Niklas Luhmann

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Contents 1 Biography 2 Work 3 References 4 Contributors

Biography

Niklas Luhmann[2] was born in Lüneburg, Lower Saxony on December 8, 1927 and died November 6, 1998. He was a German sociologist. After the Second Worldwar Luhmann studied law at the Universities of Freiburg and Harvard. At Harvard he met Talcott Parsons, the most influential social system theorist. Later on, Luhmann developed his own approach (based on Parsons), which became the base for his further work. Further in his career, however, Luhmann rejected Parsons theory and went on to rival it with his own systems theory.

Famous are the systems theory and their complexity [3]. The systems theory tries to clarify principles that can be applied to all types of systems in all fields of research. A good example is Luhmann's theory of society. Niklas Luhmann became also famous as one of the most prominent critics of Jürgen Habermas. They disagreed about almost everything (Arnoldi, 2002).

Work

Just as there is no position within society from which society can be observed in its totality, there is no singel text by Niklas Luhmann that fully conveys the totality of Luhmanns work (Arnoldi, 2002). Niklas Luhmann is the author of a great number of (important) scientific publications. Luhmann work is very diverse and he draws upon a wide range of teoretical traditions ands schools of thought (Arnoldi, 2002). But in the Anglo Saxon world Luhmann is only associated with structural functionalism. As a result most of his works ,that is well known, implies the system theory or the autopoietic theory (autopoiesis vs. allopoiesis). All of his work about the systems theory is based on three core theories. First, systems theory as societal theory, second communication theory and last evolution theory. The core element of Luhmann's theory is communication. Social systems are systems of communication, and society is the most encompassing social system. Communication gives meaning to a system. The different modes of meaning processing in systems, constitutes the boundaries between function systems. Without communication there would be no system, so the system theory of Luhman, like Arnoldi says in his article, 'is the rise of order out of chaos (2001).' Being the social system that comprises all (and only) communication, today's society is a world society. A system is defined by a boundary between itself and its environment. Luhmann turned away from action and towards communication and this is how he differed from Talcott Parsons. Luhmann saw social systems not as systems of action but as systems of communication. He saw social systems as an organic system capable of self regulation, and it was namely this self regulation area of his theory that led him to develop autopoiesis in the sociology term. Social systems are systems that make sense of their environment (Arnoldi, 2002). Another term that Luhman uses in his work is the blind spot. If someone observes a system while being a part of it, this part cannot be seen. So the distinction of an observation is the blind spot.

In total, Luhmann wrote moren than 70 books and nearly 400 scholarly articles. Some examples:

• Soziale Systeme (1995), Luhman developed a genereal systems theory of which the main work is the Soziale Systeme. This work can be seen as a synthesis of his sociological work and his general systems theory (Arnoldi, 2002).

• Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (1997), the English translation is 'The Society of the Society'. The title indicates one of Luhmann's basic hypotheses, namely that there is no point within society from which society can be observed in its totality (Arnoldi, 2002).

• Ecological Communicaiton (1989), In ecological communication Luhmann tries to analyse the prospect of solving environmental problem within society (Gren & Zierhoffer, 2003).

References

• Arnoldi, J. (2002). Niklas Luhman. An Introduction. In: Theory, Culture & Society, 18, 1355-1372.

• 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. In: Environment and Planning A., 35, 615-630.

Contributors

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