Theory of Society, Volume 2

Niklas Luhmann, Rhodes Barrett

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780804771603, 9780804771597
• eBook ISBN: 9780804787277
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This second volume of Niklas Luhmann's two-part final work was first published in German in 1997. The culmination of his thirty-year theoretical project to reconceptualize sociology, it offers a comprehensive description of modern society. Beginning with an account of the fluidity of meaning and the accordingly high improbability of successful communication, Luhmann analyzes a range of communicative media, including language, writing, the printing press, and electronic media, as well as "success media," such as money, power, truth, and love, all of which structure this fluidity and make communication possible. The book asks what gives rise to functionally differentiated social systems, how they evolve, and how social movements, organizations, and patterns of interaction emerge. The advent of the computer and its networks, which triggered potentially far-reaching processes of restructuring, receives particular attention. A concluding chapter on the semantics of modern society's self-description bids farewell to the outdated theoretical approaches of "old Europe"—that is, to ontological, holistic, ethical, and critical interpretations of society—and argues that concepts such as "the nation," "the subject," and "postmodernity" are vastly overrated. In their stead, "society"—long considered a suspicious term by sociologists, one open to all kinds of reification—is defined in purely operational terms. It is the always uncertain answer to the question of what comes next in all areas of communication.

Index to Volume 1

This index is based on the index to the original German edition, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. Band 1 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1997). It is included in Volume 2 as a reference.

Acceptance, 43

Acceptance/rejection, 135, 137, 138–139, 173, 190–191, 277

Accident. See Chance

Action, 45, 180–181, 200–204, 262

Action theory, 14–15, 31, 45

Actuality and potentiality, 21–22, 25–26, 27

Actuality, 23

Adaptation, 55, 262, 265, 268–269, 284, 324, 342

Admiratio, 85, 407n223

Advanced civilizations. See Stratification

Aesthetics, 210

Affected parties, 323

Agreement, 42n109

Agriculture 306–307

Alphabet, 309

Alternatives, 284

Ambiguity, 52, 87

Ambivalence. See Ambiguity

Amplification, 194–195

Anticipatory reactions, 123

Art, 93, 209–211, 231, 290

Art criticism, 225n322

Artificial intelligence, 181

Attribution, 74, 200–204

Authenticity, 101, 143–144, 165–166

Author, 180

Authority, 81, 164, 174, 185, 188, 202

Autology, 1, 11, 26, 31, 78, 83, 104, 110, 118, 330

Autonomy, 29, 59, 134, 224, 236, 245, 298

Autopoiesis, 18, 32–35, 39, 42, 53, 74, 78–79, 103, 183–184, 115, 117, 122, 131–132, 137, 264, 338

Banks, 294

Beautiful/ugly, 29, 227, 338–339

Before/after, 23, 266, 346, 348

Beginning, 267, 358

Beginning and end, 266

Being/non-being, 133, 254, 357

Belatedness, 65, 156

Binary coding, 62, 132–133, 134–138, 215–227, 233, 276–277, 339–341

Blind spot, 110, 118, 258, 326–327

Boundary, 38–39

Causal technology, 217

Causality, 52, 56, 74, 94, 180, 201, 248, 253, 264, 271, 286, 302, 317, 344–345

Censorship, 187

Center/periphery, 283, 295, 301

Chance, 32, 67, 134, 142, 189, 225, 258–259, 263, 265, 270–271, 275–276, 279, 284–285, 303–304, 310, 336–337

Church, 296

Cinema. See Film

Circulation, 234–235

Co-evolution, 325–326, 328, 338

Cognition, 68–73

Coinage, 197, 268, 307

Collective consciousness, 42

Common sense, 549

Communication, 1, 15–16, 34, 35–40, 41–49, 113–249

Comparison, 17, 93–94, 248–249, 355–357

Complexity, 5–6, 77–83, 249, 269–270, 279, 294, 305–312

Complexity, enhancement through reduction, 306

Computer, 66–67, 180–187, 249–250, 320–321

Condensation/confirmation, 38, 82n190

Conditioning, 72, 138, 193

Conditions of possibility, 166

Conflict repression, 280

Conflicts, 190–191, 278, 279–282

Consciousness, 42–43, 44, 51, 56–57, 71n163, 329–330

Consensus, 6, 7–9, 42, 64, 65, 122

Consensus and dissent, 242–243

Conservatism, 293, 299

Consistency, 30, 152, 161, 178, 333

Constructivism, 12, 13, 53n128, 90, 237, 337

Context, 14

Contingency, 25, 79, 82, 86, 95, 126, 282, 334

Contingency formulae, 282

Contract, 213, 308

Contradiction, 286

Corporations, 296–297

Creatio continua, 254

Creation, 11, 18, 85, 101, 251–256, 282, 315

Criteria, 226, 323, 339

Criticism, 5, 13, 109–110, 165, 191, 235, 275, 284, 298, 329

Critique. See Criticism

Crossing, 24, 27, 29, 82, 134, 216, 225, 299

Culture, 87, 94–95, 98–99, 248–249, 324n211, 354–358

Danger, 322–323

Deception, 135

Decisions, 95

Deconstruction, 335

Democracy, 224

Demographic growth, 87

Determinate/indeterminate, 144

Deviation, 273, 282–282

Deviation amplification, 94, 253, 263, 285–286, 345

Dialectic, 335

Dialogue, 172

Différance (Derrida), 38

Differences in rank. See Stratification

Differentiation forms, 294–295, 300–301, 311

Diffusion, 310–311

Digitization, 55, 71, 215

Dissemination media, 120–121, 162, 187–191, 311–312

Dissipative structures, 94, 111

Distinctions, 20–23, 25–35, 161–162, 350–352, 357–358

Disturbance, 321

Divination, 140, 142, 144, 157–158, 170

Divisions into epochs, 255–256, 312, 336. See also Stage models

Dogmatics, 333

Double closure, 40

Double contingency, 127, 199, 201, 239

Duplication rules, 218

Dynamic stability, 23, 118, 160, 260, 297–298, 340

Ecology, 55, 67, 73–77, 108–109, 269, 293, 342

Economy, 337–338, 340–346, 343

Economy/household, 199

Education, 246–247

Eigenbehavior. See Eigenvalues

Eigenvalues, 9, 130, 131, 188, 237

Electronic media, 180–186

Element, 32

Element and relation, 78–79...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Series Page
• Contents
• 4. Differentiation
• 5. Self-Descriptions
• Notes
• Index to Volume 2
• Index to Volume 1
• Cultural Memory in the Present