THE STRUCTURE OF NIKLAS LUHMANN'S THEORY

• Authors: Brunczel B.
• Languages of publication: HU

Abstracts

EN

There are more factors that make especially difficult to understand Niklas Luhmann's theory of society, e.g. its extraordinarily abstract and at the same time unusual language, some theoretical decisions that are surprising in the light of sociological tradition and the complicated interdependence between the parts of his theory. All of these can imply the danger of misinterpretation. In his paper the author endeavours to give an interpretative framework that through exploring the structure of Luhmann's theory and through revealing the efforts for theory-constitution lying behind it contributes to the elimination of these difficulties.The assumption underlying this is that the strange and un-understandable points of his theory are strange and un-understandable only separately, but if we reveal the inherent interdependences of Luhmann's theory and the inducements of its elaboration then all of them will lose these unusual characters. In fact Luhmann's theoretical efforts and theory-constituting aims are those things that in consequence of their grandiosity and radicalism are unusual in the field of social sciences; and the real key to the resolution of strangeness and un-understandability is to understand these efforts and aims. The author is going to perform this task by means of exploring five questions, i.e. analyzing (1) Luhmann's theoretical aim, (2) the circularity of his theory, (3) the abstraction levels of his theory, (4) the explanative power of his theory and (5) his theory's relation to philosophy. His paper's aim is not to defend or to criticize this theory; he will leave the questions concerning its assessment unanswered. What he would like to reach is that we leave the right questions unanswered.

Keywords

EN

AUTOPOIESIS; CIRCULARITY; DIFFERENCE THEORY; EXPLANATION; HABERMAS; LUHMANN; SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE; SYSTEMS THEORY; THEORY OF SOCIETY

Discipline

• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Department of Economics and Law, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Tarsadalomkutatas (Social Science Research)
• Year: 2007
• Volume: 25
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 297-320
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Brunczel B.

• B. Brunczel, no address given, contact the journal editor

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

09HUAAAA071213