Niklas Luhmann (Author of Social Systems)

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Niklas Luhmann

Born

in L眉neburg, Germany

December 08, 1927

Died

November 06, 1998

Genre

Social Sciences, Philosophy, Science

Influences

George Spencer Brown, Talcott Parsons, Gotthard G眉nther, Humberto Matu ...more

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Niklas Luhmann was a German sociologist, and a prominent thinker in systems theory, who is increasingly recognized as one of the most important social theorists of the 20th century.

Luhmann wrote prolifically, with more than 70 books and nearly 400 scholarly articles published on a variety of subjects, including law, economy, politics, art, religion, ecology, mass media, and love. While his theories have yet to make a major mark in American sociology, his theory is currently well known and popular in German sociology and has also been rather intensively received in Japan and Eastern Europe, including Russia. His relatively low profile elsewhere is partly due to the fact that translating his work is a difficult task, since his writing present Niklas Luhmann was a German sociologist, and a prominent thinker in systems theory, who is increasingly recognized as one of the most important social theorists of the 20th century.

Luhmann wrote prolifically, with more than 70 books and nearly 400 scholarly articles published on a variety of subjects, including law, economy, politics, art, religion, ecology, mass media, and love. While his theories have yet to make a major mark in American sociology, his theory is currently well known and popular in German sociology and has also been rather intensively received in Japan and Eastern Europe, including Russia. His relatively low profile elsewhere is partly due to the fact that translating his work is a difficult task, since his writing presents a challenge even to readers of German, including many sociologists. (p. xxvii Social System 1995)

Much of Luhmann's work directly deals with the operations of the legal system and his autopoietic theory of law is regarded as one of the more influential contributions to the sociology of law and socio-legal studies.

Luhmann is probably best known to North Americans for his debate with the critical theorist J眉rgen Habermas over the potential of social systems theory. Like his one-time mentor Talcott Parsons, Luhmann is an advocate of "grand theory," although neither in the sense of philosophical foundationalism nor in the sense of "meta-narrative" as often invoked in the critical works of post-modernist writers. Rather, Luhmann's work tracks closer to complexity theory broadly speaking, in that it aims to address any aspect of social life within a universal theoretical framework - of which the diversity of subjects he wrote about is an indication. Luhmann's theory is sometimes dismissed as highly abstract and complex, particularly within the Anglophone world, whereas his work has had a more lasting influence on scholars from German-speaking countries, Scandinavia and Italy.

Luhmann himself described his theory as "labyrinth-like" or "non-linear" and claimed he was deliberately keeping his prose enigmatic to prevent it from being understood "too quickly", which would only produce simplistic misunderstandings. ...more

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Niklas Luhmann鈥檚 books

Average rating: 3.96 · 1,566 ratings · 104 reviews · 218 distinct works 鈥� Similar authors

	Social Systems by Niklas Luhmann, John Bednarz Jr. (Translator), Dirk Baecker (Translator) 4.15 avg rating — 230 ratings — published 1995 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Reality of the Mass Media by Niklas Luhmann, Kathleen Cross (Translation) 3.68 avg rating — 185 ratings — published 1996 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy by Niklas Luhmann, Jeremy Gaines (Translator), Doris L. Jones (Translator) 3.95 avg rating — 164 ratings — published 1982 — 26 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Introduction to Systems Theory by Niklas Luhmann, Peter Gilgen (Translator) 4.14 avg rating — 128 ratings — published 1991 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Liebe: Eine 脺bung by Niklas Luhmann, Andr茅 Kieserling (Herausgeber) 3.68 avg rating — 75 ratings — published 2010 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Art as a Social System by Niklas Luhmann, Eva Knodt (Translation) 3.94 avg rating — 62 ratings — published 1995 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Vertrauen. Ein Mechanismus der Reduktion sozialer Komplexit盲t 4.19 avg rating — 48 ratings — published 1968 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft 4.46 avg rating — 41 ratings — published 1999 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ecological Communication by Niklas Luhmann, Niklas Luhmann 3.82 avg rating — 45 ratings — published 1986 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Der neue Chef by Niklas Luhmann, J眉rgen Kaube (Editor) 3.74 avg rating — 43 ratings — published 2016 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (5 books)
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Quotes by Niklas Luhmann (?)

“Humans cannot communicate; not even their brains can communicate; not even their conscious minds can communicate. Only communication can communicate.”
― Niklas Luhmann

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“In the twentieth century, one encounters artworks that seek to cancel the difference between a real and an imagined reality by presenting themselves in ways that make them indistinguishable from real objects. Should we take this trend as an internal reaction of art against itself? 鈥� No ordinary object insists on being taken for an ordinary thing, but a work that does so betrays itself by this very effort. The function of art in such a case is to reproduce the difference of art. But the mere fact that art seeks to cancel this difference and fails in its effort to do so perhaps says more about art than could any excuse or critique.”
― Niklas Luhmann, Art as a Social System

tags: art

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“Communication is improbable.”
― Niklas Luhmann, Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy

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