Download or read book Introduction to Systems Theory written by Niklas Luhmann and published by Polity. This book was released on 2012-12-10 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Niklas Luhmann ranks as one of the most important sociologists and social theorists of the twentieth century. Through his many books he developed a highly original form of systems theory that has been hugely influential in a wide variety of disciplines. In Introduction to Systems Theory, Luhmann explains the key ideas of general and sociological systems theory and supplies a wealth of examples to illustrate his approach. The book offers a wide range of concepts and theorems that can be applied to politics and the economy, religion and science, art and education, organization and the family. Moreover, Luhmann’s ideas address important contemporary issues in such diverse fields as cognitive science, ecology, and the study of social movements. This book provides all the necessary resources for readers to work through the foundations of systems theory – no other work by Luhmann is as clear and accessible as this. There is also much here that will be of great interest to more advanced scholars and practitioners in sociology and the social sciences.
Download or read book Social Systems written by Niklas Luhmann and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Germany's most prominent social thinker here sets out a contribution to sociology that aims to rework our understanding of meaning and communication. He links social theory to recent theoretical developments in scientific disciplines.
Download or read book Luhmann s Social Systems Theory written by Hans Josef Vermeer and published by Frank & Timme GmbH. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present essay is an attempt to apply the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann's "Social Systems" theory to translation. Luhmann's book unfolds a theoretical view of human society as a closed system. In trying to apply it to translation as a practical communicative complexity, especially from the perspective of a functional model as e.g. the "skopos" theory, certain features discussed in Luhmann will prove to be helpful for a better understanding of the concept of translation, others must be reinterpreted for the present purpose. The "fragments" now published follow Luhmann's considerations as closely as possible, but refrain from drawing detailed parallels to "translation" as a complex system. Prof. Dr. Hans J. Vermeer taught Portuguese and translation theory at the universities of Mainz and Heidelberg. Retired since 1992, he nonetheless continued to accompany the development of translation theories and to teach in various universities abroad. His work comprises (mostly unpublished) lectures and contributions to conferences and publications on Translation Studies, medieval German specialized literature and South Asian languages.
Download or read book Niklas Luhmann written by Claudio Baraldi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-11-21 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an insight into the ideas of one of the world’s greatest sociologists: Niklas Luhmann. It explains, in clear and concise language, the basic concepts of Social Systems Theory and their application to the specific case of the Education System, which was considered by Luhmann as a primary subsystem of modern society. It illustrates the complex and sophisticated thinking that characterises Luhmann’s work and explains that Luhmann’s theory has given an important and original contribution to the study of education from a sociological point of view. His contribution has some resonance in recent social constructionist and relational approaches to education, as well as in studies of educational interaction. In addition, research methodologies, in particular mixed methods strategies, draw heavily on epistemological issues. The book finally argues that educationists can appreciate the extent of Luhmann’s contribution to the field of education, although their perspective cannot be fully harmonised with, nor reduced to, the sociological one. This divergence of perspectives can stimulate pedagogy to call into question its conceptual framework as well its approach to social situations in the classroom.
Download or read book A Systems Theory of Religion written by Niklas Luhmann and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-09 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Systems Theory of Religion, still unfinished at Niklas Luhmann's death in 1998, was first published in German two years later thanks to the editorial work of André Kieserling. One of Luhmann's most important projects, it exemplifies his later work while redefining the subject matter of the sociology of religion. Religion, for Luhmann, is one of the many functionally differentiated social systems that make up modern society. All such subsystems consist entirely of communications and all are "autopoietic," which is to say, self-organizing and self-generating. Here, Luhmann explains how religion provides a code for coping with the complexity, opacity, and uncontrollability of our world. Religion functions to make definite the indefinite, to reconcile the immanent and the transcendent. Synthesizing approaches as disparate as the philosophy of language, historical linguistics, deconstruction, and formal systems theory/cybernetics, A Systems Theory of Religion takes on important topics that range from religion's meaning and evolution to secularization, turning decades of sociological assumptions on their head. It provides us with a fresh vocabulary and a fresh philosophical and sociological approach to one of society's most fundamental phenomena.
Download or read book Law as a Social System written by Niklas Luhmann and published by Oxford Socio-Legal Studies. This book was released on 2004 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: However, unlike conventional legal theory, this volume seeks to provide an answer in terms of a general social theory: a methodology that answers this question in a manner applicable not only to law, but also to all the other complex and highly differentiated systems within modern society, such as politics, the economy, religion, the media, and education. This truly sociological approach offers profound insights into the relationships between law and all of these other social systems.
Download or read book Art as a Social System written by Niklas Luhmann and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the definitive analysis of art as a social and perceptual system by Germany's leading social theorist of the late 20th century. It combines three decades of research in the social sciences, phenomenology, evolutionary biology, cybernetics, and information theory with an intimate knowledge of art history, literature, aesthetics, and contemporary literary theory.
Download or read book Niklas Luhmann s Theory of Politics and Law written by M. King and published by Springer. This book was released on 2003-09-16 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Niklas Luhmann's social theory stands in direct opposition to the dominant 'anthropocentric' traditions of legal and political analysis. King and Thornhill now offer the first comprehensive, critical examination of Luhmann's highly original theory of the operations of the legal and political systems. They describe how from the perspective of his 'sociological enlightenment' Luhmann continually calls to account the certainties, the ambitions and rational foundations of The Enlightenment and the idealized versions of law and politics which they have produced.
Download or read book Unlocking Luhmann written by Claudio Baraldi and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Luhmann's theory is fascinating and complex. It offers incomparably enlightening insights, references and research opportunities, but reveals its utility only after a quite high competence threshold. Using the reticular form of the glossary, this book makes the theory accessible while maintaining its complexity. Without being obstructed by knowledge gaps or by references to concepts presented elsewhere, readers inside and outside sociology get the required support to explore sociological systems theory and to engage with it. Luhmann himself, in his introduction, praises the form of the glossary to cope with the challenges of the theoretical description of our highly complex society.
Download or read book Theory of Society Volume 1 written by Niklas Luhmann and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-10 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first volume of Niklas Luhmann's two-part final work was initially published in German in 1997. The culmination of his thirty-year theoretical project to reconceptualize sociology, it offers a comprehensive description of modern society on a scale not attempted since Talcott Parsons. Beginning with an account of the fluidity of meaning and the accordingly high improbability of successful communication, Luhmann analyzes a range of communicative media, including language, writing, the printing press, and electronic media as well as "success media," such as money, power, truth, and love, all of which structure this fluidity and make communication possible. An investigation into the ways in which social systems produce and reproduce themselves, the book asks what gives rise to functionally differentiated social systems, how they evolve, and how social movements, organizations, and patterns of interaction emerge. The advent of the computer and its networks, which trigger potentially far-reaching processes of restructuring, receive particular attention. A concluding chapter on the semantics of modern society's self-description bids farewell to the outdated theoretical approaches of "old Europe," that is, to ontological, holistic, ethical, and critical interpretations of society, and argues that concepts such as "the nation," "the subject," and "postmodernity" are vastly overrated. In their stead, "society"—long considered a suspicious term by sociologists, one open to all kinds of reification—is defined in purely operational terms. It is the always uncertain answer to the question of what comes next in all areas of communication.
Download or read book Systems Theory for Social Work and the Helping Professions written by Werner Schirmer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-03-21 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social systems occur in many contexts of social work. This book provides an easy-to-read introduction to systems thinking for social workers who will encounter social problems in their professional practice or academic research. It offers new insights and fresh perspectives on this familiar topic and invites creative, critical, and empathetic thinking with a systems perspective. Through introducing systems theory as a problem-oriented approach for dealing with complex interpersonal relations and social systems, this book provides a framework for studying social relations. The authors present a strand of systems theory (inspired by sociologist Niklas Luhmann) that offers innovative, surprising, and practically relevant understandings of everyday social life, inclusion/exclusion, social problems, interventions, and society in general. Systems Theory for Social Work and the Helping Professions should be considered essential reading for all social work students taking modules on sociology and social policy as well as students of nursing, medicine, counselling, and occupational health and therapy.
Download or read book Autopoietic Organization Theory written by Tore Bakken and published by Copenhagen Business School Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In bringing together authors from different European countries and institutions, as well as from different disciplines, this anthology introduces the reader to selected areas of Luhmann's autopoiesis that have bearing on organization theory. It discusses aspects that are of particular interest to both theoretical and empirical organization theory, and in doing so it enables students of organizations to acquire better appreciation of Luhmann's thinking."
Download or read book Luhmann Explained written by Hans-Georg Moeller and published by Open Court. This book was released on 2011-04-15 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are systems? What is society? What happens to human beings in a hypermodern world? This book is an introduction to Niklas Luhmann's social system theory which explains specific functions like economy and mass media from a cybernetic perspective. Integrating various schools of thought including sociology, philosophy and biology Luhmann Explained results in an overall analysis of "world society". Special attention is given to the present-day relevance of Luhmann's theory with respect to globalization, electronic mass media, ethics, and new forms of protest.
Download or read book The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory written by Kenneth C. Bausch and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 551 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Emerging Consensus of Social Systems Theory Bausch summarizes the works of over 30 major systemic theorists. He then goes on to show the converging areas of consensus among these out-standing thinkers. Bausch categorizes the social aspects of current systemic thinking as falling into five broadly thematic areas: designing social systems, the structure of the social world, communication, cognition and epistemology. These five areas are foundational for a theoretic and practical systemic synthesis. They were topics of contention in a historic debate between Habermas and Luhmann in the early 1970's. They continue to be contentious topics within the study of social philosophy. Since the 1970's, systemic thinking has taken great strides in the areas of mathematics, physics, biology, psychology, and sociology. This book presents a spectrum of those theoretical advances. It synthesizes what various strains of contemporary systems science have to say about social processes and assesses the quality of the resulting integrated explanations. Bausch gives a detailed study of the works of many present-day systems theorists, both in general terms, and with regard to social processes. He then creates and validates integrated representations of their thoughts with respect to his own thematic classifications. He provides a background of systemic thinking from an historical context, as well as detailed studies of developments in sociological, cognitive and evolutionary theory. This book presents a coherent, dynamic model of a self-organizing world. It proposes a creative and ethical method of decision-making and design. It makes explicit the relations between structure and process in the realms of knowledge and being. The new methodology that evolves in this book allows us to deal with enormous complexity, and to relate ideas so as to draw out previously unsuspected conclusions and syntheses. Therein lies the elegance and utility of this model.
Download or read book The Theory of Social Functional Systems by Niklas Luhmann written by Ramona Mayer and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Sociology - Basics and General, grade: 1,2, Reutlingen University (ESB Business School), language: English, abstract: This paper introduces the theory of social functional systems by Niklas Luhmann who is a great representative of systems theory in sociology. As his theory is based on the concept of autopoiesis, the original autopoiesis concept of Maturana and Valdera is shortly demonstrated as well as the way of how Luhmann shaped it into a general autopoiesis concept. This general introduction is followed by a detailed explanation of ideas of Luhmann’s social systems theory. As his theory is communication-based rather than action-based, the element of communication is further explored. Additionally, the social systems of society, organization and interaction are defined whereas the main focus is on society as social system. Within this context, several subsystems of society are explicated together with their appropriate coding, program, medium and function. Furthermore, the idea of structural coupling which can be described as relation between systems and their environments is implemented. After having a complete picture of the theory, the paper focuses on the practical example of Apple and the problems within its supply chain. This scandal is analyzed according to Luhmann’s social systems theory. As a last step, the role of ethics and morality within social systems theory are evaluated on basis of the Apple case. The paper finishes with a critical evaluation of Luhmann’s whole theory which also includes important criticism.
Download or read book Niklas Luhmann written by Christian Borch and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2011-03-31 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Niklas Luhmann offers an accessible introduction to one of the most important sociologists of our time. It presents the key concepts within Luhmann’s multifaceted theory of modern society, and compares them with the work of other key social theorists such as Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, and Zygmunt Bauman. The book pays particular attention to introducing and discussing Luhmann’s original sociological systems theory. It presents a thorough investigation into the different phases of his oeuvre, through which both the shifting emphases as well as the continuities in his thinking are shown. The primary focus of this text is Luhmann’s theory of modern society as being differentiated into a plethora of ‘function systems’ – such as politics, law, and economy – which operate according to their own distinct logics and which cannot interfere with one another. For Luhmann, this functional differentiation works as a bulwark against totalitarian rule, and as such is a key foundation of modern democracy. Furthermore, the book critically examines the implications of this functional differentiation for inclusion and exclusion dynamics, as well as for the understanding of power and politics. This is a key text for both undergraduate and postgraduate students of areas including contemporary social theory, political sociology, and sociology.
Download or read book The Systemic Approach in Sociology and Niklas Luhmann written by Jiří Šubrt and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04-29 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The systemic approach to sociology is widely considered to be one of the most important conceptions in sociology at the end of the 20th century. In this book Šubrt provides a comprehensive overview, and critical appraisal of the theory of social systems.
