Gideon Kossoff
Gideon Kossoff is a social ecologist/social theorist whose research focuses on the relationships between
humans and the natural environment and humans and the built/designed world as the foundation
for a sustainable society. Gideon served as programme administrator from 1998 until 2007 for
the MSc in Holistic Science at Schumacher College (a centre for ecological studies in south-west
England) and developed its extensive library which includes over 6,500 volumes on topics such as
holistic Science, hermeticism, philosophy/history of science, ecology, environmental psychology,
ecological design etc. Gideon studied English and History at the University of East Anglia and
spent many years exploring utopianism, history of anti-authoritarian thought and related fields.
He is currently a PhD researcher with the Centre for the Study of Natural Design, Duncan of
Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Dundee University. His dissertation is entitled A Holistic
Worldview and the Reconstitution of Everyday Life.
26 March / Holism and the Reconstitution of Everyday Life
In this talk Gideon Kossoff will argue that the transition to a sustainable society is one of the most
important challenges facing us today. Meeting this challenge will require us to reorganize everyday
life according to ecological/holistic principles. Gideon’s argument integrates ‘holistic science’
(complexity theory and an approach to the natural world derived from the work of poet scientist
Wolfgang von Goethe) with what he has called the tradition of ‘radical holism’ - a 19th and 20th
century. He will discuss how centralizing institutions such as the nation state and large corporations
have taken control of the process of satisfaction of needs, and, as result, everyday life is becoming
increasingly homogenised, fragmented and unsustainable, and contrasts this with pre-industrial
communities who maintained their vitality and were able to flourish over many generations, living
sustainably ‘in place’. Based on this analysis Gideon proposes a framework, derived from living
systems principles, for assessing the health or sustainability of our households, neighbourhoods,
villages, towns and regions. This framework can enable activists, specialists and lay people to
collaborate more effectively in the process of transition to a sustainable society.
D I S C U S S A N T S
Terry Irwin is the Head of the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University,
Pittsburgh. Educated as a graphic designer, Terry received her MFA from the Basel School of
Design. Since 1986 Terry has taught design at the University level and has been on the faculty of
Otis Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles, California College of Arts and Crafts and Duncan
of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Dundee, Scotland. In 2003 Terry did a master’s degree in
Holistic Science at Schumacher College. She is currently a PhD researcher in the Centre for the
Study of Natural Design at the University of Dundee, Scotland, where her research explores how
principles from living systems can inform a more appropriate and responsible design process.
Stephan Harding teaches Gaia Theory and Deep Ecology at Schumacher
College in southwest England, where he is also coordinator of the MSc course. He is the author
of Animate Earth, a book in which he explores how Gaian science can help us develop a sense
of connectedness with the “more-than-human” world. His work is based on a careful integration of
rational scientific analysis with our intuition, sensing and feeling – a vital task at this time of severe
ecological crisis. Among his most significant scientific collaborations was working for many years
with James Lovelock, the founder of Gaia theory.