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Niklas Luhmann

 
Biography: Niklas Luhmann
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A prominent German sociologist, Niklas Luhmann (born 1927) developed a general sociological systems theory, which he applied to a wide range of problems.

Niklas Luhmann was born on December 8, 1927, in Lüneburg, Germany. He studied law at the University of Freiburg/Breisgau in the years 1946-1949 and pursued further legal studies in preparation for the German state exam in 1953. He entered the civil service in 1954 and from 1956 to 1962 worked in the ministry of culture of the state of Lower Saxony, overseeing educational reform. He spent 1960-1961 on leave at Harvard University, studying sociology and administrative science. The teaching of the famous Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons would prove to be an especially important influence on Luhmann's later work.

After returning to Germany, Luhmann decided to turn to social science and an academic career. He held research and teaching positions at institutions in Speyer and Dortmund from 1962 until 1968. Having started to publish at a rapid pace in the early 1960s - mostly on topics in the sociology of organizations and of law - he received the doctorate and the so-called "habilitation" (a standard postdoctoral certificate) in sociology from the University of Münster in 1966. In 1968 he became professor of sociology at the University of Bielefeld, a position he held thereafter, with periodic interludes as a visiting professor at several institutions in Germany and the United States.

Holder of a number of honorary degrees, Luhmann received the prestigious Hegel Prize of the City of Stuttgart in 1988. Articles in German newspapers and numerous speaking engagements at professional meetings enabled him to broaden his audience. Although primarily occupied with his own research after 1968, he served as an occasional political adviser on matters of public policy in Germany.

Largely working independently, Luhmann became one of the most prolific and original sociological theorists in the world. His works, which for the most part were written in a relatively dense and scholarly style, drew on disciplines ranging from philosophy to linguistics to information science. They covered a wide spectrum of subjects, including law and love, politics and religion, education and the environment. Based as they were on a thorough familiarity with the tradition of Western thought, Luhmann's writings were often considered unusually complex and abstract by conventional sociological standards. Yet this complexity and abstractness can be reduced considering the basic themes and methods which ran through Luhmann's work and gave it systematic coherence. The proper starting point was the central idea of a "system," which referred to any entity selecting certain possibilities available in its environment, thus becoming less complex and more stable than the environment. This term can be applied to any number of things, ranging from large organizations to brief conversations. Luhmann's general question, then, was: What makes different systems work? How can they maintain themselves and relate to other systems?

Luhmann was especially interested in systems which operate on the basis of "meaning," in particular, systems of human communication. He regarded society not as a network of individuals united by shared beliefs, but rather as the totality of all communications. But in modern societies many kinds of communication were highly "differentiated," which meant essentially they operated independently according to the specific functions they served. The bulk of Luhmann's work consisted of systematic analyses of these kinds of communication (especially those organized in the form of full-fledged institutions, such as education and law) using a set of basic conceptual tools he developed beginning in the 1960s. Economic communication by means of money (rather than exchange in kind) was a case in point; it made possible interaction between buyers and sellers and laid the foundation for a whole economic system with its own specifically economic functions.

Like money, trust also served as a specific medium in modern societies, for example in interaction between professionals and laypersons: on some issues we had to accept the judgment of competent experts without checking its validity. Without some such trust, many social relationships would break down very quickly. Even love was now a specialized kind of communication, made possible by the passion exchanged between individuals who were supposed to treat each other as lovers without regard to their other social roles.

Like many social theorists before him, Luhmann analyzed the implications of the transition from traditional to modern society. In older, stratified societies the various functions that had to be performed were arranged in a hierarchy, from the aristocracy down to the peasantry. By contrast, modern societies have separated various social tasks in a "horizontal" fashion, a pattern Luhmann called functional differentiation. This had many advantages; for example, institutions handled more complex problems and individuals generally enjoyed greater opportunities. But it also raised new problems. Institutions (such as religious ones) that in the past played a broad role must now redefine and limit that role. Also, since all institutions now focused on their own function and performance, certain societal problems may be neglected because everyone can claim it was "none of their business" according to Luhmann, this was one source of the current environmental crisis.

Although Luhmann suggested various applications of his ideas, he did not think sociological theory should assume a political role. He concentrated on developing a deliberately open-ended way of analyzing the world rather than formulating formal models and easily testable propositions. While his work often seems highly technical, it was usually based on simple empirical observations and existing historical materials that Luhmann "translated" into his own abstract theoretical language. Only by means of abstraction, he suggested, could social scientists grasp the complexity of modern society and reduce that complexity at the same time.

The (translated) titles of Luhmann's main publications in German convey the focus and range of his work: Functions and Consequences of Formal Organization (1964), Fundamental Rights as an Institution: A Contribution to Political Sociology (1965), The Goal Concept and System Rationality: On the Function of Goals in Social Systems (1968), Theory of Society or Social Technology (1971; a famous debate with the German social theorist Jürgen Habermas), Societal Structure and Semantics (3 volumes; 1980, 1981, 1989); Social Systems: Outline of a General Theory (1984; perhaps Luhmann's theoretical masterpiece, in which he developed the concept of "autopoietic" or self-producing systems, to be published in English by Stanford University Press), and four volumes of essays under the general title Sociological Enlightenment.

To his credit, Luhmann's biography listed 377 works he had written; the last as late as 1996; twelve of which have been translated into English. He and his work was cited in The Graduate Journal of the Program in Comparative Literature, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia as late as April 1997. The article includes an interview with his friend and colleague, Friedrich A. Kittler.

Luhmann married Ursula von Walter in 1960; she died in 1977. They had two sons and one daughter. He has been a Professor of Sociololgy, University of Bielefeld since 1968.

Further Reading

Some of Luhmann's key works are now available in English translation: Trust and Power (1979), the essay on trust is a good entry point into Luhmann's work; The Differentiation of Society (1982), an excellent collection of essays with a good introduction; Religious Dogmatics and the Evolution of Societies (1984), contains Luhmann's main ideas on religion and a good introduction; A Sociological Theory of Law (1985), an extended treatment of one field in Luhmannian terms; Love as Passion (1986), an intriguing and readable historical and sociological study of love; Ecological Communication (1989), an application of systems theory to environmental problems; Political Theory in the Welfare State (1990), and Essays on Self-Reference (1990). Other translated works included Soziologie des Risikos. English Risk: A Sociological Theory (1993) and Soziale System, English Social Systems (1995).

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Niklas Luhmann

Born December 8, 1927(1927-12-08)
Lüneburg, Germany
Died November 6, 1998 (aged 70)
Oerlinghausen, Germany
Fields Social Systems Theory
Institutions University of Bielefeld
Known for Sociology and systems theory

Niklas Luhmann (December 8, 1927 - November 6, 1998) was a German sociologist, and a prominent thinker in sociological systems theory.

Contents

Biography

Luhmann was born in Lüneburg, Germany, 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.[1] 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 appeared 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 dominant in German sociology[citation needed], and has also been rather intensively received in Japan 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.[citation needed]

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 the "grand theory", aiming 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[citation needed] 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[citation needed] 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.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4]

Systems theory

Luhmann's systems theory focusses on three topics, which are interconnected in his entire work.[5]

  1. Systems theory as societal theory
  2. Communication theory and
  3. Evolution theory

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 (pronounced "auto-poy-E-sis"; literally: self-creation), using a term coined in cognitive biology by Chilean thinkers Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. Social systems are autopoietically closed in that they use and rely on resources from their environment; yet 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 as a merely 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 change the ontological paradigm with the paradigm of systems theory: 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 for 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) onto the system (the society), the so-called “structural coupling”.

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.

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[6], Ole Bjerg, Susanne Holmström, Øjvind Larsen, Jens Rasmussen, Gorm Harste, Lars Qvortrup, Ole Thyssen and Jesper Tække[7]
  • In Germany: Dirk Baecker, Peter Fuchs, Marie Theres Fögen, Gunther Teubner, Helmut Willke
  • In the Netherlands: Wil Martens, Willem Schinkel[8]
  • In Sweden: Dimitris Michailakis, Jan-Inge Jönhill
  • And further Rudi Laermans in Belgium, Alexander Filippov in Russia, Artan Muhaxhiri in Kosovo, Jože Pučnik in Slovenia, Inger-Johanne Sand in Norway, Urs Stäheli and Rudolph Stichweh in Switzerland.
  • In Turkey: Yunus Yoldaş[9]

In North and South America:

  • In Brazil: Celso Fernandes Campilongo, Gabriel Cohn, Marcelo Neves, Almiro Petry, Leonel Severo Rocha, Germano Schwartz, Orlando Villas-Boas Filho
  • In Canada: Peter Beyer
  • In Chile: Darío Rodriguez, Pedro Morandé, Aldo Mascareño, Marcelo Arnold.
  • In Colombia': Eliana Herrera-Vega
  • In United States: Harrison White, Ralf Michaels[10]

In Asia-Pacific:

  • In Japan: Masachi Osawa, Daizaburo Hashizume, Toshiki Sato

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.

  • In Taiwan: Chih-Chieh Tang
  • In Australia: Alex Ziegert

Miscellaneous

Luhmann also appears as a character in Paul Wühr'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 parent's 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.

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 Habermas): 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 Mayntz): 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 Critique 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 Critique 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
  • 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
  • 1995: Die Kunst der Gesellschaft, 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 Hongkong, Department of Sociology Occasional Papers 17), Hongkong, available via HKU Scholars HUB
  • 1997: Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
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.

References

  1. ^ In an interview Luhmann once said: "... die Behandlung war – gelinde gesagt – nicht nach den Regeln der internationalen Konventionen". Source: Detlef Horster (1997), Niklas Luhmann, München, p.28.
  2. ^ "Neither Cited nor Foundational: Niklas Luhmann's Ecological Communication", The Communication Review, 8: 329–362, 2005; for a more general critique see e.g. Alex Viskovatoff's "Foundations of Niklas Luhmann's Theory of Social Systems", Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 29:4, 481-516, 1999).
  3. ^ "Niklas Luhmann: Unverständliche Wissenschaft: Probleme einer theorieeigenen Sprache, in: Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung 3: Soziales System, Gesellschaft, Organisation. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 4th. ed. 2005, pp. 193-205, quote on p. 199.
  4. ^ Mathur, Piyush. "Gregory Bateson, Niklas Luhmann, and Ecological Communication, The Communication Review, Volume 11, Issue 2 April 2008 , pages 151 - 175
  5. ^ Niklas Luhmann (1975), "Systemtheorie, Evolutionstheorie und Kommunikationstheorie", in: Soziologische Gids 22 3. pp.154–168
  6. ^ Anderson, Niels A. (2003) Discursive analytical strategies : understanding Foucault, Koselleck, Laclau, Luhmann. Policy Press. Bristol, UK. ISBN 1 86134440 6
  7. ^ Jesper Taekke
  8. ^ Schinkel, Willem (2007) Denken in een tijd van sociale hypochondrie, aanzet tot een theorie voorbij de maatschappij
  9. ^ Yoldaş,Yunus “İşlevsel-Yapısal Sistem Kuramı”, Alfa Aktüel Yayınları, İstanbul 2007.
  10. ^ http://lapa.princeton.edu/eventdetail.php?ID=330

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