Social systems / Niklas Luhmann ; translated by John Bednarz, Jr., with Dirk Baecker ; foreword by Eva M. Knodt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Luhmann, Niklas, 1927-1998.

Series:

Writing science

Standardized Title:

Soziale Systeme. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Social systems.

Autopoiesis.

Physical Description:

lii, 627 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1995.

Summary:

A major challenge confronting contemporary theory is to overcome its fixation on written narratives and the culture of print. In this presentation of a general theory of systems, Germany's most prominent and controversial social thinker sets out a contribution to sociology that reworks our understanding of meaning and communication. Luhmann responds to the theory crisis in sociology with a genealogy of his own, which includes a cybernetician (Heinz von Foerster), two evolutionary biologists (Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco Varela), and an obscure mathematician (George Spencer Brown), not to speak of the Devil Himself. This list of names defines a set of problems that explodes the boundaries of sociology by linking social theory to recent theoretical developments in scientific disciplines as diverse as modern physics, information theory, general systems theory, neurophysiology, phenomenology, and cognitive science. In these fields, the erosion of classical paradigms suggests, not the end of science, but a fundamental revision of its theoretical premises.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

0804719934

0804726256

OCLC:

31710315