Observations on Modernity

by Niklas Luhmann, William Whobrey (Translator)

This collection of five essays by Germany’s most prominent and influential social thinker both links Luhmann’s social theory to the question “What is modern about modernity?” and shows the origins and context of his theory. In the introductory essay, “Modernity in Contemporary Society,” Luhmann develops the thesis that the modern epistemological situation can be seen as the consequence of a radical change in social macrostructures that he calls “social differentiation,” thereby designating the juxtaposition of and interaction between a growing number of social subsystems without any hierarchical structure. “European Rationality” defines rationality as the capacity to see the difference between systems and their environment as a unity. Luhmann argues that, in a world characterized by contingency, rationality tends to become coextensive with imagination, a view that challenges their classical binary opposition and opens up the possibility of seeing modern rationality as a paradox. In the third essay, “Contingency as Modern Society’s Defining Attribute,” Luhmann develops a further and probably even more important that the generalization of contingency or cognitive uncertainty is precisely what provides stability within modern societies. In the process, he argues that medieval and early modern theology can be seen as a “preadaptive advance” through which Western thinking prepared itself for the modern epistemological situation. In “Describing the Future,” Luhmann claims that neither the traditional hope of learning from history nor the complementary hope of cognitively anticipating the future can be maintained, and that the classical concept of the future should be replaced by the notion of risk, defined as juxtaposing the expectation of realizing certain projects and the awareness that such projects might fail. The book concludes with “The Ecology of Ignorance,” in which Luhmann outlines prospective research areas “for sponsors who have yet to be identified.”

Genres: Sociology, Philosophy

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

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 Jürgen 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.

Reviews

[Ewan Jenkins]

A nice cluster of 5 lectures Luhmann delivered in the early 1990's, late in his career, which critiques popular ideas of the postmodern and lays out Luhmann's unique systems-theory approach to the question of modernity. As with all of Luhmann it's hard to say this work is accessible - quite a lot of background knowledge of his working concepts is required to penetrate most of this, and even then, expect to feel confused (the essay "Describing the Future" and its sociology of risk is something I'm still getting my head around) - but the second lecture on "European Rationality" is worth the price of admission alone. There is immense range, historical depth and incisiveness to these essays and much to follow up on; in particular, the implications of a systems-theory "ecology of ignorance" when it comes to dealing with environmental crisis.

[Jooseppi Räikkönen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just can't seem to get what the Luhmann-fuzz is about. Out of this collection the essay "The Ecology of Ignorance" is worth a read, as is his book-length elaboration of its themes in Ökologische Kommunikation. It captures some very profound stuff about ecological crises.

The rest of the essays though? I simply cannot break through to the guy. Now and then glimpses, but then some very unhelpful seeming pseudo-employments of various systems of logic and the sort. Pass on this one, though some day I will give Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft a chance.

[Sherwin]

it is great, compare it with Habermas and Giddens version of modernity...