Overview

This collection of five essays by Germany s most prominent and influential social thinker both links Luhmann s social theory to the question What is modern about modernity? and shows the origins and context of his theory. In the introductory essay, Modernity in Contemporary Society, Luhmann develops the thesis that the modern epistemological situation can be seen as the consequence of a radical change in social macrostructures that he calls social differentiation, thereby designating the juxtaposition of and interaction between a growing number of social subsystems without any hierarchical structure. European Rationality defines rationality as the capacity to see the difference between systems and their environment as a unity. Luhmann argues that, in a world characterized by contingency, rationality tends to become coextensive with imagination, a view that challenges their classical binary opposition and opens up the possibility of seeing modern rationality as a paradox.

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Niklas Luhmann is Professor of Sociology Emeritus at the University of Bielefeld. Among his books translated into English is Social Systems (Stanford, 1995).

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