Luhmann and Constructivism

Luhmann’s theory of autopoietic social systems is increasingly receiving attention in the scholarly dispute about constructivism. “A reality that remains unknown”: this is part of the title of an article by Niklas Luhmann that summarizes epistemological considerations on constructivism (scattered in his voluminous work on social systems theory, which he developed over three decades). His approach is not the denial of reality but a “de-ontologization” (ontology understood in the philosophical meaning of dealing with whether or not a certain thing or entity exists). Unsurprisingly, for those who are familiar with his work, Luhmann sees his contribution to constructivism in the elaboration of the system/environment distinction. At least since the so-called autopoietic turn (in which he re-conceptualized the idea of social systems by including notions such as meaning and self-reproduction as constituting features), issues such as openness/closure, re-entry, and observation have become pivotal. Thereby he aims at overcoming Immanuel Kant’s transcendental philosophy. That is, the transcendental/empirical distinction has to be replaced with the system/ environment distinction. Luhmann argues that the concept of environment, as well as the corresponding concept of system, was not available at Kant’s time. Instead, the transcendental/ empirical distinction was developed to overcome a self-referring circle in which everything is the object of knowledge. The paper explores the transition from Kant’s “transcendental/empirical” to Luhmann’s “system/environment” distinction to provide a deepened understanding of Luhmann’s constructivist approach. Luhmann’s construction of reality via the system/environment distinction is discussed with respect to preceding concepts provided by philosophical and system/cybernetic scholars such as Kant, Husserl, Piaget, von Glasersfeld, von Foerster, and Maturana & Varela. The innovativeness of Luhmann’s approach is then critically evaluated. The text is a contribution to the positioning of this approach as part of the philosophical and systems/cybernetics constructivist heritage.