Observation (vs. experience)
From Geography
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- Arnoldi, J. (2001). Nicklas Luhmann; an introduction. ''Theory, Culture & Society, 18'' (1), 1-13. | - Arnoldi, J. (2001). Nicklas Luhmann; an introduction. ''Theory, Culture & Society, 18'' (1), 1-13. | ||
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| + | - Gren, m. & Zierhofer, W. (2003). The unity of difference; a critical appraisal of Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems in the context of corporeality and spatiality.'' Environment and planning A, 35'', 615-630. | ||
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''By Evelien de Beer & Richard Huttinga'' | ''By Evelien de Beer & Richard Huttinga'' | ||
Revision as of 19:14, 22 October 2010
Observation in the dictionary is simply described as 'the act of observing, or being observed.' For most thinkers and philosophers there is more to this term, for example German sociologist Niklas Luhmann[1]. He lived troughout the most of the 20th century and was one of the most prominent thinkers in the field of Sociological Systems Theory. In this work three there are three central theme's:
- social system:a set of human beings relted to each other, a system in which actions of different people refer to each other and together make sense. Individual or structured choices of man determines to whom other people refer and which actions to take. Because there is an unlimited range of choices, these must be reduced. These choices make dicisions in the future path dependend and in that way social system ermerges. A social system gets formated through complexity reduction, selection.
- communication system: Habermas takes just verbal communication as interaction. Luhmann however takes it a step futher and takes communication in general to be important, including all sorts of communication, even through media. He states that 'communication = society'
- observation system: This is the system where the term observation becomes actually important. The first characteristic of oberservation that should be mentioned, is that every observation has a blind spot. This in the sense that an observation does not observate itself, is doesn´t take itself into account and can therefore not describe itself in an objective way. Another characteristic is that the observation constitutes the observer, observation forms the observer. Here you can recognise this reduction of choice, mentioned in the part about 'social systems', earlier observations reduce choices in the future.
References
- Arnoldi, J. (2001). Nicklas Luhmann; an introduction. Theory, Culture & Society, 18 (1), 1-13.
- Gren, m. & Zierhofer, W. (2003). The unity of difference; a critical appraisal of Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems in the context of corporeality and spatiality. Environment and planning A, 35, 615-630.
By Evelien de Beer & Richard Huttinga
