The article is an introduction to a special section in TCS on the work of Niklas Luhmann. The first part of the article provides a general introduction to Luhmann’s work with an emphasis on the basic elements of Luhmann’s general systems theory, in particular Luhmann’s notions of autopoiesis and meaning, and the traditions on which it is based. The second part of the text is a presentation of the articles in the special section.

Key words: autopoiesis, communication, functionalism, meaning, phenomenology, systems theory

Niklas Luhmann died in November 1998. He had been elaborating his theory of the society for more than thirty years which has been well received in many quarters of society in the modern world. Yet somehow we are only now beginning to read him when he is no longer there to be asked. And we are beginning to discuss his work although we cannot invite him to lecture us anymore. The following article takes up Luhmann’s very recent small and comprehensive book on Husserl and places him, as he did himself, in a tradition of “enlightenment” which aims for a self-critical constitution of reason.

With reference to three seminal books on cybernetics, communication theory and the calculus of distinctions, this article discusses some main threads in Niklas Luhmann’s sociological systems theoretical thinking. It argues that the systems theory, despite its still lively reputation in some quarters of the humanities, is not technocracy’s last attempt to cope with the complexity of modern society. Rather, it is an inquiry into the improbability of communication and into its translation into social structure, or better, into social form.

Key words: causality, communication, cybernetics, distinction, form

This paper explicates Luhmann’s self-referential theory of autopoiesis. Luhmann shows how social systems work in self-reproducing fashion to define and perpetuate themselves. This process of autopoiesis depends heavily upon binary coding. Systems which define themselves in a unitary fashion face the problem of tautology (`legal is legal’). Systems thus turn to dichotomies or binary coding to define themselves (`legal is not illegal’). This in turn can lead to the problem of paradox (when something is defined in terms of what it is not), so that the systems are seen in Luhmann’s theory as utilizing procedures both for `de-tautologizing’ and `de-paradoxing’ themselves. This paper shows that Luhmann’s paradigm holds great promise for solving current problems of social theory and for moving theory forward. This is illustrated by applying Luhmann’s theory to two empirical examples: law and ecology.

Key words: self-reference, autopoiesis, communication, binary coding, paradox, law, ecology

The book uses the method and categories of systems theory (inspired by Niklas Luhmann) in a scrutiny of the evolution of the main semantic trends of modern society and its influence in the formation of the systemic boundaries of the social systems of society. The book is an investigation of the meaning of the functional differentiation according to its semantic symptoms and evolution. In order to reconstruct the semantic evolution of basic modern socio-economic categories the book is divided according to the three classic branches of the political philosophy of the classic tradition, the Aristotelian division also conserved in Hegel’s own distribution of the themes of his “Sittlichkeit” – family, civil society and the state. Thus, in “The Individuation of Modern Society” the author explores the classic notion of oikós and its opposition to the pólis, the evolution of the concept of utility in modern times and its importance to the formation of the modern political economy and the economic system as an autonomous functional system, the idea of “civil society,” its meaning in the Hegelian description of the social modernity, the fragmentation of XVIIIth century civil society according to the use of the term “Entzweiung” in the Hegelian philosophical vocabulary, and the formation of the concept of the nation as a self-referential condition of the political system. The book finishes with a discussion of Niklas Luhmann’s theory of functional differentiation and his concept of the political system. Relevance: The book applies second-order cybernetics to the analysis of the evolution of modern social systems, especially in the case of the formation of self-referential conditions for the observation and reproduction of the systems.

This paper is a discussion of the sustainability of a concept of “world” compatible with the “operative constructivism” and the operative conception of observation of systems theory of according to Niklas Luhmann. The paper scrutinizes the concepts of observation of H. von Foerster, H. Maturana, G. Günther and N. Luhmann, providing the general framework of “operative constructivism.” Particularly, the paper will focus on N. Luhmann’s understanding of the role of observation in the constitution of the self-reference of the social systems of the modern society. The case of the “systems of art” will be briefly inspected. What place shall we concede to the idea of an “objective” world, according to the systems theory? Are systems “objective”? According to N. Luhmann, for the description of systems only operations are “objective.” However, an operation is not an entity, which means that we need to depict a new kind of “objects,” very different from the ’thing-objectivity” of the ancient metaphysics and different from the Cartesian concept of “res.” What does objectivity mean according to systems theory? This question was at stake in the formulation of N. Luhmann’s Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft: Society is “weder Subjekt noch Objekt.” This paper attempts to address this formula. Relevance: The paper deals with the epistemological explanation of second-order observations in social systems according to Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. It clarifies the world vision of the constructivism movement.

The paper presents a social system’s perspective on the Internet, based mostly upon a radical constructivist approach. It summarizes the contributions of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann and outlines the theoretical boundaries between the theory of social systems and that of media studies. The paper highlights the self-referential nature of the Internet, which is depicted as both a system and an environment by means of a network of serialized selections and passing on of data. Therefore, whereas media theory pictures the Internet as a medium, this paper describes it as a system in regard to its self-referential dynamic, and as an environment in regard to the non-organized complexity of data within the medium. Even though the Internet is hereby depicted as an autopoietic system from a social system’s perspective, the paper does not resort to all the concepts of Luhmann’s theory.

The problem of double contingency and its accompanying parable of the black boxes informs Luhmann’s conception of meaning and frequently provides illustration at critical junctures. In life, (we) ‘psychic systems’ and (societies) ‘social systems’ are constantly faced with situations that require choices. Our meanings develop from those choices. Each choice that we make is an element of our meaning. Autopoiesis forms the background of Luhmann’s theory. Psychic and social autopoietic systems live by constantly maintaining their reproduction as a closed system. At the same time, they constantly interact with their environment by incorporating elements from it and releasing unneeded elements back into it. In this process, what remains the same is the reproductive process, which incorporates those elements that foster its life and evolution. Interpenetration describes how closed autopoietic systems come to share meaning and come to cooperatre and understand each other.