Study Group "Luhmann's Systems Theory" (until 2012)

Systems theoretical approaches to the analysis of writing, text, discourse and authorship

In Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, ‘writing’ and ‘printing’ are, as prerequisites for the functional differentiation of modern society – and, thus, of the systems religion and politics –, the historically most important evolutionary achievements overall. At the same time, writing breaks with the “eventfulness” of communicative happenings in Luhmann’s conception of communication as writing or texts do not disappear and can, as a consequence, elicit follow-up communications permanently and in ever varying ways. In “Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft” (the society of society), Luhmann postulates that texts, due to their being displaced from the communicative eventfulness, function as ‘self-descriptions’ of society. From a literary critical point of view, this assumption alone can be perceived as a compressed text theory. In the volumes on “Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik” (structure of society and semantics), which do not receive as much attention, Luhmann furthermore provides links for text analyses having social theoretical basis.

A current example of the system-theoretical foundation of a text theory is Moritz Baßler’s conception of the text-context relationship. Based on Luhmann, Baßler receives the system-theoretical approaches of Georg Stanitzek, Henk de Berg and Dirk Baecker. These approaches are up for discussion in our method study group, as are texts by Oliver Jahraus, S. J. Schmidt, Niels Werber and others.

Luhmann’s notion that it was not before writing and texts that a differentiation of, for example, Holy Scripture and normatively binding texts was made possible, lends itself as an approach to the analysis of religious and political texts. On the other hand, texts provide invariably new, uncontrollable communicative links, which permanently undermine the authority of the texts and their author. Following this thought, different text theories will be discussed poly-contexturally in the study group with regard to the specific projects. Finally, the international dissemination of system-theoretical approaches will also be taken a look at.

We suggest the following texts as an introduction to the programme:

• Moritz Baßler et al.: Kultur als Text? In: KulturPoetik 2 (2002), issue 1, p. 102-113.
• Niklas Luhmann: Gesellschaftliche Struktur und semantische Tradition. In: N. L.: Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik. Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft. Vol. 1. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp 1993, pp. 9-71.