System Theory and Empirical Science

Luhmann's project is, most fundamentally, to limn the social (Luhmann 1982, ix). In undertaking such a task, he departs from a positivist view of how science works--by patiently accumulating knowledge through empirical investigation as opposed to actively constructing a theoretical framework that can tie all this knowledge together. Instead, he adopts the view often voiced by natural scientists that obtaining the right concepts is necessary before significant progress can be made, following the stipulation of Talcott Parsons that choosing the right "primary abstractions" is of fundamental importance (Ackerman and Parsons 1966, 24-25). His project is also guided by two other views of how scientific research should be carried out. One is that one should aim for general theories (Luhmann 1995, xlvii; 1984, 9). The other is his often-voiced observation that science tends to look for successively smaller "fundamental entities" (Luhmann 1990a, 329). Accordingly, the way he has carried out his project is by starting off from the most "general" theory possible, system theory, and then "respecifying" this theory to conform to the social domain as defined by what its fundamental constituent entities arc namely, communications.

Empirical science, on the other hand, does pay attention to specific qualities of the entities with which it deals, and the way it does so is by looking at different kinds of entities separately. Thus, physicists study physical systems while biologists study biological ones. Despite this compartmentalization of the sciences, science ultimately does achieve an all-encompassing unity by making connections between the various disciplines: biology links up with chemistry, chemistry with physics, and so on, but without everything being "reduced" to physics since "higher-level" disciplines can point out regularities that are not apparent at and cannot even be described on the physical level (Oppenheim and Putnam 1958). It is not too hard to determine the "separation of labor" between the empirical sciences and more abstract disciplines such as system theory. Only the former can provide valid and complete scientific explanations. This is because science ideally aims to extend explanations as far as possible down the links of a chain of causes, producing a given event or phenomenon (Railton 1981). If one goes far enough down such a chain, one will have to deal with the specific qualities of the entities involved, rather than the relations between entities with which system theory deals. In addition, the empirical sciences can import any insights or discoveries from system theory into themselves, so it cannot be the case that there are phenomena that only system theory can explain. One thus sees that the role of system theory is rather like that of mathematics: by working in a purely conjectural abstract realm, it is left free to explore conceptual models without concern for their immediate applicability and may thus come across ideas that would not otherwise have been found that may be of explanatory value in the empirical sciences.

The role of system theory is hence to look for analogies across disciplinary boundaries in case such analogies lead to models that can be of use in particular empirical sciences. Accordingly, it makes no more sense to say, as Luhmann (1995,12; 1984, 30) does, that "there are systems" without specifying what kind of systems--chemical, biological, or whatever--than it does to say that "there are Euclidean planes": both concepts are abstractions with no empirical referent. Failure to understand this point can lead to the construction of a harmful ontology and to what one might call a "metaphysical" mode of thinking. Now, there is nothing wrong with constructing ontologies. As we know, for example, from Quine (1969), science makes ontological decisions all the time when it tells us, for instance, that water exists. The way it comes to this conclusion, however, is by considering a multitude of empirical information in relation to a network of theory that is able to account for that information. To say that water exists is on one level merely shorthand for a whole range of empirical data, and once one says it, to make the "ontological jump" and take the statement at face value is merely to incorporate it into the commonsense point of view that there really is something out there. For the aforementioned reason that system theory, because of its abstractness, does not make well-defined links with empirical data, one is not entitled to make the same ontological decision with respect to "systems in general." The unfortunate consequence of supposing that one can is to start thinking that by remaining within system theory, one can really explain anything. This is what Maturana and Varela do. Unfortunately, this is also what Luhmann ends up doing: even though he "respecifies" system theory to deal with social systems, he does not do so in a way that enables him to deal with concrete social systems but remains immersed in the ontological/explanatory structure of the theory of autopoietic systems. Thus, in order for the theory of social systems to be an adequate scientific theory (and that means an empirical and explanatory theory), it must be able not only to describe the social domain by saying that it consists of communications but also to explain (or at least point to an explanation) how communications come about. All that it is able to do, however, is to refer to the definition of autopoietic systems, which is that they produce themselves by producing their elements. Thus, communications are produced because it is in the "nature" of social systems to produce them. As we have seen, the theory of autopoietic systems is not able to explain how biological cells produce their elements, and there is no reason to think that it would be able to do so in the case of social systems. It is hard to see how one would explain the production of communications, other than by considering the brain and/or mental processes of individual actors.(n10)

Start from the body, taken as a whole, of scientific theory that does not deal with the social and then see what additional theoretical categories and explanatory strategies one must add to it if one is to adequately explain the social.(n12) Thus, since it is commonly accepted that the higher one goes up the hierarchy of "levels of emergence" from the physical to the biological to the social, the less reliable one's knowledge becomes, one may take as given biology and especially evolutionary biology (but not, of course, on a naively reductionist understanding), take with a grain of salt theory from cognitive science--but be ready to incorporate portions of it if they appear to account in an efficient way for wide ranges of social phenomena--and only then see what else one needs if one is to be able to account adequately for social phenomena. And in taking the last step, as we noted at the outset, let us take Luhmann's theory as our starting point and try to change it as little as possible. This means, among other things, that we follow Luhmann in adopting the social system as a fundamental category of social theory. But we do so not by supposing that "there exist systems" that can be adequately understood by means of the self-contained theory of autopoietic systems but by being willing to exploit the analogies that exist between organized collections of individuals and other kinds of systems, such as cells.
It can be seen that this way of going about, what Parsons (1997) called "building social systems theory," has certain correspondences with Luhmann's way of thinking about it. Luhmann often remarks that in doing social theory, one should take the normal as improbable, for instance, when asking how social order is possible (Luhmann 1981,195-285). This can be taken as a distancing strategy, a way of getting one to stop taking the social for granted and to look at it from the outside. Our program of seeing what one needs to add to the natural sciences to deal with social phenomena, while trying to keep the third-person view of the natural sciences, serves the same purpose. Also, we have already noted that Luhmann remarks that he follows the practice of the natural sciences of seeking out ever-smaller constituent elements. We take that practice to be merely a consequence of the basic aim of science to aim for unification (Friedman 1981; Kitcher 1981). The further one can extend explanations, the more unified science becomes. Therefore, if one can explain the behavior of some particles by doing so in terms of the smaller particles constituting them, one should do so. Looking at it thus in terms of the goal of explanatory unification, as opposed to drawing general conclusions from what that leads to in practice in certain cases, leads one, however, to a different evaluation of the role of "elementary entity" played by communications in Luhmann's theory. Communications do indeed appear to be elementary constituents of social systems (whether they are the only ones is another matter), but this does not mean that one can stop the analysis there: the goal of explanatory unification still impels one to ask how they come about, and if to answer this one has to go down to the level of individual actors, one is forced to do so, if not to stay there forever, then at least to show how the connection can be made.

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.

Foundations Of Niklas Luhmann's Theory Of Social Systems

Of all contemporary social theorists, Luhmann has best understood the centrality of the concept of meaning to social theory and has most extensively worked out the notion's implications. However, despite the power of his theory, the theory suffers from difficulties impeding its reception. This article attempts to remedy this situation with some critical arguments and proposals for revision. First, the theory Luhmann adopted from biology as the basis of his own theory was a poor choice since that theory has no explanatory power, being purely descriptive; furthermore, that theory is fundamentally flawed since it implies that viruses are impossible. Second, Luhmann's theory of meaning cannot coherently make the social domain autonomous as he desires since Luhmann does not take into account the distinction between syntax and semantics. By introducing this distinction, making clear that social systems consist of rules, not just communications, and raising the rule concept to the same prominence in social theory as those of actor and system, autonomy can be maintained while avoiding the counterintuitive aspects of Luhmann's theory.

Although his work has not yet received in other countries the attention it deserves, Niklas Luhmann is widely recognized in Germany as the most noteworthy contemporary social theorist.(n1) Unsatisfied with the present state of sociology because the discipline "remains dependent on working with the data that it produces itself, and, where theory is concerned, on working with the classical authors that it has itself produced" (Luhmann 1995, 11; 1984, 28), Luhmann was taken aback by the "theory-disaster which sociology has experienced as a result of the introduction of so-called empirical methods" (Luhmann 1990a, 410). He undertook to correct the situation by developing a concerted research program that spanned three decades. In this program, he has done the conceptual work otherwise neglected by sociologists by constructing from the ground up a unified system of concepts that aims to span the social and modern society in particular.

The responses to this highly complex, self-contained, and interconnected theoretical product have been several. One can distinguish several different kinds:

1. rejection of the theory as speculative and unscientific, insufficiently concerned with empirical verification (Zolo 1986; Wagner 1994,1997);

2. rejection of it on the grounds that it gives up humanistic, enlightenment, and emancipatory values, which should be maintained (Habermas 1985; Miller 1994) or because it abstracts from individuals to an absurd degree (Izuzquiza 1990);

3. use of the theory as a "toolbox, out of which one can take individual concepts and theorems depending on one's immediate goals, without having to worry about the rest of the theory" (Schimank 1991, 579);

4. criticism of the theory from the perspective of general system theory, with the argument that what is constitutive of society is not communications but neural networks or some other biological entity (the papers collected in Schmidt 1987) or making some other modification of the theory from a natural science perspective (Leydesdorff 1996) while following Luhmann's general method of theorizing;

5. full-fledged embrace, with little or no criticism of Luhmann's fundamental theory (Baecker 1988; Willke 1992);

6. seeing the theory as currently the most advanced sociological theory and hence adopting it, while presenting it less "self-referentially" than Luhmann or his close disciples do, not working wholly within it, and making connections between it and the sociological tradition (Kiss 1986, 1989).

The approach proposed in this article adopts the last position, with a critical spirit. One can agree with Luhmann that sociology can not uncover new knowledge merely by engaging in empirically orientated "normal science" and that the classics did not say all that there is to be said of a general nature about society, particularly modern society. To make progress, all science, and not just sociology, must explore different concepts and find a set that allows it to adequately take apart the phenomena it studies (Buchdahl 1969, 495-512; Mayr 1982, 24, 75-76). None of the other positions listed above, aside from number 5, does this aspect of science sufficient justice or has led to as promising and versatile a body of theory as has Luhmann. Unlike the fifth type of response, however, I do not believe that a full-fledged, noncritical embrace of the theory is appropriate for the following reason. Luhmann has carried out his program by employing a very particular strategy, consisting of two interrelated moments: he has explored how far one can take theorizing of the social "in and for itself," in which the role of individuals is "bracketed out.' To do this as freely as possible, he has proceeded in a "speculative" fashion, without preoccupying himself with epistemological problems (until the core of the theory has been constructed) or the question of how the theory is to be verified empirically. I believe that this was the correct way to proceed at the time: the sheer richness of Luhmann's Gedankenwelt shows that. However, now that the theory has taken on a more or less mature form, one can pose the question of whether the same exploratory mode of theorizing should be continued by sociology indefinitely. For, to someone who has a more or less conventional view of science--the kind most natural scientists themselves have--and who wants to see sociology become a mature science, Luhmann's theory suffers from two related problems. First, it is not clear what the status of Luhmann's theory is: Luhmann himself takes ironic or indeed paradoxical positions on this question and declines to say that the theory is "true" (Luhmann 1987b). His theoretical strategy has forced him to adopt an antirealist position, not just on social entities but on physical ones as well. Despite Luhmann's arguments to the contrary, that can be taken as a warning sign that something is amiss with the theory.(n2) Second, since the theory operates in its own hermetic conceptual world, it is not clear how its concepts relate to clearly identifiable empirical entities, and hence it is not clear how his theory can be linked up with "neighboring" empirical sciences such as psychology, social psychology, or biology (not to mention how it can be related to actors' own self-understanding). But the linkability of related sciences is one hallmark of their maturity: if one could not connect chemistry to physics and biology to chemistry, one would feel that something is wrong.(n3) Both these problems are a direct consequence of Luhmann's strategy of "unrestrained exploration."

The conviction underlying the present article is that the time for such conceptual exploration is over. If sociology is to continue to progress, it must shift to a phase of consolidation of concepts. Now that the domain of the social has been limned in a way that almost certainly would not have been possible without letting lapse the constraints that a good social theory, pace Luhmann, should be compatible with actors' own self-understanding and that the way in which theory is verified must be clearly specified, it is time to reimpose those constraints. This article outlines in two steps one way of doing so, the first critical and the second one of reconstruction. Thus, in a first step, I shall attempt to show how the difficulties of Luhmann's theory can be traced to two substantive (as opposed to strategic) choices that he made: adopting the system concept of Humberto Maturana and adopting a phenomenological theory of meaning. In a second step, I shall try to show how under the guidance of normative conceptions of scientific method obtained from the contemporary philosophy of science, it is possible to use concepts from the contemporary philosophy of mind to provide an underpinning for Luhmann's theory and to reconstruct the latter in a way such that it obtains the same truth status as any valid theory in the natural sciences. If this demonstration can be carried out at all convincingly, then one will have reason to believe that by making some conceptual substitutions, it is possible to preserve the generality and richness of Luhmann's theory while freeing it from the paradoxical and hermetic qualities from which it now suffers.

One Example Towards Theoretical Integration in Social Theory

The appearance of Sociology as a discipline is tied to solving the problem of demarcating it in relation to other disciplines. So one main concern in the realm of Social Theory - from Comte, Durkheim, Simmel, Weber until the early Parsons - is at this time: what are the criteria for such a new discipline?

In this context we can also observe an appearance of regulative one-sided ideas, that organize information as specific sociological information in a mono-theoretical way. By this I mean a theory-production that focuses its research efforts on one main category like ‘communication’, ‘rationality’, ‘behaviour’, ‘action’, ‘decision’, ‘conflict’, structure’, ‘role’, ‘risk’, ‘evolution’ etc. Such a main category works like an ‘emanating semantic’ explaining ‘everything’ from its center.

It is my contention, that the function of such a mono-theoretical procedure is first an external one: demarcating Sociology from other disciplines. But with the consolidation of Sociology as a discipline, one-sided theories become internally unproductive because of their polemical means. While at the beginning of the discipline they play a cohesive role, after the consolidation of that discipline they run internally against other one-sided theories.

What makes a discipline become theoretically mature? In my opinion, this occurs at the moment that a general problem is discovered within the discipline and focused upon. As soon as there is one important general problem for the scientific community, the discipline becomes in some way autonomous. It can now produce and reproduce it self out of the internal problem and not only out of external demands put on it.

The classical tradition in Sociology in Europe responds to the general problem: how is social order possible? Ironically enough, this problem is put forcefully forward by an American sociologist, namely by Talcott Parsons.

The classical tradition in Sociology in America responds to quite another problem, that is, to the problem: how is the self socially possible? Take as classical examples for instance, Cooley, Dewey, Mead, James.

After a main consolidation in European and American social theory, one-sided theories have become quite ineffective and have almost lost their legitimation. What we need in this situation are more cohesive theories that always reflect the other side of them selves. Theory-production must now focus on two-sided theories in the sense of observing what they can see, and at the same time trying to observe what they are keeping out of their scope when observing what they are trying to observe.

But this is not enough. In a constantly globalizing world we sooner or later become aware of the dominance of our own culture and of our blindness against other so-called ‘strange’ cultures. In this context we must become aware of at least one distinction between the European and the American classical tradition in sociology. Here we have a new general problem to be solved, namely how to integrate the problem of social order - peculiar to the European tradition - with the problem of explaining the self in a social manner - peculiar to the American tradition.

In other words, we need at first distinctional theories that tell us on the one side what we can observe with their help, and on the other side and at the same time what we are covering while observing with their help. Second, we need at least a theory that tries to integrate the European with the American general problem, which means integrating ‘how is social order possible’ with ‘how is the self socially possible’. In other words, in our theoretical efforts we have to be constantly aware of the macro-micro-problem.

Now to finish my presentation I want to offer you one example in a schematically form towards theoretical integration in Sociological Theory as put forward in my recent publications, ‘Logic of Distinctions. A Proto-Logic for a Theory of Society’ and ‘Societal Observations - from the Point of View of the Theory of Distinctions’:

The Form of Society



> communication > decision action >
(active)
> -------------------------------------------------------
intended/unintended consequences of com, dec, act...
< function < structure <
(passive)


< < evolution < <



communication = information/communication, understanding/interpretation
decision = secure/unsecure, advantage/disadvantage
action = means/ends, cause/effect

structure = experience/expectation
function = latent/manifest

evolution = variation/selection, stability/crisis, probable/improbable

The methodology ‘Theory of Distinctions’

It was a sort of risky attitude that let me propose some hypothetical solutions to the above uplisted problems from the point of view of the theory of distinctions.

First of all we had the problem of simplifying generalism with its aspect of integrating the general approach of the theory with its specific research capabilities. My proposal says: use the notion of distinctions. If you want to work with Luhmann’s proposal you know that you must use the system/environment-distinction, if you want to work with Parsons’ proposal you know that you must work with the system/action-distinction, if you want to work with Habermas’ proposal you know that you must use the Life-world/system-distinction. At the end one can abstract this procedure in the following way:

‘Tell me what distinction you are using, and I will tell you what you will see!’

And now you may ask: what is the main distinction of the theory of distinctions? Well, the distinct/distinctless-distinction. One main theorem of this theory says: without distinction there is no information. So, with the distinction of distinct/distinctless you arrive at the last distinction where you can observe that this distinction gives you the last information saying: if you take the distinctless side of the above distinction, you will not get any information at all. The only information you will get is, that you will not get any information.

Second we had the problem of the emptiness of central concepts of the theory-proposal of Luhmann, namely his concept of communication. Luhmann is making the same mistake as Parsons’ and Habermas have done with their main concepts: semantically overloading ‘communication’ (this holds for Luhmann), ‘action’ (this holds for Parsons) and ‘communicative action’ (this holds for Habermas). But what to do in this situation? My contention: there are no main concepts at all. My proposal: try to semantically restrict the concepts you use in a reciprocal way: one concept restricts the other an vice versa. For example we use – at the level of a culturalistic theory of society – the concepts ‘communication’, ‘action’, decision’, ‘structure’, ‘funcion’ and ‘evolution’ in an interrelated manner without giving to one of this concepts a priority (see beneath the figure).

Third we had the problem of the lack of empirical connection in Luhmann’s proposal. And I said that this has to do with his incorporation of the Autopoiesis-Concept in a ‘hard’ manner. The problem to which the Autopoiesis-Concept is offering a solution, can be stated in the following way: how can something constitute itself as itself? The plain answer that the Autopoiesis-Concept proposes is: the self is constituted by itself. In some way this problem is already tackled in Classical German Philosophy (for example in the works of Fichte). Before adapting the Autopoiesis-Concept Luhmann was already working with one of the main categories of this philosophy: with the category of self-reference. My proposal: insert some sort of time in the Autopoiesis-Concept so that it can be stretched in the sense that you can observe how something is transforming into a self. Take the Autopoiesis-Concept in a ‘soft’ manner and try to work more with the concept of ‘the evolution of autonomy’ so that you can detect degrees of autonomy, degrees of closeness.

Fourth we had the problem of the lack of internal theoretical changes by means of criticism of Luhmann’s proposal. This comes from the fact that Luhmann is using the paradoxical figure. I think that Luhmann (and others!) is right in pointing out that every identity when observed has a paradoxical form: the system is itself because it uses the distinction of being itself and not being itself in order to distinct itself . We can also say: the system is using the contrary of itself in order to become itself. Here there are some points to be remarked. First: you can dissolve every paradox with the help of time. More and better: a paradox is a timeless identity. If you observe with the help of time how the ‘you’ is constituting the ‘I’, and the ‘I’ is constituting the ‘you’, at the end you will understand that the process of the constitution of an identity is loaded with time. And so you will also understand why every observation of identity becomes paradoxical when extracting it from the dimension of time. Second: in daily life it is rarely possible to observe identities with the help of time. Or: in daily life there is no time to insert time in our observations of identities. So the paradoxical phenomena of identities will persist. Third: Something is paradoxical when our understanding of it comes to a cognitive limit. Or to put it in a paradoxical way: if you do not understand what I am saying when explaining a paradoxical relation you have already understood what this relation means: it means an abolishment of any means. Fourth: there is at least one more strategy that can help us dealing with the limits of cognitive understanding: the figure of complementarity as put forward by Niels Bohr, Viktor von Weizsäcker and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. Complementarity means, that the identity of something has two sides that never can appear at the same time: the ‘I’ is only possible, if we disregard the ‘you’ and vice versa (12).

Problems with Theory-Construction of Grand Theories

Since the appearance of Sociology - first as a research program offered by Auguste Comte, lateron developed by Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Pareto, Cooley, Mead, Dewey, Parsons and others - the problem of constructing a grand theory has in my opinion always been present. (1)

Unquestionably it is the American Talcott Parsons (2), who offers the sociological community - for the first time - a very complex grand theory, perhaps the greatest grand theory ever proposed in the field of sociology.

Since then we are confronted with a second grand theory which is comparable to Parsons’ proposal: Niklas Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory (3) . And it is - by the way - not a coincidence that without Parsons’ work, Luhmann’s work would not have been possible, as Luhmann himself states. (4)
As such, grand theories have to deal with some inherent, central problems. In my opinion there are at least four main problems that every grand theory has to solve in order to satisfy the multiple demands of its users. These are: 1) the problem of a simplifying generalism, which may have some times totalitarian aspects. From this generalism derives the difficulty to connect it with some sort of specific concrete situation; 2) the problem of the ‘emptiness’ of its central concepts; 3) the problem of the lack of empirical connection, and 4) the problem of the lack of internal changes. Let us now observe these problems in the light of Luhmann’s Grand Theory.

First of all the problem of the supposed simplifying generalism, which in the long run has to do with the capability of integrating the general aspects of the theory with the capability of the theory on resolving very concrete problems. As some of you will know, Luhmann’s Grand Theory is constructed around one main distinction: the system/environment-distinction. The problem lies in the distinction itself: most sociologists do not work with this distinction. But for Luhmann it reflects the very core of his theory. In this sense, his theory has some kind of inherent ‘all or nothing’-rule: if you want to work with it or with some aspects of it, you must also use the system / environment - distinction. Otherwise you have to disregard his proposal. In this context it is worth mentioning that one weakness of the above distinction lies in the fact that it discriminates everything too sharply (5). Most social aspects of society, however, can not be separated as sharply as the distinction presupposes (6). In this context, please, take Luhmann’s exclusion of the human being (‘der Mensch’) from Society as an example (7).

As I already said above, every Grand Theory has - up to a certain degree - to solve the problem of having on the one side a general approach, but on the other side trying to give answers to very specific questions. To put it in another way: how can a Grand Theory hold its generality and be at the same time able to organize specific research programms? If we observe with the help of a systems theory like that proposed by Luhmann, we have the problem that we must observe every thing through the glasses of the system/environment-distinction. But as I said likewise above - not every Sociologist wants to work with this distinction because he may be of the opinion that not everything is a system or, worse, he sees no system at all. Now, of course this is not a specific problem of the theoretical proposal of Luhmann. The same problem occurs also with such general Theory-Proposals like Parsons’ with the main distinction of system and action, or with Habermas’ main distinction of life-world and system<, or - to take some classics - with Tönnis’ main distinction of Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft, or with Durkheim’s main distinction of organical and mechanical Societies, or with Marx’s main distinction of production power and production relationsships (Produktivkräfte/Produktionsverhältnisse), or, in a more philosophical sense, take his being and consciousness distinction (Sein und Bewußtsein), or Max Weber’s main distinction of end-rationality and value-rationality (Zweckrationalität/Wertrationalität). Second we have the problem of a possible emptiness of central concepts of a Grand Theory . Also as some of you know, Luhmann constructs his theory with the help of one main concept, namely that of communication. Now, I am of the opinion, that Luhmann is understanding communication primarily as 'written communication'. There is no doubt, that the transition from the oral to the written culture of communication was a most important step for the development of world society, because from that time on it became possible to communicate without taking into account the real presence of the 'communicator'. Now social communication flows not only as written, but also and maybe in the first instance as nonverbal communication. Luhmann interprets most of his conceptions - so his conception of action for example - as a sort of communication. In the end, in Luhmann’s concept of communication we have an all embracing concept that is semantically overloaded and therefore up to a certain point ‘empty’. In this context we have developed two concepts that can explain that there is a ‘consensus’ prior to any discourse and to any explicit taken social action: the pre-discourse and the pre-action (8).

The third problem consists in the supposed lack of empirical connection . There is indeed a problem of lack of empirical connection in Luhmann’s proposal. This has in my opinion to do with the fact that he incorporates the theory of Autopoiesis - as put forward by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. For Luhmann, to observe society, means to observe autopoietical closed social systems. From this point of view there is no possibility to observe semi-closed or even open social systems. When Luhmann observes a social system, it can only be a closed one, or else it is no system at all. This ‘hard’ point of view of his makes it impossible for him to observe how a social system is generating and evolving step by step until it gets ‘closed’. And this is an essential empirical question (9).

A fourth problem of every Grand Theory can be seen in its supposed lack of internal change. Which aspect of Luhmann’s theory produces this internal disability, so that he can not react in a critical way? To my opinion it is his use of paradoxical argumentation that produces the above problem. As you may know Luhmann bases any observation of a system upon a paradoxical observation: the system is a system because it is not a system (but an environment). At this level of argumentation it is not possible to criticize Luhmann’s position in an efficient way. This has to do with the paradoxical figure which is immune against any logical argumentation which includes the principle of contradiction (Aristoteles): it is not possible that something can be and can not be at the same time. In order to come along with this problem we have introduced the concept of complementarity as worked out by the Danish physician Niels Bohr (10).