution, it is perhaps the most
significant consequence of positive feedback. If there is a persistent mismatch in the mutual
causal relationship between the environment and a system's configuration (between a

20
system's input and its code), such perturbations may trigger modifications in the code and the
overall "structure" of the system, itself. Messages of deviation may be "interpreted" by a
system to require increased deviation. Consequently, the deviation-amplifying process of
positive feedback, through which a system may destroy itself, may also trigger
morphogenesis changes that reorganize and complexify the system's overall pattern of
operation, transforming it to a thermodynamically less probable, but a contextually more
viable order of configuration and interaction.54
Cybernetic research has convincingly demonstrated that through the deviation-
amplifying mutual causal process of positive feedback, starting anywhere except the thermo-
dynamically most probable equilibrium, open systems will complexify in response to
enduring perturbations from the environment. In short, "whenever a lasting deviation from
uniformity (thermodynamic equilibrium) develops," a system will move toward increased
differentiation and complexification, and therefore, a more tenuous steady state.55 It will
adapt itself to environmental conditions by altering and complexifying its organization, and
increased complexification in all natural systems represents movement away from systemic
stability. That is, as a system's configuration becomes more intricately organized and more
intimately interrelated with increased external variables, it becomes more sensitive and
responsive to change, and thereby less stable. However, the emergence of increased
differentiation and complexification also manifests a corresponding increase in the system's
array of available responses, or what Ervin Laszlo terms cybernetic stabilitythe system's
capacity for effective adaptation.56
Note how the cybernetic paradigm shifts the focus of our discourse away from:
discreet material substances, oneway causality, structure, and summativity. Rather, a
cybernetic explanation focuses on: process and behavior, dynamic or animated organization,
circular or more complex than circular causality, the mutual causal loops of feedback cycles,
interaction between multiple variables, and emergent morphogenesis. Hence, the cybernetic
stability of a system must be understood not as an inactive structure, but as a pattern of
eventsan animated organization of exchanges and transformations within the system's
parameters. Hence, it is not the characteristics of the "parts" alone that are basic to any

21
whole. Rather, it is the manner in which the system's differentiated components are
interrelated that gives them their distinctive properties. Furthermore, within more complex
systems the "differentiated parts" exhibit properties which they owe specifically to being
components of a larger whole.
Through its receptors, a cybernetic system acquires and processes information and
energy according to its needs or code. Information, energy and matter may spread through
the system following a fixed pathway, but they do not trigger responses and produce
systemic behavior (output) directly. Rather, they are subject to the dynamics of the system's
configuration, and in the circular or more complex than circular operations of a cybernetic
circuit or network, events at any position in the circuit may be expected to have effect at all
positions on the circuit at later times. Incoming messages are received as encoded transforms
of perceived events, and such information is translated or "interpreted" (sifted, sorted,
evaluated and recombined) before it is conveyed to effectors and translated into action. Thus,
the cybernetic system does not passively undergo the effects of external causes, but actively
transforms them. It is not simply input that determines a system's behavior, but what happens
to the input within the system, how the input is interpreted and used in terms of the system's
organization. As Laszlo insists, "this is directly contrary to linear-causality input-output
systems."57
Indeed, the cybernetic model does contradict the linear concept of causality,
undermining the axiom that, "similar conditions produce similar results and that different
conditions will produce different results." Maruyama observes that this "sacred law of
causality in classical philosophy" has guided much research, leading scientists to seek
explanations for differences between phenomena in their initial conditions, rather than in
ongoing mutual causal interactions.58 However, deviation-counteracting and deviation-
amplifying mutual causal interactions influence and shape events in accordance with a
system's codes and goals. Accordingly, they can produce different results from the same
initial inputs or similar results from differing inputs.
Focusing on the deviation-counteracting aspects of a system's mutual causal process
discloses negative feedback, through which a system maintains morphostasis, or steady state.

22
Still, although a system's overall configuration (including its code) must remain "stable," it is
not static. In the fluctuating context of a changing environment, a system's code must
determine how it uses or "interprets" its input, and through the deviation-amplifying
messages of positive feedback, morphogenesis may emerge. Triggered by perturbations of a
persistent mismatch in the mutual causal relationship between a changing environment and a
system's overall configuration, a system may transform itself. Thus, a system has the
capacity to maintain cybernetic stability precisely by altering its code and reorganizing its
overall operation into a more complex order of configuration and performance.
Here, I should also underscore the fact that in cybernetic explanation the ongoing
relationship between a system and its environment is discerned as essentially nonsubstantial,
communicational, and stochastic.59 Cybernetic systems aim at sustaining a viable steady state
of interaction within changing contexts through the stochastic process of trial and error. Bear
in mind that such a system must respond to the effects of its own output, as well as other
alterations in its environment. This process includes exchanges of energy, and generally,
exchanges of matter as well. Still, it is exchanges of information, messages of effective
control, which restrain and govern systems. Thus, the processes that together comprise the
pattern of events discernable in whole systems, and within the continuing relationship
between a system and its environment, exhibit regularities that are not primarily subject to
the physical laws of energy transfer and the second law of thermodynamics. Rather, they
proceed according to regularities discovered in the transformation of perceived events into
symbolic information. This is the realm of existence, the universe of discourse, that Bateson
referred to as "the Berkeleyan world of communication."
Negative feedback messages communicate information which allow a system to
delimit or restrain its array of available responses, and thus maintain the system's steady
state. Positive feedback messages communicate information which may trigger emergent
(e.g., delimited by previously successful patterns) morphogenesis. A living system does not
initially contain coded within it all the information required for it to evolve into what it has
or will become. However, morphogenesis can "employ" the deviation-amplifying processes
of positive feedback to produce variations of previously encoded information. As a

23
consequence, the process of morphogenesis can generate messages that determine the
innovative "direction" in which a system's overall pattern of operation will change. Through
such stochastic exchanges of signals or messages, restraints and transformations, a
cybernetic system maintains and evolves its pattern of organization in mutual interaction
with its environment.

Systemic Invariance and Isomorphisms:

Whole Systems and the Hierarchy of the Observable Cosmos
As we have seen, Norbert Wiener proposed Cybernetics as a general study of control
and communication theory in both the machine and the animal. As such, cybernetics became
a master concept which assimilated a number of analytic methods, including computerization
and simulation, set theory, graph theory, net theory, automata theory, decision theory,
queuing theory, game theory, and general systems theory, as well. Indeed, with the
introduction of the cybernetic paradigm, systems theory was more readily accepted and
applied to numerous fields of research. Hence, as is apparent in the wealth of available
literature, cybernetic processes became discernible to many theorists, not only in biological
systems, but also in the sub-organic and supra-organic worldfrom microphysics to organic
life, through social groups, to the biosphere of our planet, and beyond.
In short, the introduction of cybernetic principles led to the identification of systemic
invariance or isomorphisms throughout the observable cosmos. Still, whether or not
employment of the cybernetic paradigm has been appropriate in each instance remains an
area of dispute. Nevertheless, once perceived, the recognition of such isomorphisms has
fostered a valuable epistemic shift: from consideration of "entities," to the discernment of
whole systems. The recognition of systemic isomorphisms also initiated further disclosure of
the logic evident in the behavior and interaction of systems, enabling theorists to frame the
formal characteristics inherent in whole (cybernetic) systems.
The properties of such a system are identified as four-fold, three of which have been
discussed in detail:

24
 1. The system is a holistic/non-summative whole that cannot be reduced to its parts without
altering its pattern. Artificially composed aggregates, wherein the constituent elements can
be added or subtracted without altering the overall system are not included.
2. The system is self-regulating, e.g., homeostatic, stabilizing itself through negative
feedback. If input matches a system's coded requirements, the system maintains its output in
order to maintain its match.
3. The system is self-organizing. If mismatch between input and internal code persists, the
system searches for, and encodes a new pattern with which to operate. Thus, in the passage
of time, differentiation and complexification of the overall system may emerge through
positive feedback.
4. Moreover, the system is understood as a differentiated sub-whole within a systemic
hierarchy. The "environment" in which a system exists is also a whole system, a meta-
system. Whether ecosystem, animal, organ or cell, systems consist of subsystems that
operate within a hierarchy of progressively inclusive meta-systems. As a subsystem, the
system's characteristics and operations are co-determinative components of the larger system
within which it is an integral component. Thus, a system may be understood as Janus-faced.
As a whole, it faces inward, i.e., the system is concerned with maintaining its internal steady
state; as a sub-whole, the system faces outward, responding to its environment (a meta-
system) in a potentially infinite regression of relevant contexts.
Spurred by the enthusiasm with which cybernetics was received, systems research
has been applied to many fields of scientific enquiry. Such research supports the
evolutionary view that over time, through self-organization and mutual adaptation, systems
tend to form structural hierarchies, i.e., they fashion progressively larger, more inclusive
systems out of preexisting sub-systems or microhierarchies. Notably, such research has also
revealed that this phenomenon is delimited by hierarchical restraints of a morphic nature.60
In the patterns they exhibit, these new systems generate unique qualities, including more
complex organization and inherently novel forms of operation.
The view which subsequently emerged, discerns a complementary relationship
between the morphic nature of systemic integration and systemic differentiation within a

25
hierarchical universe. Systemic differentiation and integration are conventionally understood
as delimited by the channeling of energy, matter and information to maintain and generate
form. Also, through the cybernetic interaction of their patterns of operation, systems tend to
complexify and form hierarchies. Hence, in the realm of astronomy, hierarchical restraints
are understood as gravitational; in the hierarchy from microphysics to organic life, these
cybernetic restraints are understood as electrochemical forces; and in social and cognitive
hierarchies, such constraints are understood as operating in the communication of symbols.61
Bateson rejected the use of energy and matter in this contextexcept in those
instances where they act as information and thus have communicational value. As is well
known, Bateson's work aimed at clearly drawing the distinction between energy and matter,
on the one hand, and information, on the other, by pointing out that information represents a
difference, and unlike energy or matter, difference is a non-substantial phenomenon that
cannot be located in space or time. Hence, he maintained that cybernetic models and
metaphors are most appropriately applied to the mental realm of cognitive systems, i.e., mind
systemsboth artificial and natural. Given the unique status of information and communica-
tion, as nonsubstantial phenomena which nevertheless govern and control cybernetic
systems, he maintained that cybernetic systems best exemplify mental process.
In this context the use of energy and matter as explanatory principles is clearly
inappropriateexcept in those instances where they function as information and thus have
communicational value. Recall that in cybernetics, zero has a "causal" value because zero
represents a difference, it is different from one, and zero (quite literally, no thing) may thus
be used to explain a response in this realm of mental process. As a consequence, the holistic
systems under discussion cannot be effectively measured or studied in quantitative terms.
Quantifiable concepts such as power, gravity, and energy, etc. are applicable only in what
Bateson referred to as the Pleromic realms of explanation, i.e., the physical sciences.62
Atoms, molecules and stones do not respond to information. They do not scan their behavior
for its result, nor do they modify future behavior on the success or failure of such
information. Thus, in contrast to Laszlo and others, Bateson rejects the application of

26
cybernetic principles in describing and explaining atomic, subatomic and electrochemical
realms of physical existence.
In Bateson's cybernetic epistemology, mental process emerges out of certain types of
organization of matter, and the mental properties of the system are understood as immanent,
not in any one part, but within the system as a whole. Mental process (e.g., mind) is
understood as immanent in the circuits of the brain which are complete within the brain;
mental processes are similarly immanent in the circuits which are complete within the
system, brain-plus-body; and mind is immanent in the larger systemperson-plus-
environment.63 The resulting image requires that we eliminate the commonly held notion that
mind is to be identified as residing only within the boundary of our physical body, and is
somehow radically separate from others.
. . . there is no requirement of a clear boundary, like a surrounding envelope
of skin or membrane, and you can recognize that this definition [of mind]
includes only some of the characteristics of what we call "life." As a result it
applies to a much wider range of those complex phenomena called "systems,"
including systems consisting of multiple organisms or systems in which some
of the parts are living and some are not, or even to systems in which there are
no living parts.64

To be sure, mental process requires collateral energy. However, the interactions of

mental process are triggered by difference, and "difference is not energy and usually contains
no energy."65 Mental process requires some amount of energy (apparently very little), but as
a stimulus the nonsubstantial phenomenon of difference does not provide energy. The
respondent mind system has collateral energy, usually provided by metabolism. If we kick a
stone, it receives energy and it moves with that energy. However, if we kick a cat or a dog,
our kick may transfer enough energy to move the animal. We may even imagine placing the
animal into a Newtonian orbit. However, a living organism responds with energy from its
metabolism. In the control of animation by information, energy is already present in the
respondent, the energy is available in advance of the "impact" of events.
Moreover, the phenomena of coding, an integral element of feedback in cybernetic
systems, is centrally incorporated into Bateson's epistemic model; and here we should note
that his cybernetic epistemology assigns unequivocal limitations as to what mind systems are

27
capable of knowing, largely due to this phenomena. That is, the process in which information
is translated and encoded into a new formfor only then is information available for further
stages of a system's performancelimits the perception of mental systems to images that are
reminiscent of the shadows in Plato's allegory of the cave.
The perspective which is thus added to Bateson's work emerges out of the
information theory and communication theory developed by Shannon and Weaver, and it
effectively places his epistemic model in what Bateson refers to as "the world of
communication." This world of communication is to be understood as a realm of explanation
wherein the only relevant entities or "realities" are messages. And for Bateson, this is the
realm of mind, in which relationships and metarelationships, context, and the context of
contextall of which are complex aggregates of information or differences which make a
differencemay be identified in a potentially infinite regress of relevant contexts. Consider
Bateson's comparison of the Newtonian world and the world of communication:
The difference between the Newtonian world and the world of
communication is simply this: that the Newtonian world ascribes reality to
objects and achieves its simplicity by excluding the context of the context
indeed excluding all metarelationshipsa fortiori excluding an infinite
regress of such relations. In contrast, the theorist of communication insists
upon examining the metarelationships while achieving its simplicity by
excluding all objects.66

As previously noted, Bateson goes on to suggest that the world of communication is a

Berkeleyan world, but the good bishop was guilty of understatement, "relevance or reality
must be denied not only to the sound of the tree which falls unheard in the forest but also to
the chair that I can see and on which I may sit." Our perception of a chair is communica-
tionally real, but in the realm of mental processthe world of communicationthe chair on
which we sit is only an idea, a message in which we put our trust. There are in fact no chairs
or tables, no birds or cats, no students or professors in the working circuitry of the mind,
except in the form of "ideas." Dinge an Sich or things-in-themselves are inaccessible to
direct inquiry. Only ideas (difference, news of difference, images or maps) and information
(differences which make a difference) about "things" are accessible to mind:

28
 Ideas (in some very wide sense of that word) have a cogency and reality.
They are what we can know, and we can know nothing else. The regularities
or laws that bind ideas togetherthese are the (eternal) verities. These are as
close as we can get to ultimate truth.67

Be that as it may, in each of the above examples (astronomy, microphysics, organic

life, and social and cognitive hierarchies), the hierarchical constraints are of a morphic
nature, e.g., they deal with pattern, not substance. Each step between the hierarchies may be
recognized as an advance the development of form toward increasingly complex
organization. Furthermore, as cybernetic/systems proponents point out, in asserting the
irreducibility of levels, the hierarchical view of cybernetic theory conflicts with traditional
monism, as well as with dualism and pluralism.68 Since hierarchical constraints produce both
novelty and organization, causal or generative relations necessarily exist between the levels.
Hence, the cybernetic view of observed reality is hierarchical: the universe is
understood as a hierarchy of systems, wherein each higher level of system is composed of
systems of lower levels. Yet, as Joanna Macy notes, this is not the hierarchy of rank and
authority associated with organized religions or an army, nor is it the hierarchy of being and
value found in the thought of Plato and Plotinus.69 It is more like a set of self-organizing
Chinese boxes, each one neatly fashioned to fit inside the other, ad infinitum. The hierarchy
of observed reality is thus maintained through structured interaction, with self-organization
and mutual adaptation acting as hierarchical restraints; regulating an "osmotic" flow of
energy, matter, and information exchanged between its differentiated levels. Or, to use the
metaphor offered by Macy, it is more like an inverted tree, as the ancient verses of the Katha
Upanisad imaged, where systems branch downward into subsystems, seemingly ad
infinitum:
In this tree, however, the movement of growth and organization is in the
reverse direction. Like the shape of the inverted tree, or like pyramids, these
natural systemic hierarchies narrow as they go up, in the sense that the higher
levels, since they enclose the lower, are fewer in number. Yet they represent a
vastly greater variety. While there are, for example, more atoms in the world
than forms of plant and animal life, atoms come in only 82 kinds, whereas
types of organic species number some million.70

29
 In this view, each level of the hierarchy cybernetically builds on more basic levels of
organization: integrating pre-existing subsystems and micro-hierarchies into novel patterns;
and fashioning new, more inclusive systems. As observed in embryology (e.g., epigenesis),
evolution and child development, growth and learning occur incrementally or step-wise.
Whole systems never begin from scratch. Their growth is inevitably based upon the
organization of pre-organized components. They are both delimited and enabled by
hierarchal constraints that permit stability, economy, and speed in the unfolding of new
forms of life and more inclusive hierarchical levels.71
Since their introduction, investigation of the holistic/non-summative, self-stabilizing,
self-organizing and hierarchical traits formally identified in cybernetic systems has spread
into the social/behavioral sciences. Thus, the informational nature of cybernetic processes:
including the concepts of feedback, mutual causality, and self-regulating systemsi.e., that
cybernetic systems adapt to and alter their environments through sequences of self-
stabilization around steady stateshave been adopted and fruitfully employed in these
universes of discourse. In closing, we may note that this shift in methodology and theory is
more than a mere attempt to take the common sense notion of communication as having
something basic to do with the social/behavioral sciences and give it a firm scientific status.
Following Bateson, et al., we may safely assert that cybernetics discloses a new
paradigm of science, a paradigm that Bateson used with rigor and imagination, and which, as
he often asserted, initiates four theoretical advancements that redefine the social/behavioral
sciences:72
1. Rather than focusing on the substance and content of isolated phenomena, as in the
reductionist, mechanistic, one-way causal paradigm of classical science, cybernetics focuses
on form, pattern and redundancy in whole systems.
2. The cybernetic paradigm clarifies the operational significance of information and
communicationi.e., mental processin biological, social and behavioral phenomena.
3. With its focus on communication and information, the cybernetic paradigm illuminates
the negentropic realm of living systems. This is realm of mind in the widest sense of the
word, and this realm must be approached through its own set of preconceptions and

30
premises. When we wish to describe and explain the negentropic processes evident in living
systems, physical analogies are inadequate, and the analogies of method taken from the "hard
sciences" are inappropriate.
4. The cybernetic paradigm provides a rigorous model of mental process with a unified
vocabulary and a unified methodology which serve as an effective counterbalance to the charge of
subjectivism aimed at the methodologies used in the social/behavioral sciences, as well as the
currently fashionable assortment of "vicious criticisms" aimed at all forms of linguistic discourse.73
These four points suggest the problem solving values claimed for cybernetics by its
proponents in the social/behavioral sciences. Although not without reservations concerning
uncritical applications of the cybernetic paradigm, I believe the characteristics formally
identified in cybernetic systems offer profoundly significant advances for studies in the
human sciences, including my own field of specialization, religious studies and interreligious
dialogue. Consequently, in continuing the line of inquiry presented in this essay, I have
written an essay that further details the problem-solving values claimed for cybernetics by its
advocates in the social/behavioral sciences. Inasmuch as the utilization of cybernetics
principles in these realms of discourse has not gone without its critics, this companion piece
focuses on the major criticisms leveled at employing cybernetics in the social/behavioral
sciences, while exploring the manner in which insights from the work of Gregory Bateson
confront and resolve these often valid criticisms.

31
 Notes

1
Gregory Bateson, "From Versailles to Cybernetics," in Steps to an Ecology of Mind:
Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology (San Francisco:
Chandler Publishing Company, 1972), pp. 482-83. (hereafter STEPS)
2
Warren S. McCulloch, Embodiments of Mind (Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press,
1965). McCulloch was a key member of the group that did the original work in cybernetics.
He is referred to by Bateson more often than any other modern scientist.
3
In this context, Bateson was notably influenced by a paper that McCulloch coauthored.
See, J. Y. Lettvin, W. S. McCulloch, H. R. Maturana, and W. H. Pitts, "What the Frog's Eye
Tells the Frog's Brain," Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 47 (1959): 1940-52;
reprinted in Warren S. McCulloch, Embodiments of Mind, Chapter 14, pp. 230-255.
4
Gregory Bateson, "This Normative Natural History Called Epistemology," reprint of
Bateson's, "Afterword," in About Bateson, edited, with a new title taken from the body of the
text; reprinted in Sacred Unity: Further Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Part III: Epistemology
and Ecology, pp. 215-224, edited by Rodney E. Donaldson; see, p. 216.
5
Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1949; 6th ed., Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1964), p. 1, n 1. (hereafter Shannon & Weaver)
6
Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General Systems Theory (New York: George Braziller, 1968), p.
xxi.
7
Ervin Laszlo, Systems View of the World (New York: George Braziller, 1972), pp. 5, 6.
8
Joanna Rogers Macy, "Interdependence:" (Ph.D. dissertation, Syracuse University, 1978), p.
58.
9
Lester R. Brown, et al., State of the World 1989: A Worldwatch Institute Report on
Progress Toward a Sustainable Society (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1989).
10
Shannon & Weaver, pp. 12-28; also, Spyros Makridakis, "The Second Law of Systems,"
International Journal of General Systems, 4 (September 1977): 2-4. (hereafter IJGS)
11
Ervin Laszlo, Systems View of the World, p. 4.
12
Von Bertalanffy, General Systems Theory, p. 12.
13
Gordon Allport, "The Open System in Personality Theory," in Modern Systems
Research for the Behavioral Scientist, pp. 343-350, edited by Walter F. Buckley (Chicago:
Aldine Publishing Co., 1968), p. 344.
14
Von Bertalanffy, General Systems Theory, p. 40.
32
 15
Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Organismic Psychology and Systems Theory (Barre,
Massachusetts: Clark University Press, 1968), pp. 44-47.
16
Von Bertalanffy, Organismic Psychology and Systems Theory, pp. 46-48.
17
Kenneth Sayre has remarked that, "the universe cannot coherently be conceived as a
closed system, since there is no coherent concept of what it could be closed to." Kenneth
Sayre, Cybernetics and the Philosophy of Mind (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities
Press, 1976), p. 46.
18
David Lipset, Gregory Bateson: The Legacy of a Scientist (Boston: Beacon Press,
1982), pp. 142-159.
19
"Introduction" in STEPS, p. xvi.
20
William Bateson, "Gamete and Zygote," in William Bateson, F.R.S.: Naturalist, His
Essays and Addresses Together with a Short Account of His Life, Caroline Beatrice Bateson
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), p. 209.
21
Steve P. Heims, "Gregory Bateson and the Mathematicians: from interdisciplinary
interaction to societal functions," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 13 (April
1977): 141. (hereafter - JHBS)
22
Gregory Bateson, Naven (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965, reprint of 2nd. ed.,
with "Preface to the Second Edition," and "Epilogue 1958,"), pp. 1-5. (hereafter Naven)
23
Steve P. Heims, "Gregory Bateson and the Mathematicians," JHBS 13 (April 1977):
142-44; also see, Steve P. Heims, "Encounter of Behavioral Sciences with New Machine-
Organism Analogies in the 1940s," JHBS 11 (October 1975): 368-373.
24
E.g., see, Gregory Bateson, Mind & Nature: A Necessary Unity (New York: E. P.
Dutton, 1979), p. 207. (hereafter Mind & Nature)
25
Steve P. Heims, "Gregory Bateson and the Mathematicians," JHBS 13 (April 1977):
146.
26
Catherine Wilder-Mott and John H. Weakland, editors, Rigor & Imagination: Essays
from the Legacy of Gregory Bateson (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1981).
27
Mind & Nature, p. 106.
28
Norbert Wiener, Cyberneticsor Control and Communication in the Animal and the
Machine (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1948), p. 11. This work's introduction details
the major contributors and developments which led to the formation of cybernetics as a
single field of research.
29
"Historically, the word [cybernetics] had three diverse sets of reference: to automated

33
control mechanisms, to men controlling vehicles such as ships, and to political control in
Society. Writing in 1948, as if he was widening the implication of the word, Wiener
attributed his use of the term solely to the Greek, _v for 'steersman.' Yet in Plato,
this word was already used to refer both to nautical and to social control." David Lipset,
Gregory Bateson: Legacy of a Scientist, p. 180.
30
Ibid., pp. 179-181; Cf., Steve P. Heims, "Gregory Bateson and the Mathematicians,"
JHBS 13 (April 1977): 141-42; The conferences continued through 1953, and except for the
second conference, entitled "Teleological Mechanisms and Circular Causal Systems," they
all retained the original name. The first conference dealt with a variety of concepts that
originated in mathematics and engineering, with John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener
leading discussions on: servomechanisms, analogical and digital coding, negative and
positive feedback, the measurement of information and its relation to the idea of entropy,
binary systems, von Neumann's theory of games, Bertrand Russell's theory of logical types,
"pathological" oscillations (yes-no-yes-no-yes, etc.) in a computer confronted by Russellian
paradox, and the concept that communication systems depend upon information and not
energy. Bateson unequivocally stated that membership in these conferences was "one of the
great events of my life." See, John Brockman, et al., About Bateson, edited by John
Brockman (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977), pp. 9-10. (hereafter About Bateson)
31
Steve P. Heims, "Gregory Bateson and the Mathematicians," JHBS 13 (April 1977):
142-143; also see, Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener and Julian Bigelow, "Behavior,
Purpose and Teleology," Philosophy of Science 10 (January 1943): 18-24.
32
Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics, p. 50.
33
Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Riverside Press, 1950), pp. 8-9.
34
Ibid., p. 69.
35
Von Bertalanffy, Organismic Psychology and Systems Theory, pp. 40-41.
36
William Ross Ashby, Design For A Brain (New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 1952),
pp. 36-52.
37
Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings, p. 15.
38
Shannon & Weaver, pp. 1-12; regarding the close relationship between Shannon's work
and Norbert Wiener, see p. 1, n 1.
39
Gregory Bateson, "Minimal Requirements for a Theory of Schizophrenia," A.M.A.
Archives of General Psychiatry 2 (May 1960): 477-491; reprinted in STEPS, Part III: Form
and Pathology in Relationship, pp. 244-270; see, p. 250.
40
Note how a rigorous use of these terms conflicts with common parlance, where negative
feedback signifies criticism and positive feedback denotes encouragement.
34
 41
"Linear and lineal. Linear is a technical term in mathematics describing a relationship
between variables such that when they are plotted against each other on orthogonal Cartesian
coordinates, the result will be a straight line. Lineal describes a relation among a series of causes
or arguments such that the sequence does not come back to the starting point. The opposite of
linear is nonlinear. The opposite of lineal is recursive." See, "Glossary," in Mind & Nature, p.
228.
42
Gregory Bateson, "Cybernetic Explanation," American Behavioral Scientist 10 (April
1967): 29-32; reprinted in STEPS, Part V: Epistemology and Ecology, pp. 405-416; see, pp.
409-10.
43
"Epilogue 1958," in Naven, p. 288.
44
Magoroh Maruyama, "Mutual Causality in General Systems," in Positive Feedback,
edited by John H. Milsum (London: Pergamon Press, 1968), pp. 80-81.
45
Evident in the title of the Macy conferences on Cybernetics, e.g., ". . . in Biological and
Social Systems."
46
Ernest Kramer, "Man's Behavior Patterns," in Positive Feedback, pp. 139-148, edited by
John H. Milsum (London: Pergamon Press, 1968), p. 140.
47
Von Bertalanffy, Organismic Psychology and Systems Theory, pp. 42-43.
48
John H. Milsum, ed., Preface to Positive Feedback, p. viii. Milsum's preface to this
volume notes that: (a) "semantic and conceptual problems have arisen between control
specialists and life scientists over use of the term feedback for living systems," (b) that
"Magoroh Maruyama advocates the term mutual causality as more appropriate than
purposeful for positive and negative feedback processes in living systems," and (c) "the
synthesis attempted in this volume should help clear up confusion on this matter." Also
consider Ernest Kramer's remarks in the same work, p. 140, "It is only recently that the
feedback principle has been isolated in mechanics and extensively made use of: in organisms
the corresponding principle has long been recognized; it is only the term which is new. And
being new, its exact usage is not stabilized."
49
Clarification of the concept "information" is one of Bateson's major contributions to this
field of enquiry. Drawing an unobstructed distinction between matter, energy, and
information is a key element of Bateson's epistemology, and thus, his vision of a sacred unity
of the biosphere.
50
William Ross Ashby, An Introduction to Cybernetics (New York: Chapman & Hall,
1956; Science Editions, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1963), pp. v-vii, indicates that
early cybernetic theory provided for adaptive behavior, differentiation and growth; also, A.
Rosenblueth; N. Wiener; and J. Bigelow, "Behavior, Purpose and Teleology." Philosophy of
Science 10 (January 1943): 22-23, clearly acknowledge the distinctions between animal and
machine.

35
 51
Ludwig von Bertalanffy, "General Systems TheoryA Critical Review," in Modern
Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist, pp. 11-30, edited by Walter F. Buckley,
(Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1968), p. 22.
52
Ibid., p. 17. Consider the example of homeothermy, the maintenance of body
temperature in the homeostasis of warm-blooded animals. Contrary to the rules of physical
chemistry, where a decrease in temperature leads to a slower rate of chemical reaction, body
cooling stimulates thermogenic centers in the brain which "turn on" the heat-producing
mechanisms of the body. Cold is offset by an increased metabolic rate. Similarly, in the
thermostat, a relationship between a minimum of three variablesthe temperature readings,
the control center, and the furnace switchmaintains a systemic balance; the lower the heat
in the house, the more the fuel is used. In both cases, mutually affecting variables work to
counteract or balance each other.
53
Gregory Bateson, "Cybernetic Explanation," American Behavioral Scientist 10 (April 1967):
29-32; reprinted in STEPS, Part V: Epistemology and Ecology, pp. 405-416; see, pp. 410-411.
Bateson observes that, "For purposes of cybernetic explanation, when a machine is observed to be
(improbably) moving at a constant rate, even under varying load, we shall look for restraintse.g.,
for a circuit which will be activated by changes in rate and which, when activated, will operate
upon some variable (e.g., the fuel supply) in such a way as to diminish the change in rate."
54
Magoroh Maruyama, "The Second Cybernetics: deviation-amplifying mutual causal
process," American Scientist 51 (June 1963): 164-79; also see, Magoroh Maruyama,
"Morphogenesis and morphostasis," Methodos 12-48 (1960): 251-96.
55
Spyros Makridakis, "The Second Law of Systems," IJGS 4 (September 1977): 3,
"Organization starts whenever a lasting deviation from uniformity (thermodynamic
equilibrium) develops." Makridakis generalizes this principle as the "Second Law of
Systems," which he submits as an antithetical complement to the Second Law of
Thermodynamics, the employment of which is restricted to closed systems. His "First Law of
Systems" is that the relation between organization and energy is non-linear; more complex
systems do not require more energy to self-organize and often much less.
56
Ervin Laszlo, Introduction to Systems Philosophy (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1973),
p. 269.
57
Ibid., p. 25.
58
Magoroh Maruyama, "The Second Cybernetics: deviation-amplifying mutual causal
process," American Scientist 51 (June 1963): 167.
59
"Stochastic. (Greek stochazein, to shoot with a bow at a target; that is to scatter events
in a partially random manner, some of which achieve a preferred outcome) If a sequence of
events combines a random component with a selective process so that only certain outcomes
of the random are allowed to endure, that sequence is said to be stochastic." See, "Glossary,"
in Mind and Nature, p. 230.
36
 60
Lancelot L. Whyte, "The Structural Hierarchy in Organisms," in Unity in Diversity: A
Festschrift for Ludwig von Bertalanffy, pp. 271-285; Vol. 1 of 2 vols, edited by William Gray
and Nicholas D. Rizzo (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1973), p. 275.
61
Ervin Laszlo, Introduction to Systems Philosophy, pp. 57-117; also, pp. 177-180.
62
See, Mind and Nature, pp. 91-94.
63
Ibid., p. 317.
64
Gregory Bateson and Mary Catherine Bateson, Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology
of the Sacred (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1987); posthumously reconstructed and
edited by Bateson's daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, see p. 19. (hereafter Angels Fear)
65
Mind & Nature, p. 100. Qualifying the word triggered, Bateson notes that, "Firearms are
a somewhat inappropriate metaphor because in most simple [nonrepeating] firearms there is
only a lineal sequence of energetic dependencies. . . In biological systems, the end of the
lineal sequence sets up conditions for a future repetition," p. 101n.
66
"Minimal Requirements for a Theory of Schizophrenia," in STEPS, p. 250.
67
Mind & Nature, p. 191.
68
Ibid., p. 175.
69
Joanna Rogers Macy, "Interdependence:" (Ph.D. dissertation, Syracuse University, 1978),
p. 69.
70
Katha Upanisad II, iii.1., quoted in Joanna Rogers Macy, "Interdependence:" (Ph.D.
dissertation, Syracuse University, 1978), p. 69-70. In n 2, Macy observes that, "these
systemic pyramids or tree-forms narrow as they ascend only by virtue of the fact that lower
or previous levels channel into themin that sense they are like a company's table of
organization. On the other hand, if we take as our measure the variety they display, they
widen. This calls to mind the two reversed and intersecting gyres which W. B. Yeats beheld
in his vision (1937)."
71
Herbert A. Simon, "The Organization of Complex Systems," in Hierarchy Theory,
edited by Howard Pattee (New York: George Braziller, 1973), p. 7.
72
Gregory Bateson, "Epilogue: The Growth of Paradigms for Psychiatry," in
Communication and Social Interaction: Clinical and Therapeutic Aspects of Human
Behavior, pp. 331-337, edited by Peter F. Ostwald (New York: Grune & Stratton, 1977), pp.
336-37.
73
Richard J. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and
Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), p. 16.

37
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