Anthony Wilden was a writer, social theorist, college lecturer, and consultant. Wilden published numerous books and articles which intersect a number of fields, including systems theory, film theory, structuralism, cybernetics, psychiatry, anthropological theory, water control projects, urban ecosystems, resource conservation, and communications and social relations. Wilden is credited with one of the first significant introductions to the work of Jacques Lacan in the Anglo-Saxon world, particularly in his role as one of Lacan's early English translators. Today Wilden's work is arguably more influential in the fields of communication theory, ecology and social interaction. These fields of study evolved out of a long scholarly tradition of "interactional semiotics" that originated with Plato's Cratylus. Along with such figures as Gregory Bateson, R. D. Laing, and Walker Percy, Wilden is considered one of this tradition's contemporary pioneers. With the appearance of System and Structure, Wilden sought "to establish the necessity of an ecosystemic or ecological approach to communication and exchange in open systems of all types", to use his own words. In hindsight it is recognized that System and Structure was an early contribution to a "theory of self-referential systems". According to Niklas Luhmann, this "theory of self-referential systems" is the second paradigm change in a "General System Theory". Through his teaching and writings, Wilden provided "a contribution to our 'knowledge about knowledge' at an abstract level, as well as supplying ammunition in the struggle with the concrete reality that information is power and that scientific discourse is a hidden weapon in the arsenal of social control." Wilden is also recognized today for his significant contributions to Context theory and Second-order cybernetics. Wilden was a professor in the Communications Department at Simon Fraser University from the 1970s to the mid-1990s. He attended the University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, 1960–1961, 1963–1965; and Johns Hopkins University, earning his PhD in 1968. He died at the age of 84 in Burnaby, British Columbia.
Selected writings and publications
Note: the primary source for this section is from the Wilden article in Gale's Biography series.
System and Structure: Essays in Communication and Exchange, 1st and 2nd ed., Tavistock Publications, 1972 and 1980, French translation, Boreal Express, Montreal, 1983.
D. E. Washburn and D. R. Smith, editors, Coping with Increasing Complexity, Gordon & Breach, 1974.
K. Riegel, editor, Structure and Transformation, Wiley, 1975.
Carlos Sluzki and Donald Ransom, editors, Double Bind: The Foundation of the Communicational Approach to the Family, Grune & Stratton, 1976.
"Le Canada imaginaire" French translation of "The imaginary Canadian" by Yvan Simonis; foreword by sociologigist Marcel Rioux., Presses Coméditex, Québec, QC, 1979.
"The imaginary Canadian", Pulp Press, Vancouver, BC,1980.
M. Maruyama and A. Harkins, editors, Cultures of the Future, Mouton, 1980.
