Niklas Luhmann
Encyclopedia
Niklas Luhmann was a German
sociologist, and a prominent thinker in sociological systems theory
.
, Lower Saxony
, where his father's family had been running a brewery
for several generations. After graduating from the Johanneum school in 1943, he was conscripted as a Luftwaffenhelfer
in World War II
and served for two years until, at the age of 17, he was taken prisoner of war
by American troops in 1945. After the war Luhmann studied law at the University of Freiburg from 1946 to 1949, when he obtained a law degree, and then began a career in Lüneburg's public administration. During a sabbatical in 1961, he went to Harvard, where he met and studied under Talcott Parsons
, then the world's most influential social systems theorist.
In later years, Luhmann dismissed Parsons' theory, developing a rival approach of his own. Leaving the civil service in 1962, he lectured at the national Deutsche Hochschule für Verwaltungswissenschaften (University for Administrative Sciences) in Speyer
, Germany, until 1965, when he was offered a position at the Sozialforschungsstelle (Social Research Centre) of the University of Münster
, led by Helmut Schelsky
.
1965/66 he studied one semester of sociology at the University of Münster.
Two earlier books were retroactively accepted as a PhD thesis and habilitation
at the University of Münster in 1966, qualifying him for a university professorship. In 1968/1969, he briefly served as a lecturer at Theodor Adorno's former chair at the University of Frankfurt and then was appointed full professor of sociology at the newly founded University of Bielefeld, Germany (until 1993). He continued to publish after his retirement, when he finally found the time to complete his magnum opus, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft ("The Society of Society"), which was published in 1997.
and Eastern Europe, including Russia
. His relatively low profile elsewhere is partly due to the fact that translating his work is a difficult task, since his writing presents a challenge even to readers of German, including many sociologists. (p. xxvii Social System 1995)
Much of Luhmann's work directly deals with the operations of the legal system and his autopoietic theory of law is regarded as one of the more influential contributions to the sociology of law
and socio-legal studies.
Luhmann is probably best known to North Americans for his debate with the critical theorist
Jürgen Habermas
over the potential of social systems theory. Like his one-time mentor Talcott Parsons
, Luhmann is an advocate of "grand theory," although neither in the sense of philosophical foundationalism nor in the sense of "meta-narrative" as often invoked in the critical works of post-modernist writers. Rather, Luhmann's work tracks closer to complexity theory broadly speaking, in that it aims to address any aspect of social life within a universal theoretical framework - of which the diversity of subjects he wrote about is an indication. Luhmann's theory is generally considered highly abstract, and his publications are difficult to read. This fact, along with the somewhat elitist behaviour of some of his disciples and the supposed political conservatism implicit in his theory, has made Luhmann a controversial figure in sociology.
A major critique of Luhmann is found in Piyush Mathur's detailed exegesis (2006) of one of Luhmann's treatises in an American journal. Luhmann himself described his theory as "labyrinth-like" or "non-linear" and claimed he was deliberately keeping his prose enigmatic to prevent it from being understood "too quickly", which would only produce simplistic misunderstandings. The influence of Gregory Bateson
and Jurgen Ruesch
on Luhmann has been discussed by Piyush Mathur in an April 2008 article titled Gregory Bateson, Niklas Luhmann, and Ecological Communication.
The core element of Luhmann's theory is communication
. Social systems are systems of communication, and society is the most encompassing social system. 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
, dividing it from an infinitely complex, or (colloquially) chaotic, exterior. The interior of the system is thus a zone of reduced complexity: Communication within a system operates by selecting only a limited amount of all information available outside. This process is also called "reduction of complexity."
The criterion according to which information is selected and processed is meaning (in German, Sinn). Both social systems and psychical or personal systems (see below for an explanation of this distinction) operate by processing meaning.
Furthermore, each system has a distinctive identity that is constantly reproduced in its communication and depends on what is considered meaningful and what is not. If a system fails to maintain that identity, it ceases to exist as a system and dissolves back into the environment it emerged from. Luhmann called this process of reproduction from elements previously filtered from an over-complex environment autopoiesis , using a term coined in cognitive biology by Chilean thinkers Humberto Maturana
and Francisco Varela
. Social systems are autopoietically closed in that while they use and rely on resources from their environment, those resources do not become part of the systems' operation. Both thought and digestion are important preconditions for communication, but neither appears in communication as such.
Luhmann likens the operation of autopoiesis (the filtering and processing of information from the environment) to a program, making a series of logical distinctions (in German, Unterscheidungen). Here, Luhmann refers to the British mathematician G. Spencer-Brown
's logic of distinctions that Maturana and Varela had earlier identified as a model for the functioning of any cognitive process. The supreme criterion guiding the "self-creation" of any given system is a defining binary code
. This binary code, is not to be confused with the computers operation: Luhmann (following Spencer-Brown and Gregory Bateson
) assumes that auto-referential systems are continuously confronted with the dilemma of disintegration/continuation. This dilemma is framed with an ever-changing set of available choices; everyone of those potential choices can be the system's selection or not (a binary state, selected/rejected). The influence of Spencer-Brown's book, Laws of Form
, on Luhmann can hardly be overestimated.
Although Luhmann first developed his understanding of social systems theory under Parsons' influence, he soon moved away from the Parsonian concept. The most important difference is that Parsons used systems merely as an analytic tool to understand certain processes going on in society; Luhmann, in contrast, treats his vision of systems ontologically, saying that "systems exist". That is, Luhmann in fact suggests to substitute the paradigm of systems theory for the ontological paradigm: the difference system/environment (which also signifies a relationship).
Another difference is that Parsons asks how certain subsystems contribute to the functioning of overall society. Luhmann starts with the differentiation of the systems themselves out of a nondescript environment. He does observe how certain systems fulfill functions that contribute to "society" as a whole, but this is happening more or less by chance, without an overarching vision of society. Finally, the systems' autopoietic closure is another fundamental difference from Parsons' concept. Each system works strictly according to its very own code and has no understanding at all of the way other systems perceive their environment. For example, the economy is all about money, so there is no independent role in the economic system for extraneous aspects such as morals.
One seemingly peculiar, but within the overall framework strictly logical, axiom of Luhmann's theory is the human being's position outside any social system, initially developed by Parsons. Consisting of "pure communicative actions" (a reference to Jürgen Habermas
) any social system requires human consciousnesses (personal or psychical systems) as an obviously necessary, but nevertheless environmental resource. In Luhmann's terms, human beings are neither part of society nor of any specific systems, just as they are not part of a conversation. Luhmann himself once said concisely that he was "not interested in people". That is not to say that people were not a matter for Luhmann, but rather, the communicative actions of people are constituted (but not defined) by society, and society is constituted (but not defined) by the communicative actions of people: society is people's environment, and people are society's environment. Thus, sociology can explain how persons can change society; the influence of the environment (the people) on the system (the society), the so-called “structural coupling”. In fact Luhmann himself replied to the relevant criticism by stating that "In fact the theory of autopoietic systems could bear the title Taking Individuals Seriously, certainly more seriously than our humanistic tradition" (Niklas Luhmann, Operational Closure and Structural Coupling: The Differentiation of the Legal System, Cardozo Law Review, vol. 13: 1422)
Luhmann was devoted to the ideal of non-normative science introduced to sociology in the early 20th century by Max Weber
and later re-defined and defended against its critics by Karl Popper
. However, in an academic environment that never strictly separated descriptive and normative theories of society, Luhmann's sociology has widely attracted criticism from various intellectuals, perhaps most notably from Jürgen Habermas
.
In Europe:
In North and South America:
In Asia-Pacific:
It is often being used in analyses dealing with corporate social responsibility
, organisational legitimacy
, governance structures
as well as with sociology of law
and of course general sociology
.
's work of literature Das falsche Buch
, together with - among others - Ulrich Sonnemann, Johann Georg Hamann
and Richard Buckminster Fuller.
Luhmann owned a pub ("Pons") in his parents' house in his native town of Lüneburg
. The house, which also contained his father's brewery, had been in his family's hands since 1857.
Articles
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
sociologist, and a prominent thinker in sociological systems theory
Systems theory
Systems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems at all nesting levels in all fields of research...
.
Biography
Luhmann was born in LüneburgLüneburg
Lüneburg is a town in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of fellow Hanseatic city Hamburg. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, and one of Hamburg's inner suburbs...
, Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...
, where his father's family had been running a brewery
Brewery
A brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made at home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....
for several generations. After graduating from the Johanneum school in 1943, he was conscripted as a Luftwaffenhelfer
Luftwaffenhelfer
Luftwaffenhelfer are terms commonly used for German students deployed as child soldiers during World War II....
in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and served for two years until, at the age of 17, he was taken prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
by American troops in 1945. After the war Luhmann studied law at the University of Freiburg from 1946 to 1949, when he obtained a law degree, and then began a career in Lüneburg's public administration. During a sabbatical in 1961, he went to Harvard, where he met and studied under Talcott Parsons
Talcott Parsons
Talcott Parsons was an American sociologist who served on the faculty of Harvard University from 1927 to 1973....
, then the world's most influential social systems theorist.
In later years, Luhmann dismissed Parsons' theory, developing a rival approach of his own. Leaving the civil service in 1962, he lectured at the national Deutsche Hochschule für Verwaltungswissenschaften (University for Administrative Sciences) in Speyer
Speyer
Speyer is a city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located beside the river Rhine, Speyer is 25 km south of Ludwigshafen and Mannheim. Founded by the Romans, it is one of Germany's oldest cities...
, Germany, until 1965, when he was offered a position at the Sozialforschungsstelle (Social Research Centre) of the University of Münster
University of Münster
The University of Münster is a public university located in the city of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. The WWU is part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, a society of Germany's leading research universities...
, led by Helmut Schelsky
Helmut Schelsky
Helmut Schelsky, , was a German sociologist, the most influential in post-World War II Germany, well into the 1970s.-Biography:...
.
1965/66 he studied one semester of sociology at the University of Münster.
Two earlier books were retroactively accepted as a PhD thesis and habilitation
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...
at the University of Münster in 1966, qualifying him for a university professorship. In 1968/1969, he briefly served as a lecturer at Theodor Adorno's former chair at the University of Frankfurt and then was appointed full professor of sociology at the newly founded University of Bielefeld, Germany (until 1993). He continued to publish after his retirement, when he finally found the time to complete his magnum opus, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft ("The Society of Society"), which was published in 1997.
Works
Luhmann wrote prolifically, with more than 70 books and nearly 400 scholarly articles published on a variety of subjects, including law, economy, politics, art, religion, ecology, mass media, and love. While his theories have yet to make a major mark in American sociology, his theory is currently well known and popular in German sociology, and has also been rather intensively received in JapanJapan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and Eastern Europe, including Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. His relatively low profile elsewhere is partly due to the fact that translating his work is a difficult task, since his writing presents a challenge even to readers of German, including many sociologists. (p. xxvii Social System 1995)
Much of Luhmann's work directly deals with the operations of the legal system and his autopoietic theory of law is regarded as one of the more influential contributions to the sociology of law
Sociology of law
The sociology of law is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies...
and socio-legal studies.
Luhmann is probably best known to North Americans for his debate with the critical theorist
Critical theory
Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...
over the potential of social systems theory. Like his one-time mentor Talcott Parsons
Talcott Parsons
Talcott Parsons was an American sociologist who served on the faculty of Harvard University from 1927 to 1973....
, Luhmann is an advocate of "grand theory," although neither in the sense of philosophical foundationalism nor in the sense of "meta-narrative" as often invoked in the critical works of post-modernist writers. Rather, Luhmann's work tracks closer to complexity theory broadly speaking, in that it aims to address any aspect of social life within a universal theoretical framework - of which the diversity of subjects he wrote about is an indication. Luhmann's theory is generally considered highly abstract, and his publications are difficult to read. This fact, along with the somewhat elitist behaviour of some of his disciples and the supposed political conservatism implicit in his theory, has made Luhmann a controversial figure in sociology.
A major critique of Luhmann is found in Piyush Mathur's detailed exegesis (2006) of one of Luhmann's treatises in an American journal. Luhmann himself described his theory as "labyrinth-like" or "non-linear" and claimed he was deliberately keeping his prose enigmatic to prevent it from being understood "too quickly", which would only produce simplistic misunderstandings. The influence of Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
and Jurgen Ruesch
Jurgen Ruesch
-Life:Ruesch was born in Naples, Italy, to Swiss parents. He studied at the University of Zurich, and moved to San Francisco in 1943 to head a project at the newly opened Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute of the University of California, San Francisco...
on Luhmann has been discussed by Piyush Mathur in an April 2008 article titled Gregory Bateson, Niklas Luhmann, and Ecological Communication.
Systems theory
Luhmann's systems theory focuses on three topics, which are interconnected in his entire work.- Systems theory as societal theory
- Communication theory and
- Evolution theory
The core element of Luhmann's theory is communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
. Social systems are systems of communication, and society is the most encompassing social system. Being the social system that comprises all (and only) communication, today's society is a world society. A system
System
System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....
is defined by a boundary between itself and its environment
Social environment
The social environment of an individual, also called social context or milieu, is the culture that s/he was educated or lives in, and the people and institutions with whom the person interacts....
, dividing it from an infinitely complex, or (colloquially) chaotic, exterior. The interior of the system is thus a zone of reduced complexity: Communication within a system operates by selecting only a limited amount of all information available outside. This process is also called "reduction of complexity."
The criterion according to which information is selected and processed is meaning (in German, Sinn). Both social systems and psychical or personal systems (see below for an explanation of this distinction) operate by processing meaning.
Furthermore, each system has a distinctive identity that is constantly reproduced in its communication and depends on what is considered meaningful and what is not. If a system fails to maintain that identity, it ceases to exist as a system and dissolves back into the environment it emerged from. Luhmann called this process of reproduction from elements previously filtered from an over-complex environment autopoiesis , using a term coined in cognitive biology by Chilean thinkers Humberto Maturana
Humberto Maturana
Humberto Maturana is a Chilean biologist and philosopher. He is considered a member of the second wave of cybernetics, known for developing a theory of autopoiesis about the nature of reflexive feedback control in living systems.- Biography :After completing secondary school at the Liceo Manuel de...
and Francisco Varela
Francisco Varela
Francisco Javier Varela García , was a Chilean biologist, philosopher and neuroscientist who, together with his teacher Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoiesis to biology.-Biography:...
. Social systems are autopoietically closed in that while they use and rely on resources from their environment, those resources do not become part of the systems' operation. Both thought and digestion are important preconditions for communication, but neither appears in communication as such.
Luhmann likens the operation of autopoiesis (the filtering and processing of information from the environment) to a program, making a series of logical distinctions (in German, Unterscheidungen). Here, Luhmann refers to the British mathematician G. Spencer-Brown
G. Spencer-Brown
George Spencer-Brown is a polymath best known as the author of Laws of Form. He describes himself as a "mathematician, consulting engineer, psychologist, educational consultant and practitioner, consulting psychotherapist, author, and poet.".-Life:Spencer-Brown passed the First M.B...
's logic of distinctions that Maturana and Varela had earlier identified as a model for the functioning of any cognitive process. The supreme criterion guiding the "self-creation" of any given system is a defining binary code
Binary code
A binary code is a way of representing text or computer processor instructions by the use of the binary number system's two-binary digits 0 and 1. This is accomplished by assigning a bit string to each particular symbol or instruction...
. This binary code, is not to be confused with the computers operation: Luhmann (following Spencer-Brown and Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
) assumes that auto-referential systems are continuously confronted with the dilemma of disintegration/continuation. This dilemma is framed with an ever-changing set of available choices; everyone of those potential choices can be the system's selection or not (a binary state, selected/rejected). The influence of Spencer-Brown's book, Laws of Form
Laws of Form
Laws of Form is a book by G. Spencer-Brown, published in 1969, that straddles the boundary between mathematics and philosophy...
, on Luhmann can hardly be overestimated.
Although Luhmann first developed his understanding of social systems theory under Parsons' influence, he soon moved away from the Parsonian concept. The most important difference is that Parsons used systems merely as an analytic tool to understand certain processes going on in society; Luhmann, in contrast, treats his vision of systems ontologically, saying that "systems exist". That is, Luhmann in fact suggests to substitute the paradigm of systems theory for the ontological paradigm: the difference system/environment (which also signifies a relationship).
Another difference is that Parsons asks how certain subsystems contribute to the functioning of overall society. Luhmann starts with the differentiation of the systems themselves out of a nondescript environment. He does observe how certain systems fulfill functions that contribute to "society" as a whole, but this is happening more or less by chance, without an overarching vision of society. Finally, the systems' autopoietic closure is another fundamental difference from Parsons' concept. Each system works strictly according to its very own code and has no understanding at all of the way other systems perceive their environment. For example, the economy is all about money, so there is no independent role in the economic system for extraneous aspects such as morals.
One seemingly peculiar, but within the overall framework strictly logical, axiom of Luhmann's theory is the human being's position outside any social system, initially developed by Parsons. Consisting of "pure communicative actions" (a reference to Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...
) any social system requires human consciousnesses (personal or psychical systems) as an obviously necessary, but nevertheless environmental resource. In Luhmann's terms, human beings are neither part of society nor of any specific systems, just as they are not part of a conversation. Luhmann himself once said concisely that he was "not interested in people". That is not to say that people were not a matter for Luhmann, but rather, the communicative actions of people are constituted (but not defined) by society, and society is constituted (but not defined) by the communicative actions of people: society is people's environment, and people are society's environment. Thus, sociology can explain how persons can change society; the influence of the environment (the people) on the system (the society), the so-called “structural coupling”. In fact Luhmann himself replied to the relevant criticism by stating that "In fact the theory of autopoietic systems could bear the title Taking Individuals Seriously, certainly more seriously than our humanistic tradition" (Niklas Luhmann, Operational Closure and Structural Coupling: The Differentiation of the Legal System, Cardozo Law Review, vol. 13: 1422)
Luhmann was devoted to the ideal of non-normative science introduced to sociology in the early 20th century by Max Weber
Max Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...
and later re-defined and defended against its critics by Karl Popper
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...
. However, in an academic environment that never strictly separated descriptive and normative theories of society, Luhmann's sociology has widely attracted criticism from various intellectuals, perhaps most notably from Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...
.
Luhmann's reception
Luhmann's systems theory is being applied or used worldwide by sociologists and other scholars:In Europe:
- In Denmark: Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen, Ole Bjerg, Susanne HolmströmSusanne HolmströmSusanne Holmström is a Danish sociologist, best known for her writings on organizational legitimacy based on the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann....
, Øjvind Larsen, Jens Rasmussen, Gorm Harste, Lars Qvortrup, Ole ThyssenOle ThyssenOle Thyssen is a Danish philosopher and sociologist. Thyssen is a MA from the University of Copenhagen from 1971, and he became a Doctor of Philosophy from that same university in 1976. He started out as a marxist philosopher, writing about psychoanalysis, Karl Marx and Wilhelm Reich...
, Jesper Tække, and Soren Brier (editor of the quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal, Cybernetics and Human Knowing ) - In Germany: Alfons Bora, Dirk Baecker, Peter Fuchs, Marie Theres FögenMarie Theres FögenMarie Theres Fögen was a German jurist and historian. She taught Law at the University of Zurich and Harvard University and was Director of the Max Planck Institute for European History of Law in Frankfurt am Main....
, Gunther TeubnerGunther TeubnerGunther Teubner is a German legal scholar and sociologist, best known for his works within the field of Social Theory of Law. He was Professor of Private Law at the University of Bremen from 1977 to 1981. From 1982 to 1991 he was associated with the European University Institute in Florence, Italy...
, Helmut WillkeHelmut WillkeHelmut Willke is a German sociologist who studies the effect of globalization on modern society. He coined the term Atopia to denote a society that exists without borders, with no national identity. He is currently professor at Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, Germany.-References:...
, Urs Stäheli, Lukas Scheiber. - In Italy: Claudio Baraldi, Giancarlo Corsi, Raffaele De Giorgi, Elena Esposito, Alberto Febbrajo, Fedele Paolo e Giorgio Manfré.
- In Portugal: Pierre Guibentif; João Pissarra Esteves.
- In the Netherlands: Wil Martens, Willem Schinkel, Lyana Francot-Timmermans.
- In Sweden: Dimitris Michailakis, Jan-Inge Jönhil, Vessela Misheva.
- In Belgium: Rudi Laermans, Ralf Wetzel, Raf Vanderstaete.
- In Russia: Alexander Filippov.
- In Kosovo: Artan Muhaxhiri.
- In Slovenia: Jože PučnikJože PucnikJože Pučnik was a Slovenian public intellectual, sociologist and politician. During the Communist regime of Josip Broz Tito, Pučnik was one of the most outspoken Slovenian critics of dictatorship and lack of civil liberties in former Yugoslavia. He was imprisoned for a total of 7 years, and later...
. - In Norway: Inger-Johanne Sand.
- In Switzerland: Rudolph Stichweh, David Seidl, Hanno Pahl, Steffen Roth.
- In Turkey: Yunus Yoldaş
- In UK: Michael King, Allan Roberts, Martin Albrow, Richard Nobles and David Schiff.
In North and South America:
- In Brazil: Celso Fernandes Campilongo, Gabriel Cohn, Marcelo Neves, Paulo A. de Menezes Albuquerque, Almiro Petry, Leonel Severo Rocha, Germano Schwartz, Orlando Villas-Boas Filho, Artur Stamford da Silva, Rafael Benevides Barbosa Gomes.
- In Canada: Peter Beyer, Stephen Schecter.
- In Chile: Fernando Robles Salgado, Darío Rodriguez, Aldo Mascareño, Marcelo Arnold.
- In Colombia: Eliana Herrera-Vega.
- In United States: Harrison WhiteHarrison WhiteHarrison Colyar White is the emeritus Giddings Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. White is an influential scholar in the domain of social networks. He is credited with the development of a number of mathematical models of social structure including vacancy chains and blockmodels...
, Cary Wolfe, Bruce Clarke, Stephan Fuchs, Ralf Michaels
In Asia-Pacific:
- In Japan: Masachi Osawa, Daizaburo Hashizume, Toshiki Sato.
- In Armenia: Artur Mkrtchyan, Steffen Roth.
- In Georgia: Giga Zedania.
It is often being used in analyses dealing with corporate social responsibility
Corporate social responsibility
Corporate social responsibility is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model...
, organisational legitimacy
Legitimacy
Legitimacy, from the Latin word legitimare , may refer to:* Legitimacy * Legitimacy of standards* Legitimacy * Legitimate expectation* Legitimate peripheral participation* Legitimate theater* Legitimation...
, governance structures
Governance
Governance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists of either a separate process or part of management or leadership processes...
as well as with sociology of law
Sociology of law
The sociology of law is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies...
and of course general sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
.
- In Taiwan: Chih-Chieh Tang
- In Australia: Alex Ziegert
Miscellaneous
Luhmann also appears as a character in Paul WührPaul Wühr
Paul Wühr is a German experimental author. Wühr currently lives on Lake Trasimeno in Umbria, Italy and has written for Hanser-Verlag since 1970.- Novels :* Gegenmünchen, 1970* Das falsche Buch, 1983...
's work of literature Das falsche Buch
Das falsche Buch
-Allusions/references to actual history, geography and current science:Several of the characters are based upon true figures such as German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, Ulrich Sonnemann, Johann Georg Hamann and United States inventor Richard Buckminster Fuller....
, together with - among others - Ulrich Sonnemann, Johann Georg Hamann
Johann Georg Hamann
Johann Georg Hamann was a noted German philosopher, a main proponent of the Sturm und Drang movement, and associated by historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin with the Counter-Enlightenment.-Biography:...
and Richard Buckminster Fuller.
Luhmann owned a pub ("Pons") in his parents' house in his native town of Lüneburg
Lüneburg
Lüneburg is a town in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of fellow Hanseatic city Hamburg. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, and one of Hamburg's inner suburbs...
. The house, which also contained his father's brewery, had been in his family's hands since 1857.
Publications
- 1963: (with Franz Becker): Verwaltungsfehler und Vertrauensschutz: Möglichkeiten gesetzlicher Regelung der Rücknehmbarkeit von Verwaltungsakten, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot
- 1964: Funktionen und Folgen formaler Organisation, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot
- 1965: Öffentlich-rechtliche Entschädigung rechtspolitisch betrachtet, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot
- 1965: Grundrechte als Institution: Ein Beitrag zur politischen Soziologie, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot
- 1966: Recht und Automation in der öffentlichen Verwaltung: Eine verwaltungswissenschaftliche Untersuchung, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot
- 1966: Theorie der Verwaltungswissenschaft: Bestandsaufnahme und Entwurf, Köln-Berlin
- 1968: Vertrauen: Ein Mechanismus der Reduktion sozialer Komplexität, Stuttgart: Enke
(English translation: Trust and Power, Chichester: Wiley, 1979.) - 1968: Zweckbegriff und Systemrationalität: Über die Funktion von Zwecken in sozialen Systemen, Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, Paul Siebeck
- 1969: Legitimation durch Verfahren, Neuwied/Berlin: Luchterhand
- 1970: Soziologische Aufklärung: Aufsätze zur Theorie sozialer Systeme, Köln/Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag
- 1971 (with Jürgen HabermasJürgen HabermasJürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...
): Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie - Was leistet die Systemforschung? Frankfurt: Suhrkamp - 1971: Politische Planung: Aufsätze zur Soziologie von Politik und Verwaltung, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag
- 1972: Rechtssoziologie, 2 volumes, Reinbek: Rowohlt
(English translation: A Sociological Theory of Law, London: Routledge, 1985) - 1973: (with Renate MayntzRenate MayntzRenate Mayntz is a German sociologist. She was director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, and is now director emeritus.-Biography:...
): Personal im öffentlichen Dienst: Eintritt und Karrieren, Baden-Baden: Nomos - 1974: Rechtssystem und Rechtsdogmatik, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer
- 1975: Macht, Stuttgart: Enke
(English translation: Trust and Power, Chichester: Wiley, 1979.) - 1975: Soziologische Aufklärung 2: Aufsätze zur Theorie der Gesellschaft, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, ISBN 978-3531612812
- 1977: Funktion der Religion, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
(English translation of pp. 72–181: Religious Dogmatics and the Evolution of Societies, New York/Toronto: Edwin Mellen Press) - 1978: Organisation und Entscheidung (= Rheinisch-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vorträge G 232), Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag
- 1979 (with Karl Eberhard Schorr): Reflexionsprobleme im Erziehungssystem, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta
- 1980: Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik: Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft I, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
- 1981: Politische Theorie im Wohlfahrtsstaat, München: Olzog
(English translation with essays from Soziologische Aufklärung 4: Political Theory in the Welfare State, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990) - 1981: Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik: Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft II, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
- 1981: Ausdifferenzierung des Rechts: Beiträge zur Rechtssoziologie und Rechtstheorie, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
- 1981: Soziologische Aufklärung 3: Soziales System, Gesellschaft, Organisation, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag
(English translation: The Differentiation of Society, New York: Columbia University Press, 1982) - 1982: Liebe als Passion: Zur Codierung von Intimität, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
(English translation: Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1986, ISBN 978-0804732536) - 1984: Soziale Systeme: Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
(English translation: Social Systems, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995) - 1985: Kann die moderne Gesellschaft sich auf ökologische Gefährdungen einstellen? (= Rheinisch-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vorträge G 278), Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag
- 1986: Die soziologische Beobachtung des Rechts, Frankfurt: Metzner
- 1986: Ökologische Kommunikation: Kann die moderne Gesellschaft sich auf ökologische Gefährdungen einstellen? Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag
(English translation: Ecological communication, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989) - 1987: Soziologische Aufklärung 4: Beiträge zur funktionalen Differenzierung der Gesellschaft, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag
- 1987 (edited by Dirk Baecker and Georg Stanitzek): Archimedes und wir: Interviews, Berlin: Merve
- 1988: Die Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
- 1988: Erkenntnis als Konstruktion, Bern: Benteli
- 1989: Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik: Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft 3, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
- 1989 (with Peter Fuchs): Reden und Schweigen, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
(partial English translation: "Speaking and Silence", New German CritiqueNew German CritiqueThe New German Critique is a contemporary academic journal in German studies. It is associated with the Department of German Studies at Cornell University...
61 (1994), pp. 25–37) - 1990: Risiko und Gefahr (= Aulavorträge 48), St. Gallen
- 1990: Paradigm lost: Über die ethische Reflexion der Moral, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
(partial English translation: "Paradigm Lost: On the Ethical Reflection of Morality: Speech on the Occasion of the Award of the Hegel Prize 1988", Thesis Eleven 29 (1991), pp. 82–94) - 1990: Essays on Self-Reference, New York: Columbia University Press
- 1990: Soziologische Aufklärung 5: Konstruktivistische Perspektiven, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag
- 1990: Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
(English translation of chapter 10: "The Modernity of Science", New German CritiqueNew German CritiqueThe New German Critique is a contemporary academic journal in German studies. It is associated with the Department of German Studies at Cornell University...
61 (1994), pp. 9–23) - 1991: Soziologie des Risikos, Berlin: de Gruyter
(English translation: Risk: A Sociological Theory, Berlin: de Gruyter) - 1992 (with Raffaele De Giorgi): Teoria della società, Milano: Franco Angeli
- 1992: Beobachtungen der Moderne, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag
- 1992 (edited by André Kieserling): Universität als Milieu, Bielefeld: Haux
- 1993: Gibt es in unserer Gesellschaft noch unverzichtbare Normen?, Heidelberg: C.F. Müller
- 1993: Das Recht der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
(English translation: Law as a Social System, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-826238-8 - 1994: Die Ausdifferenzierung des Kunstsystems, Bern: Benteli
- 1995: Die Realität der Massenmedien (= Nordrhein-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vorträge G 333), Opladen 1995; second, extended edition 1996.)
(English translation: The Reality of the Mass Media, Stanford: Stanford University Press, ISBN 978-0804740777 - 1995: Soziologische Aufklärung 6: Die Soziologie und der Mensch, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag
- 1995: Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik: Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft 4, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
- 1996: Die neuzeitlichen Wissenschaften und die Phänomenologie, Wien: Picus
- 1996 (edited by Kai-Uwe Hellmann: Protest: Systemtheorie und soziale Bewegungen, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
- 1996: Modern Society Shocked by its Risks (= University of Hong Kong, Department of Sociology Occasional Papers 17), Hong Kong, available via HKU Scholars HUB
- 1997: Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
- 1997: Die Kunst der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
- 1998: Die Politik der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp (Herausgegeben von André Kieserling, 2000)
- 1998: Die Religion der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp (Herausgegeben von André Kieserling, 2000)
- 1998: Das Erziehungssystem der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp (Herausgegeben von Dieter Lenzen, 2002)
Articles
- 2006, "System as Difference". Organization, Volume 13 (1) (January 2006), pp. 37–57
About Luhmann
- Detlef Horster (1997), Niklas Luhmann, München.
- David Seidl and Kai Helge Becker: Niklas Luhmann and Organization Studies. Copenhagen Business School Press, Copenhagen 2005, ISBN 978-8763001625.
- Ilana Gershon (2005) "Seeing Like a System: Luhmann for Anthropologists." Anthropological Theory 5(2): 99-116.
- Giorgio Manfré, "La società della società", QuattroVenti, Urbino, 2008.
- Giorgio Manfré, "Eros e società-mondo. Luhmann/Marx Freud", QuattroVenti, Urbino, 2004.
- Hans-Georg Moeller (2012). The Radical Luhmann, New York.
External links
- System-thinking.de: A mindmap presenting selected links on Luhmann
- Sociocybernetics mailing list: mailing list concerning Niklas Luhmann's theoretical work