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The Legacy of Niklas Luhmann

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The Legacy of Niklas Luhmann Profile THE LEGACY OF NIKLAS LUHMANN Gotthard Bechmann and Nico Stehr n some of the many and extensive obituaries advance into new territory. However, a second, Ipublished in European newspapers and maga- reassuring look reveals much that had not been zines in 1999, Niklas Luhmann is remembered as said before—or at least not in this way. In contrast the most important social theorist of the 20th cen- to the essays, which are sometimes experimental tury. Yet in much of the Anglo-Saxon world he is and even playful in tone, and which occasionally virtually unknown among professional social sci- close on a question mark, the book format requires entists. Luhmann was born into a middle-class fam- a more systematic presentation. “The Society of ily in Lüneburg, Germany on December 8, 1927. Society” is the final stone to his theoretical cathe- Following early graduation from high school dral and provides a map for, and a guide to, the (Notabitur), he was conscripted briefly in 1944 understanding of modern systems theory. and taken prisoner of war by the American Forces. Around this principal work are clustered ear- From 1946 to 1949, he studied law in Freiburg, lier, individual analyses: “The Science of Society,” entered public administration and worked for ten “The Economics of Society,” “The Art of Society,” years as an administrative lawyer in Hanover. In “The Law of Society” and the two posthumously 1962 he received a scholarship to Harvard and published books: “The Politics of Society” and “The spent a year with Talcott Parsons. In 1968, he was Religion of Society.” The introduction to this se- appointed professor of sociology at the newly ries of analyses took the form of a 674-page book established University of Bielefeld, where he bearing the title “Social Systems: The Outline of a worked until his retirement. Shortly before his General Theory.” This work is still the most con- appointment he was asked on what subject he centrated, abstract, and—if one takes the trouble wished to work at university. His reply was: “The to work through it—also most rewarding presen- theory of modern society. Duration 30 years; no tation of the theoretical core. costs.” He consequently realised exactly this theo- We now have a first overall picture at our dis- retical program. At the time of his death in De- posal. If one wishes to do Luhmann justice, one cember 1998, at the age of 70, he had published has to find one’s bearings within the architecture an oeuvre of over 14,000 printed pages. of his general approach. Apart from these systemic Luhmann’s journey toward a theory of mod- studies, Luhmann also published a slightly less ern society has taken a dual approach: first, in the voluminous series of sociological and historical- form of essays since the end of the 1960s; and semantic analyses. They consist of the four vol- second, in the form of monographs since the umes of “Societal Structure and Semantics” and 1980s, dealing with the individual function sys- the six volumes of “Sociological Enlightenment.” tems of society, such as law, science and art. These studies show Luhmann as a universal Luhmann’s intellectual evolution culminated in scholar, who locates his theory within the histori- 1997 with the publication of his magnum opus cal context of enlightenment and European phi- “The Society of Society.” Anyone suspecting redun- losophy. Apart from this far-reaching research, he dancy and repetition here might feel at first glance also produced a range of political and social analy- that their scepticism is confirmed. This two-vol- ses of modern society, commenting on pressing ume work contains no new subjects, let alone any public problems. We mention only his books “So- previously unpublished approach. To this extent ciology of Risk,” “Ecological Communication,” “The it is more a completion, a recapitulation, than an Reality of the Mass Media” and “The Political THE LEGACY OF NIKLAS LUHMANN 67 Theory of the Welfare State.” In all, his work con- natural sciences, with their emphasis on causality sists of some 700 publications and countless trans- and the discovery of laws. lations into English, French, Italian, Japanese, Rus- The concept of society, however, retained its sian and Chinese. holistic claim; emphatically defended, for example, In almost all of his work, Luhmann makes ref- by critical theory and developed by Jürgen erence to the operative logic of George Spencer Habermas into a theory of communicative reason. Brown and radical constructivism. These are treated This claim clashed with the understanding of so- in summary fashion in order to sketch the layout ciology as a universal and independent theory of and the conceptual structure of his super-social sys- social entities. Would the mainstream perspective tems theory, endowed with a range of methodologi- within sociology turn society into a social system cal instruments won in this way. The theory of like any other, but at the same time an all-embrac- politics, sociology of religion, sociology of art, and ing and fundamental system? Sociology has been moral sociology are developed subsequently. unable to escape from this paradox, which it has In our brief intellectual portrait of Niklas countered by repression and historicisation: Social Luhmann, we first deliberately focus on the sub- theory, and particularly critical social theory, has stance of his social theory, especially the ideas largely been left to the disciplinary concerns of found in his last publication; and we refrain from philosophy, which is believed to have the special- advancing a sociology of knowledge perspective ists in holistic claims for the ultimate, fundamen- that attempts to come to grips with—for ex- tal structures of thought and relationships with the ample—the reluctance of Anglo-Saxon social sci- world. If social scientists dealt with the theory of ence to engage Luhmann’s notions as vigorously society, then they did so typically through exegesis and prominently as has been the case not only in of the classics, as if the history of their own disci- his own country, but also in Italy, France, and many pline had the ability to preserve and recall claims. other non-English-speaking societies. This is a Today the exclusion of society from sociology story, and a challenge, that must be left open at seems to be exacting its revenge. Like Max Weber’s this time. Second, once we have outlined the ma- repressed world of the gods who celebrate their jor features of Luhmann’s novel system-theoreti- return to the modern world in the form of inces- cal approach, we offer various critical observa- sant conflicts of values, the concept of society is tions and reflections. returning today in a wide diversity of terms, such as “post-industrial society” (Bell), “society of risk” The Characteristics of Modern Society (Beck), “society of knowledge” (Stehr), and “post- For Luhmann, social differentiation and system modern society” (Lyotard); as if one aspect of so- formation are the basic characteristics of modern ciety is capable of standing in for the whole. Such society. This also means that systems theory and ad hoc fabrication of terminology reveals what is the theory of society are mutually dependent. In being suppressed: namely, the claim to compre- these terms, a society is not the sum of all current hend society in its totality. interactions, but rather a system of a higher order, So what exactly does this mean for sociology, of a different type, determined by the differentia- Luhmann asks, if we wish to avoid the trap of naïve tion between system and environment; and it is objectivism, which views society as a given ob- exactly this distinction which is the subject of ject that effectively precedes all scientific obser- Luhmann’s two-volume The Society of Society. vation? The implication of the objective point of Luhmann’s key message is this: sociology is ulti- view would be that we have to observe society mately a theory of society, or it is not a science. If from a point outside of society. There is no such we look back at the history of sociology, this is by point. Science and society are both an expression no means self-evident. On the contrary, at the start of social reality. This is precisely the point where of the last century—and particularly after 1945 classical sociology of knowledge, for example, has in Germany and elsewhere—sociology derived its broken down. It was forced to delegate the ob- identity by concealing its relationship with society. servation of knowledge to a hypothetical, free- It was mainly a theory of social entities, with such floating intelligence that was not subject to any categories as roles, interaction, intention and social distortion of perception due to interests or ide- action forming the basic conceptual framework for ologies. More recently, a number of perspectives a sociology which was increasingly empirical and have come to accept the idea that the act of cog- theoretically inclined to follow the model of the nition is always itself a moment in the totality of 68 SOCIETY • JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2002 cognition. Luhmann shares this approach—and at plies “that we are no longer speaking of objects, the same time pushes beyond it by arguing that but of differences and furthermore that differ- there cannot be an object “society” accessible to ences are not conceived as existing facts (distinc- independent observation. tions), going back instead to an imperative to ex- As soon as we cease to regard society as merely ecute them, since one could otherwise give another sociological object of research and in- nothing a name, thus having nothing to observe stead focus on its operational significance as a and would thus also not be able to continue any- condition for the possibility of sociological cog- thing” (Luhmann, 1997:60).
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