Luhmann’s Social Theory

Abstract

There is no doubt that Niklas Luhmann’s social theory is complex. Yet this is not complexity for complexity’s sake. It is complex because modern society itself is a mass of complexities, and Luhmann saw the task of a social theorist as observing complexity for what it is and avoiding simplified or reductionist accounts of the social world. He wanted to avoid above all else the idea that one could capture ‘the truth’ or essence of modern society in one theoretical account. No theory, not even closed systems theory or autopoiesis, can have the last word or give an exclusive or true account of what society, in its totality, is and how it operates. One could even suggest that the first principle of Luhmann’s sociology is that the possibility not only of seeing things differently but of society actually being different is always present. He fully realized that one could never completely escape reductionism, since any attempt to address and understand events socially necessarily involves selection, rejection and interpretation. What he did accept as feasible, however, was a theory which embraced the possibility of infinite theories, accounts or interpretations of society or beliefs about society. In this theory none of these theories, accounts or interpretations is or could ever be final or definitive. What he wished to offer, therefore, was a social theory of social theories — a social theory which considered multiple ways of perceiving and understanding society.