Heute vor 35 Jahren ist mit Gregory Bateson einer der wichtigsten Pioniere der Kybernetik gestorben, der gleichzeitig einer der wichtigsten intellektuellen Wegbereiter der Entwicklung der Familientherapie und des systemischen Ansatzes war. Im American Anthropologist erschien im Juni 1982 (Vol, 84, Heft 2) eine ausführliche Würdigung Batesons von Robert I. Levy (University of California, San Diego) und Roy Rappaport (University of Michigan), die heute auch online nachzulesen ist. Sie schließt mit folgendem Absatz: „And last, there is death. It is understandable that, in a civilization which separates mind from body, we should either try to forget death or to make mythologies about the survival of transcendent mind. But if mind is immanent not only in those pathways of information which are located inside the body but also in external pathways, then death takes on a different aspect. The individual nexus of pathways which I call „me“ is no longer so precious because that nexus is only part of a larger mind. The ideas which seemed to be me can also become immanent in you. May they survive – if true“.
4. Juli 2015
von Tom Levold
1 Kommentar

Heute ist der 75. Geburtstag von Steve de Shazer, dem (Mit-)Begründer der lösungsfokussierten Kurzzeittherapie. Anlässlich dieses Tages möchte ich auf einen kurzen Online-Text von ihm aufmerksam machen, in dem er seine Verbindung zu und Bezugnahme auf seinen Lieblingsphilosophen Ludwig Wittgenstein erörtert. Unter der Überschrift „Don’t think, but observe“ schreibt er einleitend: „Understandably, I have often been asked about my interest in and frequent citation of Wittgensteins work in both my writing and my training seminars. Since I maintain that SFBT is a practice or activity that is without an underlying (grand) theory, it seems at least strange if not contradictory to refer over and over to a philosopher’s work. This mistakenly leads some readers and seminar participants to the idea that Wittgensteins work might actually provide the (missing) theory. However, as they quickly discover, if they are looking for a philosophical System or theory, reading Wittgenstein is at least disconcerting and confusing since he does not provide such a System or theory. Rather, his work is ,non-systematic, rambling, digressive, discontinuous, interrupted thematically and marked by rapid transitions from one subject to another’ (Stroll, p. 93). This means that the reader has to work hard to follow the criss-crossing of the various threads of the argument. Wittgenstein deliberately usesthis approach in very subversive and Strategie ways designed to make the reader look aqain and thus think in new and different ways.“ Den 

