Description: In a conference in 1976 Gregory Bateson, the anthropologist, began a little known invitational paper by stating some characteristics that he thought participants might share. He indicated that '"Evolutionary Theory" and "epistemology," "Mind-Body," "cybernetics," "ecology"; and, indeed, "theology" and "ethics" are labels for different paths which all lead to the same problematic mountain' and he proceeded to enumerate five common aspects suggesting that phenomena are commonly liked in recursive systems; energy available in such systems is triggered by events whose force might be totally variable (from very large to zero and negative); differences in the biosphere perform as triggering mechanisms and that such differences are always 'at one remove' from the paired or multiple events in which they are immanent; and that these 'four characteristics of our subject and sub-subjects of discourse apply both to that which we would investigate and to ourselves as investigators', defining the 'epistemology - the way of knowing - which is characteristic of the sense organs of organisms is the way of sensing differences'. Bateson goes on to say that 'A description of the behaviour or anatomy of a living thing (say a starfish) should relate - be a bridge between - our way of knowing and the way of the system which we are describing' (http://www.oikos.org/batdual.htm accessed 23 November, 2005). Starting from Bateson and drawing on complexity theory, ecology and cognitive psychology, this paper examines the notion of human rationality and learning in cybernetic terms, developing the concept of 'learning ecologies' has a means for analyzing differences between ideal (normative) rationality and 'adaptive rationality'. Methodology: The papers will adopt a philosophical approach to the issues identified, drawing particularly on conceptual analysis and forms of evidence and analysis developed in the phenomenological and hermeneutic traditions of philosophising. Conclusions: The papers will draw out some key ways in which the enterprise of taking nature seriously as a subject of knowing, understanding, and respect both challenges many approaches to knowledge embedded in conventional environmental education and also in the curriculum as a whole. It will suggest ways of thinking and of knowledge generation that overcome the limitations identified in these conventional approaches and that point to the desirability of different ways of conceiving the character and organisation of knowledge.