Luhmann in a sentence

If I falter for a moment, I put the matter aside and do something else” (Luhmann et al., 1987, 154f).

After the war Luhmann studied law at the University of Freiburg from 1946 to 1949, when he obtained a law degree, and then began a career in Lüneburg's public administration.

Although Luhmann first developed his understanding of social systems theory under Parsons' influence, he soon moved away from the Parsonian concept.

Applying Luhmann’s system theory as part of a transdisciplinary frame for communication science, Cybernetics & Human Knowing, Vol. 14, no. 2-3.

Here, Luhmann refers to the British mathematician G. Spencer-Brown 's logic of distinctions that Maturana and Varela had earlier identified as a model for the functioning of any cognitive process.

In later years, Luhmann dismissed Parsons' theory, developing a rival approach of his own.

In Luhmann's terms, human beings are neither part of society nor of any specific systems, just as they are not part of a conversation.

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.

Luhmann starts with the differentiation of the systems themselves out of a nondescript environment.

One seemingly peculiar, but within the overall framework strictly logical, axiom of Luhmann's theory is the human being's position outside any social system, initially developed by Parsons.

That is, by describing social systems as operationally closed networks of communications, Luhmann (according to Maturana) ignores the fact that communications presuppose human communicators.

That is, Luhmann in fact suggests to substitute the paradigm of systems theory for the ontological paradigm: the difference system/environment (which also signifies a relationship).

The most important difference is that Parsons used systems merely as an analytic tool to understand certain processes going on in society; Luhmann, in contrast, treats his vision of systems ontologically, saying that "systems exist".

This binary code, is not to be confused with the computers operation: Luhmann (following Spencer-Brown and Gregory Bateson ) assumes that auto-referential systems are continuously confronted with the dilemma of disintegration/continuation.

Toward the end of Parsons' career, the German systems theorist Niklas Luhmann also attended his lectures.

Upon Luhmann's attempt of defining the relationship value of environment/system we can see a reluctantly atheist approach denying the 'cause' of the creator.

Works sidebar 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.