Purpose and Significance of Luhmann’s Early Legal Thoughts: A Speech at the Symposium Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Publication of A Sociological Theory of Law (Excerpts)

The study of such world-renowned thinkers as Luhmann should neither be generalized nor stay at the level of preconceived ideological criticism. Rather, it should be carried out precisely and systematically in the form of collective cooperation of the academic community and in combination with the awareness of China’s local problems, thus entering a new stage of theory reception, promoting and nourishing the researches on China’s local problems. The development of Luhmann’s thoughts could be roughly divided into three stages. A Sociological Theory of Law is the typical representative of Luhmann’s thoughts in the first stage. Luhmann’s thoughts begin to turn in the second stage and finally completes the turn in the third stage. However, the “turn” and development of his thoughts in the second and third stages does not mean the total repudiation of his ideas in the first stage. On the contrary, many of the grounds laid by Luhmann in the first stage of his thoughts are re-emphasized in the second and third stages through the new concepts and propositions. The exploration of Luhmann’s early legal thoughts represented by A Sociological Theory of Law is of great significance for finding the important clues for the puzzles in his subsequent theories and the methods of his theoretical innovation.