Moeller The Radical Luhmann

Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-0-231-52717-0
Verlag: Columbia University Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 184 Seiten, Format (B × H): 127 mm x 203 mm

Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) was a German sociologist and system theorist who wrote on law, economics, politics, art, religion, ecology, mass media, and love. Luhmann advocated a radical constructivism and antihumanism, or "grand theory," to explain society within a universal theoretical framework. Nevertheless, despite being an iconoclast, Luhmann is viewed as a political conservative. Hans-Georg Moeller challenges this legacy, repositioning Luhmann as an explosive thinker critical of Western humanism.

Moeller focuses on Luhmann's shift from philosophy to theory, which introduced new perspectives on the contemporary world. For centuries, the task of philosophy meant transforming contingency into necessity, in the sense that philosophy enabled an understanding of the necessity of everything that appeared contingent. Luhmann pursued the opposite--the transformation of necessity into contingency. Boldly breaking with the heritage of Western thought, Luhmann denied the central role of humans in social theory, particularly the possibility of autonomous agency. In this way, after Copernicus's cosmological, Darwin's biological, and Freud's psychological deconstructions of anthropocentrism, he added a sociological "fourth insult" to human vanity.

A theoretical shift toward complex system-environment relations helped Luhmann "accidentally" solve one of Western philosophy's primary problems: mind-body dualism. By pulling communication into the mix, Luhmann rendered the Platonic dualist heritage obsolete. Moeller's clarity opens such formulations to general understanding and directly relates Luhmannian theory to contemporary social issues. He also captures for the first time a Luhmannian attitude toward society and life, defined through the cultivation of modesty, irony, and equanimity.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Moeller, Hans-Georg

Fachgebiete

• Mathematik | Informatik Mathematik Mathematik Interdisziplinär Systemtheorie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Forschung und Information Kybernetik, Systemtheorie, Komplexe Systeme
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Westliche Philosophie: 20./21. Jahrhundert

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface
I. Introduction
1. The Trojan Horse: Luhmann's (Not So) Hidden Radicalism
2. Why He Wrote Such Bad Books
II. From Philosophy to Theory
3. The Fourth Insult: A Refutation of Humanism
4. From Necessity to Contingency: A Carnivalization of Philosophy
5. The Last Footnote to Plato: A Solution to the Mind-Body Problem
6. Ecological Evolution: A Challenge to Social Creationism
7. Constructivism as Postmodernist Realism: A Teaching of Differences
8. Democracy as a Utopia: A Deconstruction of Politics
9. Conclusion. Nec spe nec metu: Neither Hope nor Fear
Appendix: Niklas Luhmann (1927--1998): A Short Intellectual Biography
Abbreviations
Notes
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Hans-Georg Moeller is a senior lecturer in the Philosophy Department at University College Cork in Cork, Ireland. Author and editor of ten books, his works include The Philosophy of the Daodejing, The Moral Fool: A Case for Amorality, both Choice outstanding academic titles, and Luhmann Explained.