Organisms

From Geography

Luhmann distinguishes four levels of systems: machines, organisms, psychic systems and social systems. Organisms can import matter and energy from their environment for their own production, in that way they are open systems (Gren & Zierhofer, 2003, p. 617). From the operational point of view, they can be seen as closed systems, this also characterizes psychic and social systems.

Organisms are autopoietic systems, which means they are those in which the elements of the system generate the network of operations producing the elements of the system.

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References

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.

Jacobson, A.J. (1989). "Autopoietic Law: The New Science of Niklas Luhmann." In: Michigan Law Reviws, Volume 87, no. 6, p. 1660.

Contributors

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