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Abstract. This is an edited and translated transcript of a lecture by Niklas Luhmann in which he outlined the foundation of his systems theory based on the notion of difference and distinction. After a brief introduction to early theories of distinction, the central ideas of Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form as the most radical form of differential thinking are presented. For Luhmann's systems theory, this has four important consequences. First, the system is the difference between system and environment. Second, the system can be defined through a single mode of operation. Third, every (social) system observes internally (i.e. within the system) its own system/environment distinction; there is a re-entry of the system/environment distinction into the system. Fourth, every social theory is part of the social domain and as such part of what it describes. Key words. George Spencer Brown; social systems; systems theory; theory of distinction
In this lecture, I will discuss a topic that I consider the most important and most abstract part of my theory of social systems, namely, the differential or difference theoretical approach. This approach is based on recent insights in systems theory. Speaking generally, we can divide the development of systems theory into three stages: (i) the theory of closed systems; (ii) the theory of open systems; and (iii) the theory of observing or self-referential systems (cf. Luhmann, 1995: 5-11). My considerations derive especially from the third and last stage of the development of systems theory.
The transition from the theory of closed systems to the theory of open systems drew increased attention to the environment. This change concerned not only the knowledge that there is an environment, but also the insight that an open system is based on the relations between system and environment and that these relations are not static but dynamic; they are, as it were, channels that conduct causality. On these grounds alone, it was already obvious that no system can exist without an environment. Such a system would end in entropy or not come about in the first place, since it would revert immediately to a state of equilibrium without difference.
Already Parsons had spoken of 'boundary maintenance' and thus changed the definition of a system; he shifted from a system definition that relies on...