Learning objectives
Introduction to the analysis of human cognitive processes as interactive and generative living dynamics.
Course unit content
The idea of power in Gregory Bateson's ecology of mind
Knowledge processes have always been at the heart of sociology, from different perspectives. The prevailing one has tried to highlight extrinsic social influences on cognitive processes (ideas, information, news ...) in various ways. A ‘minor’ perspective, but one with growing credence, interprets them instead as intrinsically social, interactive, communicative, and at the same time constructive processes (incessant social construction of what is assumed as 'reality').
The course aims to examine, in particular, a specific contribution to this 'minor' perspective: the ecology of mind of Gregory Bateson, an anthropologist with a bio-evolutionary background, who provides the sociology of knowledge with an original and, in an era of dramatic ecological disruption such as ours, essential contribution. This insofar as, by highlighting the full membership of the human condition in the broader and long-lived interactive-generative becoming of the living, he traces out a possible path of emancipation from that anthropocentric hybris that in the centuries of modernity has strongly contributed to the triggering of the current ecological disruption.
More specifically, the course will focus on Bateson's 'ecological' analysis of the idea of power in his study of alcoholism as a metaphor for that hybris.
Bibliography
Required texts:
1. G. Bateson, excerpts from Verso un’ecologia della mente, Adelphi, Milano, 2000, see: http://sergiomanghi.altervista.org/Brani-Bateson-Verso_un_ecologia_della_mente.pdf
2. S. Manghi, La conoscenza ecologica. Attualità di Gregory Bateson, Cortina, Milano, 2010.
3. S. Manghi, “Sulle tracce di Gregory Bateson”, in Exagère, giugno 2018 (https://www.exagere.it/tag/sergio-manghi/)
4. R. Ronchi, B. Stiegler, L’ingovernabile. Due lezioni sulla politica, Il Melangolo, Milano, 2019 (the essay of Stiegler is optional).
Recommended texts:
M. Arcidiacono, Gregory Bateson, tra rigore e immaginazione, Armando Siciliano Editore, Messina, 2022.
G. Bateson, Verso un’ecologia della mente, Adelphi, Milano, 2000, pp. 70-2 e 465-480.
G. Bateson, Mente e natura. Un’unità necessaria, Adelphi, Milano, 1986.
P. Bertrando, M. Bianciardi, a cura di, La natura sistemica dell'uomo. Attualità del pensiero di Gregory Bateson, Cortina, Milano, 2009.
S. Manghi, “Casa di vetro. Gregory Bateson, il sacro e l’ecologia”, in Dianoia, n. 23, 2016: http://sergiomanghi.altervista.org/Bateson_Sacro_Ecologia.pdf
S. Manghi, “Papà, che cos’è un istinto?. L’ecologia della mente”, in Prometeo, giugno 2016: (http://sergiomanghi.altervista.org/Manghi_Bateson.pdf)
Supplementary teaching materials are here: www.sergiomanghi.altervista.org
Teaching methods
Lecture and interactive exercises.
Assessment methods and criteria
Written. Essay of at least 15,000 characters, based on two narrative interviews with political activists (or others to be agreed). The grid of questions and the criteria for analysing the answers will be defined by discussion in class. The essays will be composed as follows:
1. Title+abstract; 2. Exposition of the concepts, dealt with in the compulsory texts (all to be cited), which will be used in the analysis of the interviews; 3. Analysis of the content of the interviews; 4. Any personal considerations; 5. Bibliography; 6. Texts of the interviews.
Provisional versions may be sent to the lecturer for suggestions. The final text must reach the lecturer by email at least 5 days before the call. The student will receive the grade by email at least one day before the roll call.
