Exploring the Possibility of an Autological Social TheoryOn Luhmann's The Society of Society

The Society of Society represents the culmination of Luhmann's lifelong research, dedicated to formulating a holistic theory of society. The book's problem awareness targets four epistemological obstacles that hindered the development of 20th-century sociology: the notions that society is composed of individuals and their real interpersonal relationships; that society is constituted by consensus among people; that society is bounded by territorial states; and that society can be observed from an external perspective. In contrast, The Society of Society argues that society is made up of communications. It asserts that the inclusion of diverse and conflicting perspectives, rather than consensus, constitutes the fundamental characteristic of society. Society, in this view, is a world society consisting of all communications, and observations of society remain contained within society itself, thus amounting to society's self-observation. This renders sociology a form of autologous theoretical observation. The structure of The Society of Society unfolds along the lines of the three dimensions of meaning, with a focus on communication theory, evolution theory, and social differentiation theory. This work also examines the observation of social semantic evolution corresponding to the evolution of social structures.