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r o f i l e
T H E L E G C Y O F N IK L S
L U H M N N
G o t t h a r d e c h m a n n a n d N i c o S t eh r
'n some of the many and extensive obituaries
.published in European newspapers and maga-
zines in 1999, Niklas Luhmann is remembered as
the most i mportant social theorist of the 2 0th cen-
tury.Yet in much of the Anglo-Saxon world he is
vir tually unk now n among professional social sci-
entists. Luhm ann was b orn into a middle-class fam-
ily in Liineburg, Germany on December 8, 1927.
Fol lowing ear ly graduat ion f rom high school
Notabitur) , he was conscripted briefly in 1944
and taken prisoner of war b y the American Forces.
From 1946 to 1949, he studied law in Freiburg,
entered public administration and worked for ten
years as an administrative lawyer in Hanover. In
1962 he received a scholarship to Harvard and
spen t a year withT alcot t Parsons. In 1968, he was
appoi nted professor of sociolo gy at the newly
estab lishe d University of Bielefeld, wh ere he
worked until his retirement. Shortly before his
appointment he was asked on what subject he
wish ed to work at university. His reply was: The
theor y of mod ern society. Duration 30 years; no
costs. He cons eque ntly realised exactly this theo-
retical program . At the time of his dea th in De-
cember 1998, at the age of 70, he had published
an oeuvre of over 14,000 print ed pages.
Luhmann's journey toward a theory of mod-
ern societ y has taken a dual appr oach : first, in the
form of essays since the end of the 1960s; and
second, in the form of mono graph s since the
1980s, dealing with the individual function sys-
tems of society, such as law, science and art .
Luhmann's intellectual evolution culminated in
1997 with the publication of his magnum opus
The Society of Society. Anyone suspec ting redun-
dancy and repetition here might feel at first glance
that their scepticism is confirmed.This two-vol-
ume work contains no new subjects, let alone any
previously unpublished approach.To this extent
it is more a completion, a recapitulation, than an
advance into new terri tory. However, a second,
reassuring look reveals much that had not been
said bef or e- -o r at least n ot in this way. In contrast
to the essays, which are sometimes experimental
and even playful in tone, and which occasionally
close on a question mark, the b ook format requires
a more systematic presentation. The Society of
Society is the final stone to his theoreti cal cathe-
dral and provides a map for, and a guide to, the
understanding of modern systems theory.
Around this principal work are clustered ear-
lier, individ ual analyse s: The Scie nce o f Society,
The Econ om ics of Society, The Art of Society,
The Law of Society and the two pos thum ousl y
published bo oks: The Politics of Society and The
Religion of Society. The introduction to this se-
ries of analyses took the form of a 674-page book
bearing th e title Social Sy stems:The Outline o f a
General Theory. This wor k is still the mos t con-
centrated, abstract , and-- if one takes the trouble
to work through it--also most rewarding presen-
tation of the theoretical core.
We now have a first overall picture at our dis-
posal. If one wis hes to do Luh mann justice, one
has to find one's bearings within the architecture
of his general approach .Apart fro m these systemic
studies, Luhmann also published a slightly less
voluminou s series of sociological and historical-
seman tic analyses. They c onsist of the fou r vol-
umes of Societal Structure and Semantics and
the six volumes of Sociological Enlightenment.
These studies show Luhmann as a universal
scholar, wh o loc ates his theo ry within the histori-
cal contex t of enlightenmen t and Europ ean phi-
losophy.Apart from this far-reaching research, he
also pro duc ed a range o f political and social analy-
ses of modern society, commenting on pressing
public problems.We men tion only his books So-
ciology of Risk, Ecological Communicati on, The
Reality of the Mass Media and The Political
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Theory of the Welfare State." In all, his work con-
sists of some 700 publica tions an d countless trans-
lations into English, French, Italian,Japanese, Rus-
sian and Chinese.
In almost all of his work, Luhmann makes ref-
erence to the operative logic of George Spencer
Brown and radical constructi vism.These are treated
in summary fashion in order to sketch the layout
and the c once ptua l structure of his super-social sys-
tems theory, endo wed with a range of method ologi-
cal inst rumen ts wo n in this way. The t heo ry of
politics, sociol ogy of religion, sociology of art, and
moral sociology are de veloped subsequently.
In our br ief in tel lectual por t rai t of Niklas
Luhmann, we first deliberately focus on the sub-
stance of his social theory, especially the ideas
found in his last publication; and we refrain from
advancing a sociology of knowle dge p erspectiv e
that a t tempts to come to gr ips wi th- - for ex-
am pl e- th e reluctance of Anglo-Saxon social sci-
ence to engage Luhmann's notions as vigorously
and promine ntly as has been the case not only in
his ow n country , but also in Italy, France, and man y
othe r non-English-speaking societies. This is a
story, and a challenge, that must be left op en at
this time. Second, onc e we have outl ined the ma-
jor features of Luhmann's novel system-theoreti-
cal approach, we offer various critical observa-
tions and reflections.
The Characteristics of Moder n Society
For Luhmann, social differentiation and system
formation are the basic characterist ics of modern
society.This also means that systems theory and
the the ory of society are mutually dependen t. In
these terms, a socie ty is not the sum of all current
interactions, but rather a system of a higher order,
of a different type, determined by the differentia-
t ion between system and environment; and i t is
exactly this distinction which is the subject of
Luhmann's two-volume The Society of Society
Luh man n's key messa ge is this: soci ology is ulti-
mately a theory of society, or it is not a science. If
we look back at the his tory of sociology, this is by
no means self-evident. On the contrary, at the start
of the last century--and particularly after 1945
in Germany and elsewher e--sociol ogy derived i ts
identity by conceal ing its relationship with society.
It was mainly a theory of social entities, with such
categorie s as roles, interaction, inten tion and social
action forming the basic co ncep tual framew ork for
a sociol ogy whi ch was increasi ngly empirical and
theoretica lly inclined to follow the m odel of the
natural sciences, with their emphasis on causality
and the discovery of laws.
The c onc ept of society, however, retained i ts
holistic claim; emphatically defended, for example,
by cr i t ical theo ry and dev elo ped by J/ .i rgen
Habermas into a theor y of communicative reason.
This claim clashed with the unde rstand ing of so-
ciology as a universal and inde pend ent theo ry of
social entit ies.Would the mainstream per spectiv e
within sociology turn society into a social system
like any other, but at the same time an all-embrac-
ing and fundamental system? Sociology has bee n
unable to escape from this paradox, whi ch it has
count ered by repression and historicisation: Social
theory, and particularly critical social theory, has
largely been left to the disciplinary concerns of
philosophy , whi ch is believed to have the special-
ists in holistic claims for the ultimate, fundamen-
tal structures of thought and relationships with the
world. If social scientists dealt with the theory of
society, then they did so typically through exegesis
of the classics, as if the history of their own disci-
pline had the ability to preserve and recall claims.
Today the exclusion of society from socio logy
seems to be e xacti ng its revenge. Like Max Weber 's
repressed worl d of the gods who celebrate their
return to the mod ern world in the form of inces-
sant conflicts of values, the con cep t of society is
returning today in a wide diversity of terms, such
as "post-industrial society" (Bell),"society of risk"
(Beck)," socie ty of kn owle dge" (Stehr), and "post-
mod er n society" (Lyotard); as if one aspe ct of so-
ciety is capable of standing in for the wh ole. Such
ad hoc fabrication of terminolo gy reveals what is
being suppressed: namely, the claim to compre-
hend socie ty in its totality.
So wha t exa ctly does this mean for sociology,
Luhmann asks, if we wish to avoid the trap o f naive
objectivism, which views society as a given ob-
ject that effectively pre ced es all scientific obser-
vation? The implication of the objective poin t of
view would be that we have to observe society
from a point outside of society.There is no such
point. Science and society are both an expressio n
of social reality.This is precisely the point where
classical soci ology of knowledge, for example , has
broken down. I t was forced to delegate the ob-
servation of knowledge to a hypothetical , free-
floating intell igence that was not subject to any
distortion of perc epti on due to interests or ide-
ologies. More recently, a number of perspecti ves
have come to accept the idea that the act of cog-
nition is always itself a moment in the totality of
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cognition. Luhmann shares this app roa ch- -an d at
the same time pushes beyond it by arguing that
there cannot be an object society accessible to
independent observation.
As soon as we cease to regard societ y as merely
another sociological object of research and in-
stead focus on its operational significance as a
condition for the possibil i ty of sociological cog-
nit ion i tself , then sociology beco mes a subject
dealing with itself in exactly the sense in which
the subject matter of philosoph y speaks of reflec-
tion. Luhma nn transfers the struc ture of the self-
referential mo de of operation by the subject to
the theory of social systems.At the same time, he
answers the question: How it is possible to prac-
tice sociology as a theory of society that does not
prematurely screen out the conne ct ion between
theory and subject? This, accordi ng to Luhmann,
requires a radical rejection of epistemolo gical
posit ions based on the di chot omy of the subject-
object paradigm. Sociology is conf ront ed with
society as a subject. Luhmann therefore argues
that this requires research into characterist ics that
it has always generated itself. Luhmann consis-
tently posits a radically anti-humanist, non-onto-
logical and radical-constructivist idea of society.
The most radical assumpt i on of Luhmann's
mature theoretical approach is his emphasis on
differences, more precisely on distinctions that
are no longer seen as objective differences but as
constru ctions. The substitution of the subject con-
cept and the transfer of the subject /object differ-
entiation into the distinction between system and
environment take Luhmann to a post-ontological
theo ry of society, deve lope d on a naturalistic and
empirical basis as a the ory o f observation.This fun-
damental questioning of the modern philosoph y of
the subject and the resulting distinction betwe en
the natural sciences and the humanities ( together
with the associated rejection of a humanistic-an-
thropocentric concept for defining society) have
attracted a great deal of criticism, and even more
incomprehension, of Luhmann's approach.
T h e G e n e a l o g y o f L u h m a n n s S ys t e m T h e o r y
The c once pt of the system is Luhmann's essen-
tial starting point. In this respect he is exceptional
in German sociology, whi ch at least since Max
Weber has mainly been ac tion theory. Luhmann's
proposal to describe social phenomena like in-
teractions, organization s or societies as systems,
possibly marks this categorical break most em-
phatically.To think in terms of systems first ira-
plies that we are no longer speaking of objects,
but of differences and furth ermo re that differ-
ences are not conceived as existing facts (distinc-
tions), going back instead to an imperative to ex-
ecu te them, s ince one cou ld o therwi se g ive
nothing a name, thus having nothing to observe
and would thus also not be able to continue any-
thing (Luhmann, 1997:60).
The text of the social (like all oth er texts) is
neither self-explanatory nor is it deposited in dis-
crete writ ing. And it does not posses s any consis-
tent meaning which is identical with i tself , and
which one could trace back to any specific in-
stanc e of its creation. Sociology has to labo r with-
out con ceivi ng its domain of objects as a conglom-
erate of things, analogous to facts possessing a
fixed shape--whose inter-relationship, moreover,
is ensured in an uniform principle (be i t nature,
divine will, morals or a transcendental subject).
Under the metaphysica l conditions of the mod-
ern, a meta-perspec tive that permits the recogni-
t ion of somethi ng resembling the natural as the
invariable ess ence or the totality of society is no
longer available to the observer.
According to Luhmann's system-theory ap-
proach, the world (as the ho rizon of possible de-
scriptions) is expressed by means of a network
of contingent distinctions and labels that always
have to be understood in context.That an observer
may label this as this (and not as that) is due to a
dist inct ion in which both mom ents, separated
from each other, can only be understood in rela-
t ion to each other; the distinctive units only pos-
sessing their own identity in the difference to the
other. To be able to chara cterise some thin g as
something, one has to have already distinguished
it from its distinctive other: what deserves to be
called true, for example, is measured by the dif-
ference from appearance; and to speak of the past
makes sense only with referenc e to a present that
can be distinguis hed (con stitutively) f rom it. Even
if it is not explicitly raised as an issue, this other
side of something termed as this or that is always
presen t in every determination of spee ch or ges-
ture we make. It is a pe rma ne nt horiz on. It is pos-
sible to change sides at any time and to bring the
dist inguished moment of form (appearance for
truth, or the present for the past) into the focus
of attention, making it the point of departur e for
furth er deliberat ions. In the interest of a deliber-
ate treatment of self and world, it is inevitable
that we distinguish and label. Such operations are
the start of all perce ption and recognition.
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Why distinctions and labels in different con-
texts are made in a certain way and not in others
is impossible to determine from the perspective
of systems theory. Distinguishing always takes
place in a medium of lack of foretho ught and pre-
vious indeterminacy, endowing each form with
the seal of indelible conti ngen cy: in principle one
could have ma de c ompletely different distinctions.
To speak o f systems t hus m eans to establish a dif-
ference: that between system and environme nt.
By system, Luhmann means a chain of events
related to each other, or of operations. In the case
of living creatures, for instance, these are physiologi-
cal proces ses;f or psyc hic systems, ideas; and in rela-
tion to social relationships, communic atio ns. Systems
are formed by distinguishing themselves from an
environment of such events and operations that
cann ot be integrated into their internal structures.
In contrast to his early mentorTalcott Parsons,
who defined systems by means of the presence
of collectively shared nor ms and value patterns,
Luhmann proceeds from a system concept shaped
in a strictly relational manner. His notion relies
on the idea of a constitutive boundary that per-
mits the distinction between inside and outside.
Each operation of a system (in the case of social
systems: each communi cati on) (re)p roduces this
boundary by embedding i tself in a network of
further operations, in which it at the same time
gains its own unity/identity.Therefore, such a con-
cept of boundary--above all in relation to psy-
chic and social systems--is not to be understood
spatially, but rather operatively: The boundary of
the system is nothing but the type and concre-
tion of its opera tions w hic h individualise the sys-
tem. I t is the form of the system who se other side
t h us b e c o m e s t h e e n v i r o n m e n t ( L u h m a n n ,
1997:76-77.) . This operative unde rsta ndin g re-
quires the insight that systems are unable to tran-
scend their own boundaries.
Such a research strategy is due to an elemen-
tary conviction of the improbabili ty of the emer-
gence of social order. Everything could in prin-
ciple be different. From Luhmann's perspective,
social structures have nothing self-evident to
them: they require permanent new social con-
struction from the view of their existence and of
their determined shape. In contrast to the func-
tionalism of the Parsonian persuasion, Luhmann
is not c ommit ted to the pre servation of social
systems. On the contrary, the cont inge ncy and
compl exit y of the social is the starting po int of
all of his theoreti cal efforts.
The complexi ty of the design of Luhmann's
theory expresses i tself not only through the di-
versity of the sociological issues which he is able
to tackle with the help of the syste m-theory ap-
proach, but also in the way that the perspectives
vary in their emphasis when eve r he presen ts his
general theoretical approach. His Social Systems
is writ te n primarily from the poin t of view of the
dist inct ion between system and environment ,
while The Science of Society takes the theory of
observable systems as its starting point, leading
to more epistemological debates about obse rving
observation. If one had to choose such a central
point of view for The Society of Society the focus
would clearly be on the social system, in contrast
to all social subsystems formed through social
operations within society.
T h e i f fe r e n c e o f i f f e r e n c e s
Luhmann distances himself from what he calls
the old Europea n ontolo gical theore tical tradi-
t ion, hopelessly out mode d in i ts potential for cap-
turing m ode rn society in all i ts complexity. In
doing so, he is trying to overcome two thousand
years of tradition that, in his view, have been tran-
scend ed by the process of functional differentia-
t ion. He descr ibes the old European style of
thought as concerned with the identif ication of
the unity unde rlyi ng diversity. Society, in the clas-
sical view, consists of subjects of action whose
fundamental unity is based on sharing a comm on
understanding. Ontolo gy refers to a world exist-
ing objectively in separation from the subjects
aware of i t , capable of unambiguous l inguistic
representation.
Against this, Luhmann sets a view of a world
that temporalizes, differentiates and decentralizes
all identities. Identities are pro duc ts o f past ev ents.
Unity is no longer the ult imate p oint of reference
of the th eory. By relativizing even the o ntol ogica l
scheme of existence/non-existence as but one of
many observational schemata, Luhmann attacks
the foundations of powerful tradit ions of thought.
The paradox, according to Luhmann, is that the
old European tradit ion em erged in a society that
no lo nger exists today, either in terms of the sys-
tem of communication or in terms of forms of
differentiation. Even so, this tradition remains part
and parcel of our historical heritage, and in this
sense a part of the culture that is relevant for ori-
entation. I t cannot disappear bec ause i t no longer
fits; it is constantly negated, and has to be avail-
able for this purpose.
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T h e o r i e s o f T h e o r i e s
But how can society document i tself without
comi ng into contra dicti on with itself, and particu-
larly with out recourse to transcend ental refer-
ences outside itself?. In the last chapter of The
Society of Society und er the title Self-descrip-
tions, Luhma nn deals with the intrica te relation-
ship betwee n theor y and subject. Can theo ry ex-
plain i t s own locat ion wi thin the process of
society? And if it can, does it not regard socie ty to
a certain extent from without, al though this is
possible within society in the capacity of com-
munication? Here, we are reminded (not entirely
inappropriately) of Escher's hand drawing itself,
generating itself and its own image in the course
of its own op eration . Luhma nn follows a similar
line: Just like self-observations, self-descriptions
(generation of texts) are individual oper ations of
the system. In fact, descriptions and what is de-
scribed are not two separate objects which are
only externally l inked--with a self-description,
what is desc ribed is always part of what it is de-
scribing and it changes it simply by the fact that
it appears and subjects itself to observation.
Sociology, then, is always the con str uct ion of
the unity of the system within the sys tem itself,
never reaching an end to this process.This insight
prompts Luhmann to avoid any conclusions for
his own theory.Although there is a particularly
close relationship here with Hege l,who also gave
the absol ute a self-referential chara cter by regard-
ing the system as entirely self-referential--where
nothing can be external because everything ex-
ternal has be co me an aspect of its self-differen-
tial--Luhmann leaves this tradition exactly at this
point by translating i t into a cybernetic vocabu-
lary and hence overcoming it . Nor is society a
subject in the anthropological- interactive sense,
as Adorn o still view ed it despite all his criticism
of phil osop hy: Society is a coagu lated relation-
ship betwe en people. Humani ty is not the ulti-
mate elem ent in society, nor ca n soci ety still be
described within the classical cognitive model of
subject-object ; beca use the self-referentiality of
society itself causes this duality to collapse, since
cognition seeks intersubjective certainty on the
part of the subject and presup poses stable objects.
Society is in any case not such a stable object.
Critical e f l e c t i o n s
According to Luhmann's approach, only radi-
cal constructive semantics provide sufficient dis-
tance to prevent succumbing to the suggestions
inherent in tradit ional terminology. Luhman n's
terminology in the theoretically most demanding
part of this wor ks is devoi d of classical associa-
t i o n s a n d c o n n o t a t i o n s . I f t h e r e a d i n g o f
Luhmann's studies is not be abandoned due to
sheer resignation, frustration or even anger, then
his terminology requires considerable tolerance
from readers not familiar with the terminology
of systems theory.
Luhmann's strict, austere artificial language is
not due to any affectation but rather to the strin-
gency of his theoret ical p rogr am-- and this pro-
gram has to keep its distance from the implica-
tions of the seman tics of tradit ional Europea n
social theory. In this respe ct one s hould take seri-
ously the penultimate sente nce of the Society of
Societies, accor ding to whi ch an adequat e mod-
ern t heory of society requires the sacrif ice of the
mere pleasure of recogniti on and the judging of
theory construction on i ts own merits.
This does not imply that reading Luhmann's
theo ry is simply a struggle with nomi nal cons truc-
tions and cascades of abstract terms; in betw een
one finds analyses of traditional European seman-
tics, in which Luhmann attempts to clarify why
they are no longer adequate for the structural facts
of mod er n society. Again and again ther e are
pointed and paradoxical formulations, in which
the fruits of the switch in theory formatio n from
first-order observation to second-order observa-
tion are bundled as under a magnifying glass.An
example of this would be when Luhmann says of
memo ry that i ts true function for society consists
not of storage, but rather of forgett ing; or wh en
he conceives of information as a product of de-
cay that disappears by being updated.
Such paradoxes are more than skilful plays on
w o r d s : t h e y p r o v i d e e n t r y p o i n t s t o t h e
constructivist co re of Luhmann's societal theory,
which consists of the fact that all observation is
based on paradox to the extent that i t relies on
distinctions upon which i t cannot reflect as a
uniform whole.The unity of the world as the unity
of society, according to Luhmann, cannot be as-
serted as a principle but simply as a paradox--
this too is a consequence of the loss of meaning
of traditional semantics.
But is the loss of meaning of old European se-
mantics truly compell ing in the face of the four
volumes by Luhmann on the subject of structure
of society and semantics ? Or, is it at least rein-
forced wel l by methodology? One can doubt that
this is so, since Luhm ann is forced to fall back on
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socio-structural developments to be able to es-
tablish the loss of significance of socio-political
semantics.This circularity is probably the weak
point in Luhmann's theory of society. Of course,
this did not escape Luhmann, but the solutions
he suggested were not particularly consistent.
They stretch from the admittance of circularity as
an inevitable pre-requisite of theory formation--
which traditional European semantics were only
able to avoid by recourse to metaphysical construc-
tions, such as God, nature or re aso n-- to the claim
that semantic changes were subject to structural
change at considerable distance, as a result of
which semantics are suddenly again in the posi-
tion of verbally depic tin g facts. But is it really true
that social change precedes cognitive change, or
are there also cases where the opposite is true?
Luhmann analysed the change from traditional
European society to modern society by using
three dimensions, to each of whi ch he dedicates
three main c hapters of his societal theory ("The
Society of Society"): first, the social di mension ,
which Luhmann conceives as that of communi-
cation and media, consti tuted only by the distinc-
tion be twe en Ego and Alter (deliberately avoid-
ing the tradit ional European semantics of perso n
and subject) ; second, the temporal dimension, in
which past and future are separated, and which
L u h m a n n t e r m s e v o l u t i o n - - d e f i n i t e l y n o t
progress, since there is no guiding medi um am ong
the various media and the functional differentia-
tion of society has no guiding system; and third
and finally, the factual dimens ion ,wh ich Luhman n
comp rehe nds as functional differentiation, and in
which we are concerned wi th determining the
system and the environme nt.These are not, how-
ever, stable distinctions, that which constitutes
environment depending instead on the compo-
n e n t s y s t e m c o n c e r n e d , o n s c i e n c e o r th e
economy, law or education.And this also changes
during the evolution of the co mpo ne nt systems.
Decisive for Luhmann' s the ory of society is the
assertion that there is no do minan ce of any com-
pone nt system in the dimension of functional dif-
ferentiation, for instance of politics; that in the di-
mension of communication, no dominant med ium
may be recognised; and furthermore, that the lack
of guiding systems and dominan t media is the de-
finitive characteristic of mode rn society.This is also
the reason why traditional European semantics can
no longer adequately describe a modern society.
But is the loss of measure due to the c onver-
sion of norms and values into forms of societal
commun icati on, as describe d by Luhmann, really
plausible? Unfortunately, Luhmann at no point
makes reference to Michael Walzer's conc ept of
spheres of just ice: Within th is conc ept , wha t
Luhmann has described as the appropriate self-
descripti on of mode rn societies is describ ed as
thei r permanent ly- to-be-achieved norm, as the
measure of justness that is perma nent ly threat-
ened by the dominat ion of - - to use Luhmann's
t e rm- - compon en t sys tems .
This closes the circle for a major train of
thought, so that what initially appeared a para-
do x- na me ly , that the self is at the same time what
is d i f ferent- -emerges as a complete theory of
society that also includes reflection on i ts own
location in society, and regards society in this
sense as a unity capable of self-modification. If
we take this strictly intra-social perspective seri-
ously, accept ing that any commu nic atio n about
society can only take place within society, then
there is no location for critical reflection on soci-
ety external to society, whe re socie ty can be re-
garded as an object.This descripti on of society in
society is no longer based on the con cep t of the
subject or seen from the standpoint of transcen-
dental rationality. It is the tautological operation
of communication itself. Society is society's for-
mula for the self-desc ription of social unity. An
emphatic definition of sociology would here seek
the unity of this difference in order to distinguish
wha t is actual, wha t is essential.The unity of soci-
ety would then be a society that has arrived at
itself, corresponding to its ideal.Tradition has re-
served the label "enlightenment" for this, and
measured existing society against this claim. So-
ciological explanat ion of enl ighte nment must
abandon these claims, since this position can still
be observed, even if only from the po int of view
of second-order observat ion.The cont ingency of
the world cannot be reversed in this sense, be-
cause sociological theory belongs to the very
thing that it is analysing, name ly society.
The t rue meaning of sociology would hence
be that it is set free to engage in this type of self-
descripti on in order to modify the semantic lega-
cies of tradit ion to the chang ed social structural
relationships in the p rocess of "re-description."
This bridges the second major distinction be-
tween semantics and social structure. Modern
society, throu gh functional differentiation, gener-
ates the compulsion to self-observation and so
changes all the themati c elements. This brings
postmodernism to the point where the past be-
74 SOCIETY 9 JANUARY FEBRUARY 2002
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