The Withdrawal and Comeback of Subject from Niklas Luhmann's Perspectives

This article will study the human existence and related issues in the modern society based on Niklas Luhmann’s theories. It takes the problematic of subject seriously and tries to connect with the increasingly popular de-subjectivation and reconstruction of subject in the fields of sociology as well as sociological theory. Guided by Luhmann’s theoretical concepts, this project wishes to comb the different dimensions and levels of human picture, clarify their relationships and point out the contribution, limitation and further perspectives of Luhmann’s theory. It will concentrate on withdrawal and comeback of subject, namely on the switch of questions from “What is the subject” to “How is human regarded as subject”. By so doing, it will give the human a subjective position sociologically and explore the reasoning of human as subject, without appealing to transcendental subject and his ability. Concretely speaking, this article will take consideration of social structure, emotion, body and material object into the formation of subject. It will also explore the consequential issues involved in the process of withdrawal and comeback of the subject, for example, alienation, aloneness, deficit of meaning, disintegration and narcissism epidemic, analyzing the subjective identity and its possible risk in the modern society. Based on the theoretical reflection, this aarticle will try to figure out a more appropriate frame to grasp and interpret the different, controversial and paradoxical dimensions of individualization.