Saburo Akahori

The concept of self-description plays an important role in Niklas Luhmann's sociological systems theory. In the systems theoretical sense, self-description does not mean description of self but description of society by society itself. The implication of self-description (of society) lies in that we cannot describe society from outside of society. From the systems theoretical viewpoint, we can see society as a system that contains various self-descriptions and therefore we should not ask what society is but how society is described. Systems theoretical description is the meta-level description (i.e. second-order observation). It can especially be characterized as the description of differences. Meta-level observers try to indicate what kind of distinctions or borderlines are drawn in a certain observation or description. Such a viewpoint enables us to see the hidden side (blind spot) of description of society and that is indeed the advantage and the true charm of the systems theoretical description.

In this article, we will examine sociological implication of the "Third Way", which is proposed and led by a British sociologist Anthony Giddens. His argument about the Third Way is based on his opinion that we have to cope with risks and uncertainties of modern society, and on his sociological theory, especially on what he calls "institutional reflexivity", which means knowledge about society influence social institution reflexively, and which can be interpreted as a feedback loop of social system (or, societal system). In such a point of view, it is important what consists of societal system and what controls the system. According to Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory, the component of social systems is communication, and modern society is described as a comprehensive communication system (that is, societal system). From this perspective, control of modern society can be understood not as "social control" in a sociological sense, but as self-control or self-regulation of modern society.

In the early 1980s, Niklas Luhmann introduced autopoiesis theory to sociology and redefined social systems concept as systems of communication. In this paper, by referring to Gordon Pask's "Conversation Theory", which Luhmann also referred to, we examine why Luhmann attached importance to the communication concept. The reason lies in that we can understand stability of social systems not as an equilibrium or regulation but as a continuous process of communication by using autopoietic model of social systems.

Dutch sociologist Felix Geyer, who has been interested in the applicability of Systems Theory since the 1970s to the present, created the alienation model as a result of an information-processing disturbance between individuals and their environment. However, Geyer's alienation theory is impractical because its conclusions are trivial. Namely, there are two types of people, those who can cope with environmental complexity and who are rarely alienated, and those who are easily alienated. In this article, we will demonstrate how such shortcomings are derived from the following two facts: The first is that Geyer attributed the causes of alienation to the information processing ability of the individuals. The second is that despite using the second-order cybernetics concept, Geyer did not take into consideration the fact that the difference between system (self) and environment (other) is constructed by the system itself. To overcome these difficulties, the closure type model and the second-order approach should be used to study alienation rather than the input-output model and the first-order approach. We will then be able to understand the causes of alienation while at least not using the determinist's point of view.

Modern society (functionally differentiated society) has been paradoxically described. Some say it is one-dimensional (meaning-construction in society is monotonous), while others maintain it is multidimensional (meaning-construction in society is colorful). In modern society, people are deembedded from a fixed context of a particular class or community and can gain access to several communication codes. Therefore, at the individual level, various perspectives are possible. Such a society is multi-dimensional. From another viewpoint, however, because of the diversity of individuals, control of meaning-construction (way of thinking) becomes stronger into the private domain. Such a society is one-dimensional. Which is true? To answer this question, the second-order approach must be used, that is, a description of communication codes. From this angle, we can understand this paradox as a problem of self-description in one-dimensional/ multidimensional code. If we want to describe the multidimensionality (polycontextuality) of a modern society, we have to distinguish between the codes.

Niklas Luhmann applied autopoietic systems theory to social systems theory by laying stress on 'communication' or 'communicative events' as a component of social systems. It is frequently said that such social systems are 'operationally closed' and 'cognitively open' at the same time. To explain why social systems should be defined 'operationally closed', I will 'refer' to Parsons' version of social systems theory that has been criticized as 'oversocialized'. Then, I will use two keys to understand the operational closure of social systems and psychic systems. One is the distinction between 'input type description' and 'closure type description', the other is the 'double closure of systems' concept proposed by Heinz von Foerster.