Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998), Professor of Sociology at the University of Bielefeld, was one of the most eminent social theorists of the last decades of the twentieth century. Stanford University Press has published a number of his books in English: Social Systems (1995), Observations on Modernity (1998), Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy (1998), Art as a Social System (2000), The Reality of the Mass Media (2000), Theories of Distinction: Redescribing the Descriptions of Modernity (2002), and A Systems Theory of Religion (2012).

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THEORY OF SOCIETY

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Preface....................................................................................xiTranslator's Note..........................................................................xv1. Society as a Social System..............................................................11.1. The Sociological Theory of Society....................................................11.2. Preliminary Remarks on Methodology....................................................131.3. Meaning...............................................................................181.4. The Distinction Between System and Environment........................................281.5. Society as a Comprehensive Social System..............................................401.6. Operational Closure and Structural Couplings..........................................491.7. Cognition.............................................................................681.8. Ecological Problems...................................................................731.9. Complexity............................................................................771.10. World Society........................................................................831.11. Demands on Rationality...............................................................992. Communication Media.....................................................................1132.1. Medium and Form.......................................................................1132.2. Dissemination Media and Success media.................................................1202.3. Language..............................................................................1232.4. Morality and the Secrets of Religion..................................................1382.5. Writing...............................................................................1502.6. Printing..............................................................................1742.7. Electronic Media......................................................................1802.8. Dissemination Media: Summary..........................................................1872.9. Symbolically Generalized Communication Media, 1: Function.............................1902.10. Symbolically Generalized Communication Media, 2: Differentiation.....................1992.11. Symbolically Generalized Communication Media, 3: Structures..........................2142.12. Symbolically Generalized Communication Media, 4: Self-Validation.....................2362.13. Moral Communication..................................................................2392.14. Effects on the Evolution of the Societal System......................................2453. Evolution...............................................................................2513.1. Creation, Planning, Evolution.........................................................2513.2. Systems-Theoretical Basis.............................................................2613.3. The Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution.................................................2723.4. The Variation of Elements.............................................................2753.5. Selection Through Media...............................................................2843.6. The Restabilization of Systems........................................................2923.7. Differentiation of Variation, Selection, and Restabilization..........................3003.8. Evolutionary Advances.................................................................3053.9. Technology............................................................................3123.10. The Evolution of Ideas...............................................................3243.11. The Evolution of Subsystems..........................................................3363.12. Evolution and History................................................................3433.13. Memory...............................................................................348Notes......................................................................................359Index......................................................................................455

Chapter One

1. The Sociological Theory of Society

The investigations that follow address the social system of modern society. Such a project, it should be said at the outset, engages a circular relationship with its subject matter. What this subject matter is cannot be said in advance. The word "society" does not refer to a clear-cut idea. Even the common term "social" has no incontestably objective reference. Nor can the attempt to describe society be made outside of society. It uses communication. It activates social relations. It exposes itself to observation in society. However we define the subject, its definition is itself already one of the latter's functions. What is described performs the description. In so doing it must therefore also describe itself. It must treat its subject as one that describes itself. Borrowing an expression from logical analysis in linguistics, we could say that every theory of society must have an "autological" component. Whoever feels that the theory of science cannot accommodate this must do without a theory of society, linguistics, and much else.

Classical sociology has sought to establish itself as the science of social facts—facts as opposed to mere opinions, value judgments, or ideological prejudices. Within the context of this distinction, this is not to be disputed. The problem, however, is that the ascertainment of facts can enter the world only as fact. Sociology therefore has to take account of its own factuality. This requirement applies throughout its domain of research and is not to be redeemed by a special interest in a "sociology of sociology." This, as we now know, violates the premises of a bivalent, or two-valued, logic. In choosing limited research topics, this can be disregarded on pragmatic grounds. The investigator sees himself as a subject outside his topic. For the purposes of a theory of society, however, this view is untenable, for the work on such a theory necessarily involves self-referential operations. It can be communicated only within the system of society.

Sociology has hitherto failed to address this problem with the necessary stringency and consistency. It has hence failed to produce anything approaching an adequate theory of society. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, any integration of a description of society into its object tended to be seen as "ideology" and, as such, rejected. On this basis, the raising of sociology to the academic status of a strict science would have been inconceivable. Some even felt they should make do without the concept of society and limit themselves to the strictly formal analysis of social relations. Concepts concerned with difference such as individualization and differentiation seemed sufficient to mark the research interests of sociology. Others, notably Emile Durkheim, considered a strictly positive science of "social facts" and of society as the condition for their possibility to be feasible. Still others were satisfied with the distinction between the natural sciences and the humanities and with the historical relativization of all descriptions of society. Whatever the details, the distinction between subject and object was considered binding for epistemological reasons, leaving a choice only between a scientistically naïve and a transcendental theoretical position.

Many of the...