Niklas Luhmann's Adoption of The Teory of Autopoietic Systems
From the very beginning, Luhmann based his social theory on system theory since the latter gave him the level of abstraction that he needed to describe social phenomena without explicitly considering the role played by individuals. It was only in the early 1980s, however, that his theory took on what he considered to be a more or less finished form, and he published his central work, Soziale Systeme (1984). This was when Luhmann adopted a new version of system theory--the theory of autopoietic systems--whose principal originators were the Chilean neuroscientists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. In contrast to the preceding system-theoretic paradigm, which first distinguishes a system from its environment and then proceeds to describe system processes by relating them to functions that the researcher attributes to them, the new theory radically dismisses all such talk on the grounds that the old theory employs an observer-relative viewpoint that need not at all correspond to the "phenomenology" of the system, taken as a unified entity "for itself." Since what distinguishes a living system from a nonliving one--specifying the "essence" of the living was a prime concern of Maturana's--is that it is able to produce itself by reproducing its elements while maintaining an organization of these elements that is characteristic of it, the way to obtain a "true" understanding of such a system is by focusing on this very process of self-production and self-organization (Maturana and Varela 1980, 82). (If an observer wants to study the system by ascribing functions to it, that is fine, but this kind of investigation can only be a complement to the stance that looks at the system in and for itself and cannot replace it.) Since what one notices from such a perspective about the elementary processes of living systems--whether they be the synthesis of organic molecules in a cell or the generation of impulses in a neuronal network--is that every elementary event and process are exquisitely attuned to the process of the system's self-production--its autopoiesis--taken as a whole, the concept of self-reference takes on great importance in the theory, even at the level of the elements of a system. Once all of this has been accepted, the only remaining task is to show how an autopoietic system, despite being "closed" in the manner just described, is still able to interact with its environment. The way this is done is by taking the position that while no events outside the system can "enter into" the system, they can "deform" its autopoiesis without disturbing its closure, and this deformation can in turn lead the system to change its behavior with respect to its environment. In analyzing such a process, it is important not to confuse an observer's description of an environmental event impinging on a system with the way that event is "processed" by the system itself. Thus, to note a famous experiment that was a major influence on Maturana, when a frog flicks its tongue at a passing fly, it does not perceive a fly at a given point in space and then respond by directing its tongue toward that point. Rather, there is a certain hardwired link between retinal neurons and motor neurons that is activated by certain stimuli to the retina. When a fly happens to be nearby, the appropriate neurons fire, and that is all (Lettvin et al. 1959). Specifically, there is no representation of the space surrounding the frog as a spatiotemporal continuum populated by physical objects with various properties, which is the way a human observer experiences it.
It is easy to see how the theory of autopoietic systems precisely matched Luhmann's needs. Maturana's theory postulates a class of entities that could be instantiated at various levels--namely, the cellular, the cognitive, and (according to Maturana himself) the social, the defining characteristic of which is to produce themselves out of their elements. The theory is self-contained, in the sense that it may make use of empirical knowledge provided by various sciences but does not need any theoretical constructs or abide by any requirements for explanation from those sciences to produce explanations that are satisfactory on its own terms. Thus, to provide a satisfactory theoretical treatment of a given class of systems, it is only necessary first to define what elements constitute a system from that class and second to show how the system is able to carry out its autopoiesis by producing its elements. Once that is done, one may proceed to elaborate descriptions of various specific traits and behaviors of these systems in terms of this phenomenological analysis of them, without needing to bother, for instance, about how the elements of these systems are produced from a commonsense or physical science point of view since these points of view are outside of the system's autopoiesis and hence irrelevant. To take the analysis of social phenomena abstracting from individuals to its logical end point, therefore, it is necessary only to describe the domain of these phenomena and define the constituent elements. Since this domain is evidently not the domain usually studied by the natural sciences, that of physical entities in space-time, that will obviously require some extension of Maturana and Varela's theory.
Luhmann had already made the first step some time before adopting Maturana's theory in his 1971 work, with the introduction of his concept of meaning (Sinn). The concept is derived phenomenologically but without reference to a specific system type as the representation by a system of aspects of the current state of its environment that are of interest to it, together with a simultaneous reference to other possible states that are not currently instantiated. As it happens, two types of systems operate over the medium of meaning: psychic systems (Luhmann's term for what philosophers and others ordinarily call minds) and social systems. Since "meaning is nothing but a way to experience and to handle enforced selectivity," it is according to Luhmann an anthropomorphic error to see any intrinsic connection between meaning and minds or brains since there is no reason to think that social systems are any less complicated than psychic systems (Luhmann 1990b, 82; see also Luhmann 1995, 97-99; 1984,141-43). The second step was to posit that while psychic systems produce themselves by producing thoughts, social systems do so by producing communications; both thoughts and communications have meaning in exactly the same way. When one takes this theoretical step, one sees that an autonomous domain of the social does indeed open up before one, with human actors being situated, as Luhmann stresses, in the environment of social systems instead of composing them, as one has tended to suppose until now. Since the production of a communication cannot be reduced to the activity of a single psychic system or to a simple aggregation of the activities of several ones, it is wrong to attribute the communication to human actors, as one does in the case of action: a communication must be both sent and received, and the determining factors of what is communicated are largely contingencies of the immediate situation, such as communications that have previously been made, which are the result of the ongoing process of communication as it develops over time rather than of the specific traits of individual psychic systems (Luhmann 1995, 139-45; 1984, 193-201). Thus, while social systems certainly need psychic systems as a "substrate" to function, it is nevertheless true that since the medium in which they operate meaning--is as much the product of social systems as it is of psychic systems, it is no more improper to speak of communications without regard to the lower-level processes that "enable" them than it is to speak, as philosophers commonly do, of mental events or processes without regard to the underlying neural events and processes. (Luhmann is in fact critical of philosophers for privileging the self-reference of psychic systems over other kinds of self-reference; see Luhmann 1995, 99-102; 1984,143-47.) Furthermore, with the theory of autopoietic systems, one can now hope to account for the restless, creative nature of social systems without needing to consider the role played by individuals at all. Since social systems are autopoietic systems, they must by definition keep on producing their elements, which are communications. If a social system, whether it be an organization or a whole society, were to stop producing communications, it would simply cease to exist--and we know that this does not usually happen.
I am not able to give even a short account in this article of the many results that Luhmann has been able to achieve with this theory, which, as I have argued in the introduction, are largely attributable to Luhmann taking the idea of social autonomy as far as it will go--something that also accounts for the strangeness with which the ideas we have just presented usually strike a reader until she has immersed herself in Luhmann's writings for some time. Instead, I shall proceed to consider what can be seen as fundamental flaws in the theory deriving from the theory of autopoietic systems. The best way to do this is first by means of a direct critique of the latter theory itself.
It is easy to see how the theory of autopoietic systems precisely matched Luhmann's needs. Maturana's theory postulates a class of entities that could be instantiated at various levels--namely, the cellular, the cognitive, and (according to Maturana himself) the social, the defining characteristic of which is to produce themselves out of their elements. The theory is self-contained, in the sense that it may make use of empirical knowledge provided by various sciences but does not need any theoretical constructs or abide by any requirements for explanation from those sciences to produce explanations that are satisfactory on its own terms. Thus, to provide a satisfactory theoretical treatment of a given class of systems, it is only necessary first to define what elements constitute a system from that class and second to show how the system is able to carry out its autopoiesis by producing its elements. Once that is done, one may proceed to elaborate descriptions of various specific traits and behaviors of these systems in terms of this phenomenological analysis of them, without needing to bother, for instance, about how the elements of these systems are produced from a commonsense or physical science point of view since these points of view are outside of the system's autopoiesis and hence irrelevant. To take the analysis of social phenomena abstracting from individuals to its logical end point, therefore, it is necessary only to describe the domain of these phenomena and define the constituent elements. Since this domain is evidently not the domain usually studied by the natural sciences, that of physical entities in space-time, that will obviously require some extension of Maturana and Varela's theory.
Luhmann had already made the first step some time before adopting Maturana's theory in his 1971 work, with the introduction of his concept of meaning (Sinn). The concept is derived phenomenologically but without reference to a specific system type as the representation by a system of aspects of the current state of its environment that are of interest to it, together with a simultaneous reference to other possible states that are not currently instantiated. As it happens, two types of systems operate over the medium of meaning: psychic systems (Luhmann's term for what philosophers and others ordinarily call minds) and social systems. Since "meaning is nothing but a way to experience and to handle enforced selectivity," it is according to Luhmann an anthropomorphic error to see any intrinsic connection between meaning and minds or brains since there is no reason to think that social systems are any less complicated than psychic systems (Luhmann 1990b, 82; see also Luhmann 1995, 97-99; 1984,141-43). The second step was to posit that while psychic systems produce themselves by producing thoughts, social systems do so by producing communications; both thoughts and communications have meaning in exactly the same way. When one takes this theoretical step, one sees that an autonomous domain of the social does indeed open up before one, with human actors being situated, as Luhmann stresses, in the environment of social systems instead of composing them, as one has tended to suppose until now. Since the production of a communication cannot be reduced to the activity of a single psychic system or to a simple aggregation of the activities of several ones, it is wrong to attribute the communication to human actors, as one does in the case of action: a communication must be both sent and received, and the determining factors of what is communicated are largely contingencies of the immediate situation, such as communications that have previously been made, which are the result of the ongoing process of communication as it develops over time rather than of the specific traits of individual psychic systems (Luhmann 1995, 139-45; 1984, 193-201). Thus, while social systems certainly need psychic systems as a "substrate" to function, it is nevertheless true that since the medium in which they operate meaning--is as much the product of social systems as it is of psychic systems, it is no more improper to speak of communications without regard to the lower-level processes that "enable" them than it is to speak, as philosophers commonly do, of mental events or processes without regard to the underlying neural events and processes. (Luhmann is in fact critical of philosophers for privileging the self-reference of psychic systems over other kinds of self-reference; see Luhmann 1995, 99-102; 1984,143-47.) Furthermore, with the theory of autopoietic systems, one can now hope to account for the restless, creative nature of social systems without needing to consider the role played by individuals at all. Since social systems are autopoietic systems, they must by definition keep on producing their elements, which are communications. If a social system, whether it be an organization or a whole society, were to stop producing communications, it would simply cease to exist--and we know that this does not usually happen.
I am not able to give even a short account in this article of the many results that Luhmann has been able to achieve with this theory, which, as I have argued in the introduction, are largely attributable to Luhmann taking the idea of social autonomy as far as it will go--something that also accounts for the strangeness with which the ideas we have just presented usually strike a reader until she has immersed herself in Luhmann's writings for some time. Instead, I shall proceed to consider what can be seen as fundamental flaws in the theory deriving from the theory of autopoietic systems. The best way to do this is first by means of a direct critique of the latter theory itself.
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