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Gregory Bateson Quotes

Anthropologist

Gregory Bateson was a prominent anthropologist whose research spanned across various fields such as culture, semiotics, systems theory, and cognitive science. His work has had a profound impact on interdisciplinary studies that followed.

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All Whole Knows Quantity Courses Matter Men People Way World Believe Differences Doe Ifs Information Logic Next Patterns Epistemology Mind Organisms

Famous Gregory Bateson Quotes

“All science is an attempt to cover with explanatory devices-and thereby to obscure-the vast darkness of the subject. It is a game in which the scientist uses his explanatory principles according to certain rules to see if these principles can be stretched to cover the vast darkness. But the rules of the stretching are rigorous, and the purpose of the whole operation is really to discover what parts of the darkness still remain, uncovered by explanation. But this game has also a deeper, more philosophic purpose: to learn something about the very nature of explanation, to make clear some part of that most obscure matter-the process of knowing. (Epilogue, 1958)”

Science Knowledge Anthropology Epistemology

Book:Naven, Second Edition

Source: Naven, Second Edition

“Certain mysteries are for formal reasons impenetrable, and here is the vast darkness of the subject.”

Reality Knowledge Anthropology Epistemology Social Structures

Book:Naven: A Survey of the Problems suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe drawn from Three Points of View

Source: Naven: A Survey of the Problems suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe drawn from Three Points of View

“We are most of us governed by epistemologies that we know to be wrong”

Knows Epistemology

Book:Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology

Source: Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology

“But epistemology is always and inevitably personal. The point of the probe is always in the heart of the explorer: What is my answer to the question of the nature of knowing?”

Heart Answers Knowing Explorers Epistemology

Book:Rigor & imagination: essays from the legacy of Gregory Bateson

Source: Rigor & imagination: essays from the legacy of Gregory Bateson

About the Author

Born: May 9, 1904
Died: July 4, 1980
Known for: Anthropologist
Quotes: 96

Books & Sources

Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and EpistemologyRelated source material

Mind and Nature: A Necessary UnityRelated source material

Angels fear: towards an epistemology of the sacredRelated source material

Communication: The Social Matrix of PsychiatryRelated source material

Rigor & imagination: essays from the legacy of Gregory BatesonRelated source material

Naven, Second EditionRelated source material

Naven: A Survey of the Problems suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe drawn from Three Points of ViewRelated source material

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