Does Systems Differentiation Present a Risk for Contemporary Society?

• Authors: Subrt Jiri
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

For Niklas Luhmann modern society is a functionally differentiated society, i. e. it is composed of heterogeneous but equal parts which are relatively independent and are defined as social subsystems. Luhmann's analysis presents contemporary society as a whole differentiated into functionally dependent yet autonomous sub-systems that constitute neighbouring worlds for each other. This raises the question of the existence or non-existence of potential unifying forces or integration mechanisms. In Luhmann's view the main problem is the non-existence of means of 'metacommunication'. The development of specialised media and codes in the individual sub-systems increases the overall complexity of the social system, but does not entail the metacommunication that would make possible the self-observation and self-reference of the social system as a whole.

Keywords

EN

CODES; MEDIA; RISK; SELF-REFERENCE; SUBSYSTEMS; SUPERVISION; SYSTEMS DIFFERENTIATION

Discipline

• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Teorie vědy (Theory of Science)
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 31
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 25-39
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Subrt Jiri

• Jiri Subrt, FF UK, Celetna 20, Praha 1, 116 42, Czech Republic; http://dlib.lib.cas.cz/5948/

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

10CZAAAA08338