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Formalization of autopoiesis is an ongoing effort among theoretical biologists. In this field, Letelier and co-authors proposed that Robert Rosen's (M,R)-systems theory be used as a formalism for autopoiesis. In (M,R)-systems theory, Rosen proposes that one solve a set of functional closure equations (FCEs) which account for all of the components of the system as coming from within the system itself. A key part of the functional closure equations is the repair of the metabolism component of the system. Rosen's theory gives the organizational closure of the components as well as their products, as found in autopoiesis. However, according to Razeto-Barry (M,R)-systems leaves out some of the messiness and approximation that we find in autopoiesis as he reformulates it. A related problem is that though FCEs have a long history, they are difficult in practice to solve due to their mathematical formulation. In this paper we give a novel exact solution for the FCEs for continuous real vector-valued functions which is nevertheless difficult to compute. In addition we propose an extended form of FCEs which both captures more of the messiness of autopoiesis and also helps to make the FCEs more solvable. Finally, we use our solution for the extended FCEs to give an extended repair function for a metabolism taken from a representative class of biological dynamics for gene expression (the repressilator). More generally we show that one can use our solution for the extended FCEs to get an extended repair function for continuous real vector-valued functions., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Most attempts to define life have concentrated on individual theories, mentioning others hardly at all, but here we compare all of the major current theories. We begin by asking how we know that an entity is alive, and continue by describing the contributions of La Mettrie, Burke, Leduc, Herrera, Bahadur, D'Arcy Thompson and, especially, Schrödinger, whose book What is Life? is a vital starting point. We then briefly describe and discuss (M, R) systems, the hypercycle, the chemoton, autopoiesis and autocatalytic sets. All of these incorporate the idea of circularity to some extent, but all of them fail to take account of mechanisms of metabolic regulation, which we regard as crucial if an organism is to avoid collapsing into a mass of unregulated reactions. In a final section we study the extent to which each of the current theories can aid in the search for a more complete theory of life, and explain the characteristics of metabolic control analysis that make it essential for an adequate understanding of organisms., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

The intersection between Critical realism, complex system thinking and Luhmannian autopoiesis has been subject to various debates. By showing how a complex system necessitates a trans‐immanent philosophical foundation, Knio proposed in a previous article a problématique of calibration which seeks to bring back to the fore the importance of considering a complex causality generated by environments onto boundaries and systems in an iterative, recursive, and emergentist way. The next step is to understand the motivation behind the actions of a trans‐immanent system. This paper contributes to this discussion by operationalizing the motivation behind action in terms of the Spinozian conatus. In so doing, this research shows how trans‐immanent systems such as people and society not only objectify (socially construct) but objectivate (create) objects behind desire. Finally, the forgoing shows how systemic persistence is not a simple matter of inertia or imitation but it is a matter of empowering reflexivity or, perseverance. This is shown through a thorough overview of the different interpretations of the conatus, followed by their application to several case studies within pre‐existing and prominent theories of institutional change within capitalism. As a result, the conatus as based on a trans‐immanent system offers great potential in institutional analysis; exemplified in the Critical Realist model of social change: Morphogenetic Régulation. This research contributes not only to political, economic, social, and cultural analyses of institutional change but analyses of complex and open systems as a whole, and thus understandings of human empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Collected Papers of the Law Faculty of the University of Rijeka / Zbornik Pravnog Fakulteta Sveučilišta u Rijeci is the property of Pravni fakultet Sveucilista u Rijeci and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While a universal definition of religion eludes the field of religious studies, it certainty seems that people are becoming differently religious rather than a-religious, especially since the latter half of the twentieth century. To explain the enduring relevance of religion in human experience, this article expands on recent evolutionary and sociological research in the systems theory of religion and develops a philosophical approach to understanding religion as a complex adaptive system. Frameworks of meaning and beliefs communicated by religious systems emerge and adapt in relation to interpretive selection pressures communicated by individuals-in-community relative to entropy's role in one's contingent experience as a "teleodynamic self" in the arrow of time. Religious systems serve an entropy-reducing function in the minds of individuals, philosophically speaking, because their sign and symbol systems communicate an "anentropic" dimension to meaning that prevents uncertainty ad infinitum (e.g., maximum Shannon entropy) concerning matters of existential concern for phenomenological systems, i.e., persons. Religious systems will continue to evolve, and new religious movements will spontaneously emerge, as individuals find new ways to communicate their intuition of this anentropic dimension of meaning in relation to their experience of contingency in the arrow of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diplomacy is often presented as subordinated to politics as if it merely received politically willed 'inputs' to produce politically structured 'outputs'. However, diplomacy often deviates from political instructions. It can even operate almost without any political considerations whatsoever. This observation gives rise to a sense that politics and diplomacy operate as two separate systems that are mutually dependent and yet simultaneously independent from each other. To illuminate this relationship, the present paper draws from Modern Systems Theory (especially Parsons and Luhmann) to argue that politics and diplomacy engage in double interchanges: (1) they stimulate each other through premises for actions like 'foreign policy goals', and (2) they implement each other such that diplomatic happenings can be booked as political successes and vice versa. The discussion section outlines how the autonomy of the two systems varies empirically – such as in the case of politically appointed diplomats – and how extreme cases of autonomous operations (apolitical diplomacy or adiplomatic politics) face negative sanctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key norm of good science is research integrity, which includes the freedom to inquire as an independent, self-organising system, and the responsibility to identify, frame, and engage in the problems of society, in a scientific manner. This paper investigates the challenges to scientific integrity experienced by university research centres. Research centres are organised around specific problematic fields in society and are expected to have specific societal impacts. Therefore, they are born with the paradox of being restricted in terms of scientific freedom yet required to meet science standards. As an example, we analyse the Danish Centre for Rural Research (CLF) which, like many other institutions of science and research centres, has become increasingly dependent on various external funding over the past decades. In social systems theoretical terms, research centres are hybrid organisations that operate simultaneously in the function systems of science, politics, and economy. The question is whether it is possible for research centres to uphold the requisite research integrity to provide society with truthful and critical knowledge – i.e. to uphold the necessary autopoiesis of the science function system, operating in the medium of truth – and at the same time be able to navigate in the structures of power that the centre is faced with, in terms of funding, outside control, and expectations of expectations. The medieval court jester, who was able to speak unwelcome truths to the all-mighty king without getting his head cut off, was a solution to this kind of paradox. The question is how we can handle this paradox in contemporary sciences, increasingly depending on external funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the realm of university education after COVID‐19, in which there is a perceived need to manage the 'old' and the 'new'. The paper brings two different systems approaches to that end: the systems theory of autopoiesis and the systems identity technology of profilicity. In their own way, both explain the phenomena of 'blindness' to social situations, potentially enabling meaningful conversations to occur. However, they require a broader, common ground so that they could also coexist with each other. This could lead us to consider the inclusion of rituals in education. Two perspectives about ritual are brought forth to start developing such common ground. With these, the paper proposes a number of questions and implications to further develop systemic coexistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

> Context • In the conventional sciences, artistic work and aesthetic experience are explained from different theoretical perspectives through heterogeneous mechanisms at different system levels. > Problem • Due to the methodological constraints of Science I, it is hardly possible to develop an integrative theory that coordinates the complex relational interplay of multi-layered systemic processes in the field of art. Various descriptions and explanations at different levels of artistic work and aesthetic experience will be integrated into an approach to a systems theory of art within the framework of Science II. > Method • First-person observations and coordination of doings in the performing arts and various theoretical explanations of their artistic work and aesthetic practice at different system levels are re-entered, coordinated, and consistently explained in terms of Science II. > Results • The first-person observations of the performance Soul Chain and the theoretical views of structural determinism, second-order cybernetics, the interpenetration of psychic and social systems, deconstructive différance, and the autopoietic feedback loop are re-framed in Science II. As reflections of specific generative mechanisms, they are integrated into a systems-theoretical approach that explains the performing arts and aesthetic practice through the mechanism of self-reflexive recursive coordination of structural relations. > Implications • The general generative mechanism of recursive coordination of structural relations explains the self-constitution of human existence at all domains and levels, including the process of explaining. Science II allows for a higher-order integration and generality of theories than the conventional science under the subject-object-epistemology paradigm. > Constructivist content • The possibility of consistently coordinating and explaining the first-person and theoretical observations of art and aesthetic practice at the different levels of systemic self-constitution in Science II confirms its claim to central theoretical relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to study the intersection between critical realism and complexity theories through the existing literature on complex systems via an engagement with Luhmann's autopoiesis. With reference to the philosophies of substance and persistence, I build on previous critical realist scholarship and provide an explanation for what the literature has only noted as the limitations and potentials of autopoiesis for complex systems thinking and its compatibility with Critical Realism. By highlighting how Luhmann's autopoiesis is not a trans-immanent/ perdurantist-exdurantist system, I show first how a trans immanent system through the method of calibration entails a complex causation involving objects in the environment of systems and not just within their boundaries. Second, I explain how a trans-immanent system fits with CR via the Morphogenetic Régulation framework by exploring the theme of crisis in terms of the movement from inadequate to adequate understanding of objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context • A central motivation behind various embodied, extended, and enactive (4E) approaches to cognition is to ground our understanding of minds and cognition within the biological structures that give rise to life. Because of this, their advocates often claim a natural kinship with dynamical and developmental systems theories. However, these accounts also explicitly or implicitly privilege individual organisms in ways that contrast with many of the insights of systems and developmental systems approaches to biology. > Problem • The prioritization of individual organisms within 4E approaches to cognition contrasts with the default entangled structure of biological systems associated with cognitive agency. We provide means for 4E cognitive science to move beyond an individual-centred view of cognitive agency. > Method • We first identify and problematize individual-centredness within various predominant 4E approaches by comparison with biological research and developmental systems theory. Subsequently, we offer conceptual resources from the field of ecological research for understanding cognitive agency beyond the predominant focus on individual organisms. > Results • Cognitive agency may be understood without privileging individual organisms by reading nonequilibrium maintenance in terms of a dynamic differentiation instead of individual organismic autonomy. This form of organizational structure corresponds to the notion of sympoiesis from ecological research. > Implications • Approaching cognitive agency without privileging individual organisms should be invaluable to advocates of 4E cognition seeking to ground notions of cognition and mind within contemporary biological research. > Constructivist content • We seek to expand upon existing constructivist perspectives on the organizing principles of cognitive agency, such as sensorimotor embodiment and autopoiesis, arguing that meta-organismic cognitive agents (including humans) embody distributed relations beyond the privileging of individual organisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper emerged as a result of Anishinabe and non-Indigenous scholars discussing the basic principles behind systems thinking. By asking the question "what is a system?", we uncovered that our very understanding of what makes a system was vastly different. As scholars working in cross-cultural and inter-cultural environments, these differing worldviews can create systemic challenges in unpacking complex problems. Trans-systemics offers language to unearth these assumptions by the recognition that the dominant, or "loudest", systems are not always the most appropriate or equitable. It goes beyond critical systems thinking to identify that tackling complex problems requires the recognition that there are multiple, overlapping systems and worldviews at play. We identified three key takeaways from Indigenous trans-systemics for socio-ecological systems thinkers: (1) trans-systemics is a call to humility, asking us to critically examine our patterns of thought and behavior; (2) by exploring humility, trans-systemics allows us to move past the autopoiesis of Eurocentric systems thinking to consider interdependence; and (3) to utilize Indigenous trans-systemics, we need to fundamentally reconsider how we understand the systems around us and bring in outside tools and concepts to enact meaningful systems change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of sociological theories can be investigated either from the perspective of the sociology of science or from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge. In the former case, the main concerns are the differentiation of a common conceptual language and the construction of a theory provided with self-referential closure. Both technical-theoretical conditions aim to cope with the complexity of the external world by means of meaning. In the latter case, the claim that every scientific theory is constructed as a theoretical system can be traced back to the epistemological reflections of the 18th century. Since this claim also applies to sociology as a theory of society, the construction of a theory of society and its socio-cultural evolution makes sociology itself a subject of sociological study. Social systems theory fulfils the basic condition that all modern scientific theories must be constructed as theoretical systems and, as a theory of social systems, can co-describe itself while describing society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following article was written to honour Johan Buitendag's contribution to the discipline of eco-theology. Assuming an interdisciplinary stance, eco-theology in general and his work, in particular, is observed from the position of legal theory and sociology. As such, eco-theology is not assessed on theological grounds but is treated interdisciplinary through comparison with environmental law. More specifically, the project of eco-theology is shown to share certain characteristics with the nascent subdiscipline of Earth systems law within environmental law. It is argued that one of the most important of these is the use of norms as an ecological strategy. This is understandable as both the religious and legal systems rely on the norm form to a lesser or greater extent. However, in the legal sociology of systems theory, the shortcomings of norms have been eloquently argued. This article thus posits the limits of norms to eco-theology and Earth systems law as a challenge deserving attention. However, social systems theory has its shortcomings, and a preliminary line of flight away from this challenge is suggested in the shape of Agamben's description of the monastic form-of-life, where life and norm overlap so intensely that suggestions of a new worldview gain plausibility. Contribution: This article argues for the similarity in theology and law's respective strategies for combatting climate change, most importantly, that both employ a normative form. It points out that norms have crucial shortcomings but suggests that they might be overcome through reinterpretations of normativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista MAD is the property of Revista MAD and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This logic may apply to the collapse of complex societies, to the escalation of conflicts, to the transition from a principle of differentiation to another (as in Luhmann's catastrophes), but also to the out-differentiation (Ausdifferenzierung) of social systems, the generalized semantic transitions as in Koselleck's I Sattelzeit i , and the emergence of a new diffusion media such as the Internet and the digital matrix. Additionally, I propose to preserve the concept of crisis as a negative self-description, and to call I critical transition i the factual and temporal process by which a social system produces operative conditions that lead to a sudden restructuring of its elements and relations, including its own self-description as crisis. 21 Füllsack, Manfred/Plakolb, Simon/Jäger, Georg (2020): Predicting regime shifts in social systems modelled with agent-based methods. Füllsack/Plakolb/Jäger (2020) have developed ABM methods to test both dynamics in social systems. [Extracted from the article]

This paper analyzes violence from the peculiar perspective of a "social immunology", defined as the area of social systems theory concerned primarily, even though not exclusively, with those processes by which social systems as communication systems deal with tensions, termed ecological tensions, that involve the intersection between social systems and their human environment and that endanger the maintenance of social autopoiesis. Individuals' violent behaviors are manifestations of such tensions. However empirically ubiquitous it may be, violence constitutes a crucial problem for social systems, due to risks detrimental to the human substrate of communicative processes. We theorize about conflicts, social movements and the legal system as the main components of an immune apparatus of social systems by focusing on individuals' reactions to social costs and related social conflicts. Modern law, in particular, tends to promote individuals' inclusion and to restrain their resorting to violence by relying on a system of rights, procedures, and judicial institutions conducive to attracting and regulating such conflicts. Legal immunization remains nonetheless exposed to several limitations, including abnormal forms that concur to the arbitrary use of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Garretón's "Una teoría cibernética de la ciudad y su sistema" (A cybernetic theory of the city and its system) was published in 1975 by Nueva Visión publishing house in Buenos Aires, a moment when the seminal criticisms against the modernist urban theory of the sixties led by Team 10 were becoming concrete proposals for updating and eventually overcoming its shortcomings. Yet, despite remaining unpublished in English and hence relatively unknown worldwide, few publications in the field compare in scope to Garreton's cybernetic theory. The reason is straightforward: like Shannon's mathematical theory, this work amounts to a general theory of the city. Thoroughly informed by system thinking, whose trademark rule of thumb was described by Luhmann as "drawing distinctions" to guarantee the autopoiesis of a determined system, Garretón's chief objective was to draw distinctions that would guarantee the autopoiesis of the urban system. In doing so, he discovered three fundamental urban laws, namely: the law of urban communication, the law of urban attraction, and the law of urban circulation. This, in turn, allowed him to clearly distinguish a universe that had thus far remained undetected by urbanists and that he called the non-city Universe: the human-made universe that nevertheless does not belong in the urban universe. This paper argues that this allowed him to rediscover and update the ancient and lost art of city-making: not an art of making buildings, roads, and infrastructure in general but rather, the art of building, knitting, fostering, and sustaining communities and whole societies by means of or with the aid of buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the sixties, a most curious symbiosis took hold between Heinz von Foerster (1911–2002) then the Director of a top-notch and lavishly funded US laboratory [Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL), 1958–1975] and the Chilean neuroscientist Humberto R. Maturana (1928–2021) professor at the Universidad de Chile. The chance encounter between them triggered a long-lasting friendship and a fundamental change in our understanding of Systems Science. In particular the contributions of Biology of Cognition and Autopoiesis are important to understand this change and the years 1968–1973 are particularly relevant. In this period, Maturana published, as a Technical Report of BCL, the foundational document The Neurophysiology of Cognition. Later, in 1973, the book De Maquinas y Seres Vivos put forward the notion of Autopoietic Systems. Also, between 1971 and 1973, the Allende government tried to cybernitize the Chilean economy with the SYNCO project. In that project, Maturana and von Foerster played a role by teaching Cybernetics to the engineers and administrators of this technological dream. During this same time, Cybernetics was important in Chile and Professors Maturana and von Foerster although not directly involved in the day-to-day running of SYNCO were important in that unique effort. When a military coup deposed Allende and sent Chile into a tailspin of right-wing retribution (9-11-1973), von Foerster, a foreigner who loved Chile and its people, did his outmost to assure the safety of many people involved in this unique Latin American Cybernetics dream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dengsø and Kirchhoff's inspiring proposal to drop the individualcenteredness of autopoiesis in favor of a view based on sympoiesis and developmental systems theory (DST) has two problems: (a) It is not clear that the points they raise as arguments against individual-centered 4E cognition are incompatible with those views and many of them are already included in Ezequiel Di Paolo's account of enaction. (b) They give no clear account of how 4E cognition will account for agency as purposive behavior once it discards its current, individual-centered, accounts of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Already in the romantic it has been assumed, that there is an existential interrelation between nature, human being and mind. According to this idea, there is a narrow interrelation of creation between literature, science, dream and reality, which should be expressed in a progressive universal poetry. Gestalt theory and the concept of autopoiesis, developed by Maturana and Varela, could be regarded as a scientific enhancement of this approach and are united in that sense. By analyses of dreams, it becomes evident, that neurobiological and mental processes are determined by the same principles of self-constitution and gestalt production. They are attending in equal measures to homeostatic conditions. The interaction of living systems with their environment as well as their evolution base on recursive reorganisation. Following this principle, imagination, speech and self-reflection are developed. The observer comes to existence by his own distinctions. Phenomenal appearance and real existence, poetry and scientific findings are results of the autopoietic organisation of living, of which we form a part.

The normative theory of citing considers citations as rewarding tools to acknowledge the influence of scientific works, while the social constructivist theory of citing considers citations, for example, as persuasion tools used by authors to support their claims, and convince the scientific community that those claims are valid. Other citation theories and models have been proposed in recent years to overcome the limitations of the normative and social constructivist theories. Nevertheless, they have not been able to fully explain all citation motives of scientists (but have a certain focus). This study proposes a new theory (which we call “social systems citation theory”, SSCT) that integrates previous theories and models on publications and their citation links and is mainly based on Niklas Luhmann’s “social systems theory”. Luhmann’s social systems theory focuses on “communications” as the basic constituting elements of a social science system and not on humans and their motives. Humans are not part of social systems but are connected with them and irritate them. Thus, the social systems theory does not have the problem of integrating various and different motives of humans to cite in the science system. In the SSCT, authors’ motives to cite belong to psychic systems while publications and their citation links belong to the social science system. The systems operate autonomously but interact with each other: the social system operates recursively with publications and citation links. Although psychic systems stimulate or irritate the science system, they do not determine communications in the science system. In this study, we explain the SSCT and demonstrate how the theory can be used to underlie empirical bibliometric studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Legado de Arquitectura y Diseño is the property of Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Mexico and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In light of the sociological insight that it is left to the art system what counts as art, new artistic forms inevitably alter the prevailing concept of art. The article examines how artistic morphogenesis occurs in a twofold manner in the case of contemporary art: as self-referential process through new form combinatorics or asynchronous artistic operations whose artworks elude the gaze, and as other-referential relation. One of the main features of contemporary art lies in its strong reference to the present, based on a conception of operative time. Time is not understood as a sequence of past, present, future, but rather as the linking of respective presences. Contemporary art shares this understanding of time with event-based social theories. This is analysed as other-referential act of synchronization within the art system with its societal environment. Empirical evidence is provided by select works of art and by self-descriptions of the art system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is more to the relationship between systems theory and deconstruction than Andreas Bäcker's important target article shows. There is a différance within the operations of any one self-referential system as much as within their structural coupling. If Sharon Eyal's dance piece Soul Chain is indeed called an example of post-dramatic performance, it is important to trace différance as a mode of complex and reflective coupling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Um research article involving the Luhmannian theoretical lens (third generation systems theory, self-production theory, with its key concept of autopoiesis), in the framework of the general objective that states "to complexify the process of decisions that decide in entrepreneurs the creation and endurance of enterprises", from entrepreneurs' stories, recorded through semi-structured interviews and treated with the qualitative analysis tool NVivo software, distinguished as meta-languages the languages: "future-building", "defiant-tenacity-persistence-insistence" and "permanent irritation as constitutive of state of comfort". Thie article contributes to the construction of mastery of the theory, to treat it with respect, but also with irreverence, in the sense of exercising a critical thinking, by extracting it after scanning its deep and elevated abstractions, so that at some point a theoretical independence is reached, with possibilities of facing the uncritical importation of theories beyond the borders of Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Quaestio Iuris (QI) is the property of Editora da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (EdUERJ) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Descriptions of theatre events as autopoietic are more productively grounded in Luhmann’s theory of social systems rather than in Maturana and Varela’s original biological conception. The sense of “lifeness” resonating within audiences of all styles of theatrical performance is directly correlated to the type of spectacle produced by the observed relationship between this social autopoiesis and the engagement of biologically autopoietic performers in the closed-loop control activity through which it is catalyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Die verbreitete Wahrnehmung einer Krise des Wohlfahrtsstaates hat mit fehlgehenden gesellschaftstheoretischen Prämissen in Form einer gesellschaftlichen Suprematie der Politik wie dem dominanten Einfluss der Wirtschaft auf die gesamtgesellschaftliche Entwicklung zu tun. Eine adäquate gesellschaftstheoretische Beschreibung legt dagegen ein anderes Verständnis nahe. Danach hat sich zunächst der Verfassungsstaat als eine Stabilisierung des politischen Systems über das Prinzip der Eliminierung von Abweichungen von gegebenen Erwartungslagen herausgebildet. Der Wohlfahrtsstaat dagegen basiert auf dem Prinzip eines positiven Feedbacks. Die Theorie selbstreferentieller Systeme gibt hier erste Hinweise, dass die Probleme des Wohlfahrtsstaates auf die interne Differenzierung des politischen Systems, die Selbstüberforderung der Implementationsinstrumente Geld und Recht sowie die mit der Struktur der Gesellschaft verbundenen Komplexitätsprobleme in den entsprechenden Entscheidungsprozessen zurückgeführt werden können. Damit wird die Frage der Selbstbeobachtungsfähigkeit der Gesellschaft und speziell des politischen Systems zentral. Die Theorie des Verfassungsstaats hatte den gesellschaftsstrukturell bedingten Verzicht auf politische Wirkungsmöglichkeiten als Freiheit beschrieben; inwiefern unter denselben Bedingungen eine Theorie des Wohlfahrtsstaates entwickelt und in die Politik zurückgespiegelt werden kann, ist zunächst offen. The widespread perception of a crisis of the welfare state has to do with erroneous theoretical premises in the form of a societal supremacy of politics and the dominant influence of the economy on the development of society. An adequate theoretical description suggests a different understanding. According to this description, the constitutional state first developed as a stabilization of the political system through the principle of eliminating deviations from given expectations. The welfare state, on the other hand, is based on the principle of positive feedback. The theory of self-referential systems provides the first indications here that the problems of the welfare state can be traced back to the internal differentiation of the political system, the overstress of the instruments of implementation, money and law, and the problems of complexity in the corresponding decision-making processes associated with the structure of society. Thus, the question of the self-observability of the political system becomes central. The theory of the constitutional state had described the renunciation of political possibilities of action as freedom; to what extent a theory of the welfare state can be developed under the same conditions and reflected back into politics is an open question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Das Verhältnis von Politik und Recht ist in der europäischen Tradition durch eine besondere Nähe gekennzeichnet, die die Frage provoziert, ob es sich überhaupt um zwei voneinander getrennte Systeme handelt oder ob nicht beide Funktionsbereiche konvergieren, es also gerade zu einer Entdifferenzierung kommt. Die Theorie selbstreferentieller Systeme und eine darauf aufbauende Theorie der funktionalen Differenzierung der Gesellschaft bieten genauere Analysemöglichkeiten, die zeigen, dass Politik und Recht in einem spezifischen Kombinationsverhältnis von Abhängigkeit und Unabhängigkeit stehen. Die zugrunde gelegte Theorie der modernen Gesellschaft betont zugleich das Unwahrscheinliche des europäischen Modells und erlaubt somit auch die Frage, ob diese Gesellschaft nicht an ihren eigenen Strukturen scheitern kann. Zumindest gibt es empirische Entwicklungen, die als Hinweise auf eine problematische Änderung des Verhältnisses von Politik und Recht verstanden werden können. In the European tradition, the relationship between the political and the legal system is characterized by a particular closeness that provokes the question of whether they are two separate systems at all or whether the two functional subsystems might converge, i. e. a de-differentiation occurs. The theory of self-referential systems and the theory of the functional differentiation of society offer more precise possibilities for analysis, showing that the political and the legal system stand in a specific combined relationship of dependence and independence. At the same time, the underlying theory of modern society emphasises the improbability of the European model and thus also allows the question of whether this society can fail because of its own structures. At the very least, there are empirical developments that can be understood as indications of a problematic change in the relationship between politics and law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bislang gibt es keine zufriedenstellende Soziologie der Rechtstheorie und damit auch keine Soziologie des Rechtssystems. Hier bieten die Theorie autopoietischer Systeme, die Beobachtungstheorie sowie das Konzept einer selbstreferentiellen Logik neue Möglichkeiten: Gesellschaftliche Funktionssysteme können als sich über binäre Codierungen ausdifferenzierende und insofern paradoxal begründete selbstreferentielle Kommunikationszusammenhänge beschrieben werden. Während die Selbstbeobachtung des Rechts in Form der Rechtstheorie und der Rechtsdogmatik die binäre Codierung ihres Funktionssystems mitvollziehen müssen, kann die Soziologie als wissenschaftlicher Fremdbeobachter die systemkonstituierende Paradoxie wiederum thematisieren. Dadurch können eine Reihe bekannter rechtstheoretischer und rechtssoziologischer Themenstellungen neu behandelt werden: Das Problem der Faktizität normativer Geltung, das der Positivität des Rechts sowie dessen zunehmende Folgenorientierung. Damit steht die soziologische Beobachtung letztlich in der Nähe zu solchen Traditionen des Rechtsdenkens, die sich mit den Unschärfen in der Selbstbeobachtung des Rechts, also den Problemen der Selbstbegründung beschäftigt haben: der Derogationstheorie und der Gewalttheorie. Die Selbstbeobachtung konzeptionell mitberücksichtigende Systemtheorie kann diese Theorien wiederum nach ihrer Funktion befragen. So far, there is no satisfactory sociology of legal theory and thus no sociology of the legal system. Here, the theory of autopoietic systems, the theory of observation as well as the concept of a self-referential logic offer new possibilities: a functional system can be described as self-referential communication systems differentiating by means of a binary code and in this respect as paradoxically grounded. While the self-observation of law in the form of legal theory and legal dogmatics have to follow the binary code of their functional system, sociology as a scientific external observer can in turn thematize the system-constituting paradox. In this way, a number of familiar issues in legal theory and the sociology of law can be addressed in a new way: The problem of the facticity of norms, that of the positivity of law, and the increasing orientation towards consequences of legal decisions. Thus, sociological observation is ultimately close to such traditions of legal thought that have dealt with the fuzziness in the self-observation of law, i. e. the problems of self-justification: the derogation theory and the theory of violence. Systems theory, which conceptually takes self-observation into account, can in turn analyse the function of these theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Die Systemtheorie gehört zu den Eigenwerten moderner Intellektualität, die die Bedingungen des Sich-selbst-Erzeugens und damit die Kontingenz ihrer Beobachtungen selbst noch reflektiert. Die frühe Systemtheorie mit ihrem Konzept umweltoffener Systeme hinterließ zunächst die unbeantwortete Frage, wie Systeme sich gegenüber ihrer Umwelt erhalten können. Diese Theorielücke wurde erst durch Kombination der Konzepte von Autopoiesis, operationaler Schließung und struktureller Kopplung selbstreferentieller Systeme geschlossen. Damit entdeckt die Systemtheorie zugleich ihre epistemologischen Konsequenzen, die sie ganz in die Nähe der Husserl'schen Phänomenologie des Bewusstseins führt und die es ihr ermöglicht, sich als autologischer Beobachter (in) der Gesellschaft zu begreifen. Für alle Weltbeschreibung kann dann keine privilegierte Position mehr behauptet werden, die Realität selbst erschließt sich nur noch auf der Ebene der Beobachtung von Beobachtern. Systems theory is one of the intrinsic values of modern intellectuality, which reflects the conditions of self-generation and thus the contingency of its observations. Early systems theory however with its concept of open systems initially left the unanswered question of how systems can maintain themselves in relation to their environment. This gap in theory was closed by combining the concepts of autopoiesis, operational closure and structural coupling of self-referential systems. With this, systems theory simultaneously discovers its epistemological consequences, which brings it in some way very close to Husserl's phenomenology of consciousness and enables it to conceive of itself as an autological observer in and of society. For all descriptions of the world, a privileged position can then no longer be asserted; reality itself is only revealed on the level of observing the observers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the development of the Gaia Hypothesis as it was defined by James Lovelock in the 1970s and later elaborated in his collaboration with biologist Lynn Margulis. Margulis’s research in symbiogenesis and her interest in Maturana and Varela’s theory of autopoiesis helped to reshape the Gaia theory from a first-order systems theory to second-order systems theory. In contrast to the first-order systems theory, which is concerned with the processes of homeostasis, second-order systems incorporate emergence, complexity and contingency. In this respect Latour’s and Stengers’s takes on Gaia, even defining it as an “outlaw” or an anti-system, can be interpreted as specific kind of systems thinking. The article also discusses Haraway’s interpretation of Gaia in terms of sympoiesis and argues that it presents a major reconceptualization of systems theory.

One of the fundamental questions in post-Fregean philosophy is how to account for the normativity involved in assertoric claims once the traditional subject-object view of thinking is rejected. One of the more productive lines of inquiry in the contemporary literature attributes normativity to second nature, which is presented as a sui generis space of reason giving and receiving distinct from the space of nature studied by the natural sciences. In this paper I suggest an alternative account by drawing from Castoriadis's philosophical interpretation of autopoiesis. For Castoriadis, the idea of second nature protects the modern conception of nature from undergoing the radical critique it requires, for it restricts normativity to the anthropic sphere. In contrast, he proposes an autopoietic account of the subject that grounds the capacity to know that one knows in the activity of the living being. Castoriadis demonstrates that the normativity of assertoric claims is not a vertical break from nature but rather a horizontal transformation of the biological capacity for self-referentiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The theory of N. Luhmann, which is discussed in the article, suggests that a paradigm shift in the general theory of systems opens up new possibilities for the theory of social systems and eliminates the usual objections to the “technological” use of the concept of a system. Luhmann describes functional differentiation as a form of differentiation of modern society. From his point of view, this means that today such systems as law, science, the media, politics, economics economics, etc. are considered. They differ in their subject, so that, in principle, they can no longer be considered in a single hierarchy. In Luhmann’s theory, they are self-preserving orders «autopoietic». However, a person in his theory turns into a set of separate systems: social, mental, physical, mechanical, biochemical. That is, the whole person disappears. Thus, the authors of the article conclude that Luhmann’s object, analytical, structural, and functional methodology is not suitable for the study of a holistic personality, a person in general, his desire for self-actualization, psycho-spiritual development further. Human research requires a synthetic methodology, examples of which are holistic, synergetic theories, integrated approaches in various fields of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary art is not a simple system based on the creation and dissemination of aesthetic and conceptual objects, but a complex set of institutional and social processes with different motivations, audiences and environments. Likewise, the contemporary artwork cannot be represented as a singular object, but a complex set of material, technological, social and psychic relations. This complexity can be traced to the 1960s when three cultural developments: the expansion of the artwork, the increase in ecological awareness and the proliferation of systems thinking, and systems technology converged, shifting our focus from the material world to the underlying processes, relationships and data. This understanding leads to a focused description of the complex artwork Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson and how this work can be understood in systems, specifically ecological-systems terms. Such complex work extends beyond the confinement of the original material object to include a vast network of physical and social relations, and this expanded work is more accurately described as simultaneously system and object, or ecological object. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to clarify the proper position of time as sociology's basic concept in relation to meaning (Sinn). In sociology, the inseparable relationship between time and meaning has been clearly shown by Schutz's phenomenological sociology and Luhmann's social systems theory. Referring to the respective theories of Bergson and Husserl, Schutz argued that the problem of meaning in Weber's interpretative sociology is a problem of time. The meaning of an action that an actor subjectively thinks of is determined not by a common normative value for example, but rather through her/his own inner time: the meaning of an ongoing action (Handeln) is the act (Handlung) projected as an aim in the stream of consciousness. Similarly, Luhmann considered self-referential social systems as temporal subjects that cognize their own reality of the external world. Phenomena appearing to a social system through communicative intentionality are weighted by the system's own past and future, and are thereby selectively (not randomly) actualized as meaningful units in the present. System order (or social order) is thus temporally organized in the atemporal, chaotic world of meaning. "Self-reference" is to refer to a system's own eigen time (Eigenzeit), which provides the basis for a system's autonomy or freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]