system's sole constituent, the operation: clarifying a central concept of luhmannian theory

System's Sole Constituent, the Operation: Clarifying a Central Concept of LuhmannianTheoryAuthor(s): Jean ClamSource: Acta Sociologica, Vol. 43, No. 1 (2000), pp. 63-79Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4201182 .

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ACTA SOCIOLOGICA 2000

System's Sole Constituent, the Operation:

Clarifying a Central Concept of Luhmannian

Theory

Jean Clam

CNRS, Paris, France

ABSTRACT The autopoietic turn in Luhmann's later theory is not thinkable without the refocusing of systems theory around a new concept of operativity. The article shows the lines of

development from the earlier theory towards the final prevailing of a purely operativist conception of the system. The movement is one of deconstructing all intuitive

representations of a border-defined, thing-like system. The radical version that emerges leaves the operation as the sole and unique systemic constituent. The article shows that such a strain of thought contracting an extensive transitive structure into a purely operative core has major philosophical antecedents: Aristotle's conception of the actuation of life or intellection in a composite being, Fichte's self-position of the transcendental I, Heidegger's subject and authorless 'Ereignis' constitute very similar figures of 'operativization'. This sheds light on the most problematic aspect of Luhmannian theory, namely its reliance on a 'protologic' that does not elaborate, like similar philosophical endeavours before it, on the fundaments of its own evidence.

Jean Clam, 1796 Av. de Grasse, F-83300 Draguignan, France ? Scandinavian Sociological Association 2000

Niklas Luhmann's systemist sociology is, in its own project, often misunderstood. The option for a description of society within a systems theoretical framework is very often reduced to an all-commanding assertion of the structuring function of systems in today's societies. Luh- mannian systemism is conceived frequently as an attempt to apply a general systems approach to social phenomena. The benefits of such an

approach would then have to be assessed in terms of a greater accuracy of the sociological description as well as a greater explanatory potency. Not taking into consideration the

complete transformation of the original framework through Luhmann's fresh modelling of its central concepts, such an assessment is doomed to misapprehension.

I will show in the following how and why Luhmann goes far beyond the current systems model, and in what direction his theory heads. I

shall have to show the intricacy of the constructions necessitated by the categorial radicalization it undertakes. I begin with an

introductory presentation of the systems problematics in Luhmann's sociology in order to come to the core concept of the whole theory: that of a 'non-real', purely 'actual' system, containing nothing and made of nothing but

operations.

1. The transformation of systemism

Luhmann's interest in the systems model is

particularly ambiguous. To have a clearer idea of the status and function of the model within the theory, I will set Luhmann's fundamental

options and intuitions into the broader context of his sociological work. My thesis, which stresses a statement obvious for any person



64 ACTA SOCIOLOGICA 2000 VOLUME 4 3

acquainted with the work, is that the specific conatus of Luhmann's enterprise is to conceive

complex objects by means of an adequate, equally complex theory capable of accounting for the emergence of complexity as a specific mode of reality or givenness of the real. Luhmann had a very firm intuition of an

inescapable and profound break in the representation of reality, making impossible or

illusory the continuation of heretofore familiar

self-descriptions of thinking, feeling and theoriz-

ing. He held the conviction that the objects to be modelled in sociology (personal interaction, institutions, groups, organizations, functional

subsystems, society . . .) could not be constructed in the terms of classical sociology. Unlike Parsons, Luhmann had a vision of the

historiality of categorial settings. His knowledge of Heidegger enabled his perspective on the transformations of all-sustaining matrices of

thought as 'ontohistorial' (seinsgeschichtlich) ones. The 'epoqual' comprehensions of being precede and determine the modes of action and

experience realizable in a historical social

setting. Luhmann's concerns reflected the

problems of theory-building in the historial terms of philosophical hermeneutics. He was

profoundly conscious of the rupture of the

ontological tradition. From the beginning his

project is very clearly one of a post-metaphysical theory of society.

The reformulation of systems theory initi-

ally seeks to critique and thereby overcome the

sociological concept of action, a concept that seems to Luhmann both undefendable and doomed to atrophy. This took place at a time when no convincing model was available that could compete with it or prevail over it in

descriptive or heuristic terms. Long before a new version of systems theory was developed, Luhmann saw the categorical nature of action as making too many massive assumptions of

self-identity, internal consistency and ontological firmness of the acting subject. The predomi- nance of the action model was for him

intimately associated with the concept of a

privileged, dignified actor. Luhmann's constant and very early rejection of any axiological assumption is reminiscent of Heidegger's own

repulsion with all value thinking. The function- alism of the early Luhmann could thus be seen as the expression of his definite disqualification of all ontologically impregnated ways of think-

ing. His increasingly complex interdisciplinary arrangements integrating a number of hetero-

geneous 'theory pieces' (Theoriest?cke) and his

constant borrowings of incongruous theoretical

perspectives are required and given order by their distance from inadequate modes of

thought. Luhmann is the sociologist of our

century with the most acute sense of the post- ontological (non) structure of communication

constituting a world where things (res) have no

consistency and where only differences are events.1 He has, as a theoretician, an acute consciousness of the need for non-metaphysical frameworks for the description and comprehension of 'what is'.

Thus, functionalist systems theory was, for Luhmann, a convenient departure point for a much more comprehensive theory designed to

grasp the non-identity, the paradoxical and unsummarizable character of reality. The systems theory of Parsons and the first-order

cybernetics had to be enlarged and transformed to integrate a variety of systemic and non-

systemic approaches capable of enhancing its

complexity and reflexivity, viz. Second-order

cybernetics (von Foerster), paradoxalist difference theories (Spencer Brown, Derrida), emer-

gence medium-form theory (Fritz Heider), horizontalist meaning theory (Husserl), differentialist linguistic (Saussure) and communication (Bateson) theories. There thus remains

nothing of the representation of a previously available general theory that could be applied to a special field of research. What should be most

insistently noted is that the system category is

only apparently wider than that of society as its eventual application field. Luhmann's special intuition, the one which gives his theory its

specific profile and bestows on it a real

autonomy with regard to all other philosophies and theories that contribute to its constructions, is the following: society is a self-contained field of social communication and the site of all

self-descriptions of human communication:2 it is the place where all meaning is born and can be equated with a constituting intersubjectivity stripped of its transcendental nature. Since all

partial or global world representations are

communicatively elaborated, society (i.e. social

communication) is the self-engendering reality - like Hegels Geist, once more denuded from

metaphysical assumptions. The condensations of social communication (in meanings, institutions, routines, systems. . . ) are purely circular and have no anchoring in any reality outside.

They are paradoxical because they include a structural reference to an indefinite further connection and to an unattainable internal

consistency. Society is the paradigm of a system



System's Sole Constituent, the Operation 65

or an entity that escapes all objectivation and

engulfs the observation itself that posits it as its

objective correlate. Luhmann's vision of sociology as a science

of society transforms it into a sort of vagrant 'supertheorie' with a special reference to the basic category of 'system'. The radical remodel-

ling of the system category enables it to remain a

unifying pattern of the theory. Nevertheless, a reformulation of the theory in terms of differentiation and mediation as an alternative to

systemist ones is thinkable throughout. What is fundamental, then, is a type of category capable of expressing the measure of reflexivity, circu-

larity and paradox inherent to society as it is

thought by Luhmann. The specific performance of his sociology is. thus, the identification and manifestation of social communication as the last convex, the untranscendable envelope, of all

meaning and all reality.3 Society - that is, the

'Sinnsystem Kommunikation - constitutes the

unfolding of indefinitely self-referential and inconcludable differences as a multi-dimension-

ally articulated system of meaning, overarching consciousness. There is no access to the world of

meaning without a socialization of individual consciousness in the field and flux of an

unending and ungroundable communication. Communication is, thus, a self-engulfing structure, being the context of itself.

Society and system are interdependent concepts insofar as the motive for the revision of systems theory was the conception of society as a circular, self-contextual structure of a very specific type: on the other side, the systems theoretical framework offered a departure point for developing a post-ontological theory which will very soon exceed it. Moreover, the intuition of the unbounded status and scope of sociology is not a late product of the theory itself, but is there from the beginning: when Luhmann comes to sociology after many years in administrative office, he is attracted by the generality of its perspective, the possibility to advance in

any theoretical direction, free from disciplinary limitation. Sociology, in his perception, is a field where 'one can do everything',4 pursuing any interest in knowledge. The range of themes is almost unlimited, and the sociologist can direct his choice towards any mundane object: per- sons, nature, the state, music, intimacy, etc . . . There is a sociology of everything, everything being communicatively constituted through social media and systemic processes.

Luhmann's path from the presentiment of the omnicompetence and thematic vagrancy of

sociology to the most sophisticated theoretical

expressions of the self-reference of communication is an interesting one. It shows us how an interest in the universal theme of sociology takes body in the project of a general theory of

society and how the generality of this theory leads to a radical reformulation of the concept of

society as well as of the concept of system, the latter being designed to be the main category reflective of the former. Thus, the project of a

general theory of an enlarged and profoundly reflexive concept of society induces the radical

recasting of the systemic categories.5 To retrace Luhmann's progression towards a de-ontologization of the system category is thus worth- while.

The initial research in Luhmann's early work is concentrated on organization theory. Systemist and affinitive approaches were

already developed in this domain, and they have been considerably amplified since.6 Luh- mann's main questioning in this seminal phase centred on the conception of an 'other' ration-

ality. Actually, administrative science and organization theory were soaring in an impressive effort to renew their fundaments: the heretofore

unitary conception of the formal organization as a human institution designed for the realization of definite goals instrumented through complex informational and procedural means was foun-

dering. The sociology of organization was

discovering how almost all formal organizational schemes, tokens and routines were doubled through informal ones. Therewith, the system constituted by the organization revealed itself as much more complex than its instituted, unifying, mostly hierarchical design. Particularly, the category of goal and goal attainment was withering away: the difficult

identifiability of final representations, the con-

fusing interdependence and co-variation of

apparent, strategic and objective goals, the constant but irregular re-import in the organization system of informal secondary and unin- tended positive ends . . . made necessary such a

complexification of the notion that it became

eventually soundless to work with it further.7 New light was also shed on the relations of the

organization with its environments, thereby showing an incomparably more nuanced

image than that of an internally functional

system unit subjected to environmental con- straints and producing correlative responses.

The conclusion that Luhmann as an

organization theorist drew from these premises




resulted in a research programme focussed on the concept of complex, or as he termed it.

'systemic rationality'. The programme was to be

implemented in two stages: (1) a critique of the

supposition of an immanent instrumental

rationality of organization presenting the organizational mode of action as a unique tool, defined and unified by its goals and ends, and whose rationality is univocally inscribed in its transitive hierarchical architecture; and (2) a

descriptive and conceptual work on a great number of phenomena constituting complex rationality in a variety of complex figures. The

programme went through a series of recon- structions of the complex intelligence sedimented in organizations as well as in every communicational phenomenon. Actually, every such

phenomenon combines a series of mutually conditioned devices to a relatively functional and operative whole that can take various forms, ranging from quasi-instant social systems of fugitive face-to-face interaction to the heaviest and most enduring formal institutional ventures. This combination is far from being a

product of pre-projecting design and, above all. from being grasped in its consequences. Thus, the descriptive work converges towards the

problem of order, of its origin and evolution. Within the framework of a theory of complex rationality, order appears as emergent, open to variation and self-sensitive,9 requiring non- linear, intransitive and original theoretical

concepts. At its origin, the research identifies

self-destabilizing paradoxical settings. An instance of such settings is the double con-

tingency scheme, which Luhmann takes over from Parsons and Shils and develops into a

generative figure of all order10 in collective

meaning systems - that is, social systems.11 Systemic rationality is thus a title for the

central intuition of the improbability, fluency and circularity of order. Order is improbable not because it calls for human - or divine - design, but because it has to be accounted for as the non-natural, non-spontaneous - although self-

organizing12 - realization of forms of being that no design could have predicted and no self- directed process could have produced. The

system-order emerging from non-reproducible conjunctions of factors and circumstances is fluent, nurtured through fluency.13 It is never structured only from within. Order is 'differential' in the sense that it is the unceasing negotiation of a difference between non-order and order. The maintenance of the system-order is an explicit and continuous performance. As

such it is not self-evident. Most fallacious is thus the spatial representation of the order-unity as a closed entity containing in itself its order

components and internally quiescent as long as its environment does not exercise any pressure on its boundaries. Order is rather an actual difference, order/non-order, which is reflected in its first term (order) and whose maintenance takes the deceptive, metaphorical form of a (spatial) boundary. In fact, the

boundary is a complex actual relation, an effectuation or an actuation - I try to translate the German word: Vollzug - of an asymmetrical difference and its reflection in one of its terms.

Very soon the problematic of complex order concentrates on the de-realization or de-onto-

logization of the spaces, the fluxes and functional activities related to the system. To think

systems as pure differences becomes the de-

ontologizing programme of Luhmann's systems theory. All its lines of argument converge in this direction.

To sum up, I could say that the new de-

ontologized concepts are an alternative to the

metaphysically grounded theoretical frameworks of action theory. This does not mean that those frameworks are altogether invalid; they are just outclassed by a new theoretical

design called for by deep transformations in the

projections (Entw?rfe)14 of the meaning and structure of the objects of the relevant sciences. To use an analogy I will discuss more thor-

oughly at the end of the article, the projection of the unconscious as the primary psychic object and the proper theme of the science of the

psyche is an alternative to the previous intro-

spectivist and cognitivist projection of such an

object within the psychology of consciousness. The old designs, which are thus superseded, do not lose their whole relevance. They must nevertheless be brought up to the new level, restructured so as to fit into the new categorial projections. Coming back to the problematics within sociology at the emergence of the post- actionalist systemist model. I can read it as follows: Action theory is intrinsically ontologi- c?l in its categorial design; it is co-extensive with the triadic. extensive, transitive operator-operatio-operatum structure, which objectifies its terms as real, self-identical terms: it lives from the equally ontological assumptions made on the nature of the subject-actor as self-conscious bearer of intentions and will, promoter of his action through its more or less rational instrumentation. The invention (in the double sense of founding and figuring) of a de-




ontologizing level of intellection15 is equivalent to the breakthrough in the direction of new

categories framing the comprehension of the social. These categories enable and demand an abandonment of the assumption that there is an actor or an action behind social communication. They allow the positing of a specific, autonomous, anonymic, non-aggregative objectivity. Such objectivity is no more ontologically projectible. It requires the framework of a transformed systemism, centred on the inher-

ently circular, self-differential entity which Luhmann continues to call a system. The new

subject-object of sociology - the social - is communication as a system. Communication is the last constituent of the social, behind which there are neither actors nor things, but only operations. These are the sole, variously specifi- able constituents of all communicative systems.

2. Figures of thought

Differential self-actuation I have followed Luhmann on his way from the

reception of systems organization theory to his elaboration of systemic rationality. I saw that what was to be thought could not be conceived

along the classical ontoiogical schemes of

objectivation. The kinds of objects that came to the fore were paradoxical in the sense that

they could not be thought of as identities or unities, bearing extrinsic relations to their environments, but as system-environment du- alities with an asymmetrical anchoring of the

self-position of the duality in the system. This was the abstract frame of systemic rationality, which had to enable us thinking organizational devices, active or sedimented intelligence as

ambiguous contributions to the system's stabi-

lity as well as instability. When boundaries are

de-spatialized to become the expression of the self-difference of the system (as system-environment) in the system (as building a self-

identity), the system enshrines in itself its own

negation. It becomes a circular dynamic whose

potentialities flow from the internalization of its environment (non-self) in itself. That is how order is built from noise; that is why the main resources for stability and adaptation are inherent instability and variety and why fixed

optimality is suboptimal and diverse suboptim- ality a major asset for evolution.

This access to the problematic of asymmetrical self-identity of system from Luhmann's initial preoccupation with organization theory

is a convenient one and yet, importantly, not the

only one possible. Luhmann's early - and a

fortiori later - work is not restricted to this theme and contains already a series of more

general as well as different perspectives. Never-

theless, where law or politics, power or values are at stake, the systems theoretical approach transforms the traditional problem positions through discovering the underlying paradoxical structures. Thus, the juridical code (lawful/ unlawful) can itself be neither lawful nor unlawful; the medium of politics, power, lives

communicationally from its non-use; values are a sort of complexity 'stoppers', instrumented to cover the self-reference of all orders of meaning. Throughout these examples, the fundamental theoretical difficulty is that systems are inher-

ently incomplete and made unstable through their differential structures.

I should, however, insist on the passage from ( 1 ) the classical representation of a system as a unity with an immanent order facing an environment which acts on it, thus promoting or inhibiting the unfolding of its order structure; to (2) a differential representation where the order unit is that of an asymmetrically reflected difference order/non-order. The contrast brings out the features of the end term. Actually, the involved relational and theoretical structure in this term is not unprecedented. It is part of a stock of very special, rarely used figures I encounter in the philosophical tradition from Aristotle to Heidegger. Where such figures appear, they are regularly associated with a

daring and violent effort to think at a challen-

ging level of originarity and against habits of intuitive thought. I will discuss two such figures in unequal detail. The first, which I call the

'originary self-positing self-identity', is the one at stake here; the second is the one I call the

kNur-Vollzug structure, meaning a structure whose terms are contracted in a sole self- contained act or effectuation (this figure engulfs the first one and will be explained in more

detail). My main purpose in this article is to show

how Luhmann's most central theses can be read

instructively by means of such a structural

commentary of the engaged figures of thought. The objects of my attention are then those

figures of thought - I could say logismoi - that make possible a radical transformation of the

problem vision. My 'logismological' approach focuses on the constitution and performance of such figures and in this sense, it has certain affinities with Luhmann's theory-building as a



68 ACTA SOCIOLOGICA 2000 VOLUME 43

type of highly reflexive venture. Luhmann pays a lot of attention to the theorization choices and their figures themselves. The actually unfolding theory becomes thus an object for itself and the result of a series of construction decisions made

consciously by the theoretician. This leads to a

very high level of reflexive abstraction in

thought and argument. Luhmann's theory of

theory did not, however, thematize the under-

lying figures of its most crucial categorial contractions. While it is ultimately enlightening to the problematics of complex theorizing,16 it still lacks a genuine analysis of most decisive

figures. These figures have, in my eyes, analo-

gues in the specific theory-building of first

philosophy (prot? philosophia or prima philosophia)

7 on the ground of the originary emergence of the first lineaments of being.

Our thesis is, in particular, that the self- difference paradox can be compared with such a

figure of prime philosophy and thus be clarified

through the reminiscence of some of the transcendental deductions that give expression to it. I chose Fichte's 'Wissenschaftslehre' whose line of progress is most elaborated.18 In Fichte's deduction, at the beginning is a 'Thathandlung' (self-performing act),

9 which is the self-position of the I (the transcendental subject).2 Before this self-position, there is nothing worldly21 and the emergence of the I is that of being, i.e. of a world. However, the self-position of the Ursub-

jekt is not global-spherical: the I is not a closed hen kai pan, self- and all-containing in the sense of having no other. Fichte's argument is

precisely that the advent of the I in its originary act is the advent of a difference, of a same and

non-same, of I and not-I (Ich und Nicht-Ich). The

subject is a subject of something which is not itself. Fichte's vision differs, thus, from the

conceptions of the Parmenidian metaphysics or that of scholastic theological speculation on the state of being ante mundi creationem. The difference I/Not-I is, further, what is reflected in the I itself and constitutes the most genuine act of the I as I. The I is not a closed and total

sphere. It is embedded in a split (or a scratch,

Ritz). The I is the split whose name is world and whose act is the reflection of this same splitting difference.

The scheme of thought here calls for a

distancing from intuitive modes of comprehension, where unities or identities are posited as

separate and closed wholes. I and Not-I cannot be thought of as two distinct entities standing in an extrinsic relation to each other, whose

product is, a third and distinct new term. Not

only are all terms here a sole differential structure and a sole self-actuating Vollzug (effectuation), but also an asymmetrical one. The Not-I can never attain to the determinative

density of the I, because precisely the I is the site of the reflection of the uneven difference I/Not-I. This asymmetrical moment is best stressed in the protologic of G. Spencer Brown, who conceives the unmarked state within the

inaugural distinction as a sort of residual

term, correlative to the marked state of the distinction. Here also the duality of the self- difference (I/Not-I, marked state/unmarked

state) is reflected in the active density of, so to

speak, the 'positive' term of the distinction - the

indication, in Spencer Brown's terminology. Distinction is thus, in a specific, paradoxical sense, self-continent, insofar as it needs nothing more to exist than its moments united in one sole act: effectuation.

As a matter of fact, Luhmann's reliance on Brownian protologic for the presentation and

development of his own theory gradually escalated to reach a quasi-dominant position in his later work. As I shall stress later on, this

dependence makes the question about the theoretical status of Luhmannian assumptions and proto-sociological theorems most acute. At what level is the body of the most general and abstract sentences of Luhmann's theory of

society to be situated? Is it transcendental a

priori or is it simply a generalization of a set of crossed evidences stemming from various domains of observation? My thesis is that Luhmann's major assertions rely on a sort of a

priori ground with no transcendental reference, which is that of the Brownian protologic. Thus, I think that the logical calculus of George Spencer Brown, published under the title Laws

of Form,22 is most accurately qualified as a

'protologic'. Classical logics included (1) an

encompassing theory of enunciation (sentence and discourse) and inference (deduction of sentences from sentences), like the inaugural logic of Aristotle; (2) an apriorical deduction or

description of the constituting acts of a pure consciousness performing the cognitive operations of judgement and reckoning, like the transcendental logics of Kant and Husserl; (3) a formal or mathematical body of theorems - an

algebra - syntactically inferred from a small set of axioms and symbol definitions, like the logic of the Principia mathematica of R?ssel and Whitehead. In contrast to these logics, particularly the last one, Spencer Brown's programme is an inquiry into the pre-discursive laws




emerging with the most elementary position of

'something'. These laws must be situated at a level preceding the level of expression grasped by classical logic. Protologic denotes, thus, in our context, the logic implied in the most

general act of appearance or position of a

something (a form). It reveals Our internal

knowledge of the structure of the world' (Laws of Form 1969:xiii). The form, as it is understood by Spencer Brown, is prior to anything logic can thematize at its own levels of generality. It is to be thought of as lying at such a depth of

originality and generality as to be 'beyond the

point of simplicity where language ceases to act

normally' (ibidr.xx). It, then, 'resists expression' (ibid.), whereas logic is something discursive about which I can talk and which I can

objectivize.23 To be sure, and this is a point I have already

noted, Brownian protologic is not the only approach Luhmann draws upon in order to think systems as differences and not as res. Luhmann's own method commanded a diversi- fication of the contributions integrated into the

theory, in order to raise its incongruity and curb the tendency towards massively unifying and

potentially re-ontologizing concepts. Neverthe-

less, Spencer Brown becomes gradually the dominant reference of the late theory, which

develops into an Observation theory' based on the Brownian concept of difference as a bilateral

concept (zwei-Seiten-Form). This evolution is not

altogether advantageous. Brown's logic is still a

very poorly elucidated theory waiting for a

genuinely appropriating reception. Yet, Luh- mann works with it as if it were not only common knowledge, but as if one had fully grasped the transformation of the deep ontolo-

gical structure it induces. In his texts, the same concise, schematic hint at Spencer Brown's Laws of Form suffices to justify the most abstract

concepts and the shorthand-like exposed arguments. This is the reason why I think that I should try to build an analogical space as much around Spencer Brown's protologic as Luh- mann's use of it. For this purpose, I turn to the

philosophical tradition as a reservoir of most instructive figures of thought. The advantage of the philosophical references is that they bring with them the necessary diachronic and historical depth severely needed for the clarification of

categorial revisions. Fichte's deduction of the asymmetrical self-

difference structure and of its reflexive entan-

glements is instructive because it reminds us that the main difficulties of theorizing on an

originary-structural level are twofold: (1) to think from a theoretical site lying before

experience in a transcendental world without time and without objective firmness; and (2) to think in a world of pure actuality without time and without objective products of activity. Despite the fact that Luhmann's theory does not develop on any transcendental ground, its

figures of thought still have many essential features in common with the apriorical tradition. The theoretical constructs shaped in this tradition as groundwork of all subsequent empirical acting and experiencing have a sort of homological counterpart in an enlarged systems theory. This is even more the case as

systems theory integrates protological components and is shaped in such a manner as to become a sort of universal theory of objects.24 It is actually inescapable that at a certain level of

originality - which we could call protological, and where we would situate most apriorical theories - heterogeneous schemes share in a series of figures. The instance of Fichte's deduction shows how a thought taking place at the emerging point of things, at an observation site revealing their most universal features, is forced into unintuitive, highly reflexive, contracted paths. One should see that Luh- mann's theory is not just a sociological theory of a particularly high generality. It should be seen that such a theory incorporates a very central

protological dimension. Taken seriously, this fact

changes the basis of the theory reception. It is thus hopeless to try to make sense of the theory of self-referential social systems, above all when

they are conceived of as nothing but operations, while occulting the protological problematic.

Circular actuality (Nur-Volhug) Let us now examine more accurately some

important moments of the figure of thought elaborating on the self-difference structure. In the course of my commentary on Fichte's

deduction, I said that the main pressure bending thought into counter-intuitive, highly com-

pacted patterns originates from the twofold

necessity of abstracting time and the necessity to reabsorb all intuitively - i.e. extensively posited - terms into one or a few ('verbal') actual aspects of a circular process. I now show that this figure of contraction of extensive terms in actual effectuation (Vollzug) is not specific to the transcendental tradition, but is also required in other philosophical approaches confronted with problems of the composite constitution of

specific beings. Concerning Luhmann, the pre-




sent stage of my discussion will offer an instructive specification of his general conception of system as a differential non-entity. It will take the form of a commentary on its most fundamental, most pregnant statement: 'nur Kommunikation kann kommunizieren' (only communication can communicate).25

I begin with a presentation of the figure as it is elaborated by Aristotle, in crucial develop- ments of his psychological theory.26 It is the central figure of the act theory of the soul, which solves the major problems of the preceding doctrines. The theory reacts to the quasi- mythological treatment of psychology by Plato, for whom the soul is a composite being extended over several heterogeneous domains and whose

unity seemed ever since problematic. It is

topologically dispersed and its heterogeneous parts are thought of as co-existing and often

interacting with each other in a global space. The question for Plato was that of the uniting domination (h?gemon?n) of one part over the other or all others within this plurality.27 Aristotle simplifies the stratificatory scheme of the soul into three main parts: a vegetative (growth and decay without motion), an animal

(autonomous motion and sense) and an intellectual (knowledge) part. He then resolves the

problem of the unity of the strata in superior living beings like animals or men in an audacious and straightforward manner. He

rejects the idea of cumulative stratificatory endowments and brings to the fore an actual- effectual or Verbal' concept of form, which transforms the problem: the soul (psych?) is the form (eidos) of the living body in the sense that it is the act (the realized dynamis, the energeia) of

living, which is its perfection (entelecheia). In the soul of a human being there are not three

partial souls or three psychic floors interrelated

through the material being they animate. There is only one act, through which the living human

being lives and realizes his being (tois z?isi to zen

einai, esse viventibus vivere, De anima 415b:14). Each time this act is specified as vegetative (when man sleeps), animal (when he perceives) or intellectual (when he thinks). The life of such a being is 'effectuated' (actually realized) in one sole act of being, which is here life in its

vegetative, animal or intellectual farm. There is no need to multiply the involved beings.

The act theory dispels all forms of being which are not actual-effectual (Vollzug), i.e. all forms of already given res-like beings. The

theory transforms the comprehension of being as presence of objects (frozen products of once

enacted being) in their multiplicity, factual

diversity and dispersion into that of an originary actus essendi. There is a transformation of the

thick-setting of an extensive, transitive multi- moment structure into a circular intransitive,

internally effective, unique-moment structure. The logico-grammatical triadic structure of

operator-operatio-operatum must be counter-

intuitively compacted into a monadic structure with one last irreducible component, the

operado. A step must be made to cut behind the current logical and linguistic settings of triadic ontic evidence and to attain to the

protological founding dimension of the 'sole-

operation' structure. The act theory invokes the

originary ontological ground, out of which a

reality emerges, whose obscured perception breaks its primal 'collection' (Sammlung) and scatters its vivid core into cooled disjected members.

The problem created by such an analogy between Aristotle's act theory in its modern

interpretation and Luhmann's operation the-

ory is that of the limits beyond which both theories are no more comparable. Massive

misinterpretations lurk, should the analogy be loaded with more than it bears. Aristotle's form

actuality is metaphysical in the sense that it is not a historically or a self-organizationally emerging operation, but is the actuating of a

primarily actual essence. It is not an arbitrary distinction, a contingent split on the world's surface. The Aristotelian actuality is essential. It is also strictly unitary and self-sufficient. Its

circularity is not differential or paradoxical; it is

spherical and global. No form-act refers to another form-act or to an environing non-act, the difference to whom is reflected in the form- act itself. However, if these are the restrictions to be made on my analogy, the analogy itself remains pertinent as an elucidation of the actual-effectual figure which is decisive in Luhmann's categorial revision of sociology. While the Fichtean deduction could help us to understand the asymmetrical three-step process (position of system as concomitant with the position of difference to an unmarked environment and reflection of the difference as core operation of the system) as a protological untemporal unique circularity; the Aristotelian figure gives us a key for under-

standing more than the actual-effectual aspects of the r?sorption of extensive terms into one

operative structure, already partially enlight- ened by the comparison with Fichte. It is

mainly interesting for the invaluable contribu-



Systems Sole Constituent, the Operation 71

tion it offers to the understanding of the

couplings between different operation types, that is, different systems.

The relatedness and dependency of the brain autopoiesis28 to the autopoiesis of consciousness, as well as the relatedness of the latter to the autopoiesis of communication, can be explained in terms very much analogous to Aristotle's act theory. Only communication can communicate, meaning that consciousness - as well as the brain - cannot: this refers to an actual contraction necessary to think the form as act. There is no place for whatever multi-

plicity in the Aristotelian scheme because the entities at stake are not objective (res-like), but actual-effectual (Vollzug). Multiplicity is the co- existence of many different items at a time, in a

space. Prime actuality - or protological processes - are non-spatial and are untemporal in the sense that they are not in time as in a pre- existing space. They are, on the contrary themselves time-generative. There is thus no

place, on the originary ground, for a multiplicity of acts. The actus essendi of a living being is life and that of a thinking living being is thinking (noein). There is no stratification, ordering the acts of being, life, vegetation, perception and intellection as a multiplicity in space or time,

arranging their cumulation at the higher levels. In the action theoretical framework, the most

specific act is always and alone the actual one. AH others, 'underlying' ones, are there, in it.

They are superseded by its actual specificity so that their actuation 'is' its own.

Coupling of operative levels Aristotle proposed a detailed theory of the

couplings involved in the actual absorption of lower act dimensions within higher ones, in

particular the famous abstraction theory coupling perception and intellection through the

processing of sense data into intellectual forms.29 It is not possible to expose it here, but what is sure is that the analogical setting of both theories, Aristotle's and Luhmann's, persists around their central logismic figures. Thus, Luhmann approaches the problematics of coupling as one of a contribution of the autopoiesis of the lower systems to the autopoiesis of the

higher ones. This contribution takes the form of an entry of lower difference reflections in higher ones without breaking the unity of the specific actual effectuation. When conscious material

(thoughts - Gedanken)10 enters communication, it does so in the form of that material which

structurally stimulates the asymmetrical differ-

enee reflection that constitutes the communication acts. The conscious actuality entering the communicative actuality does not operate like a material component entering a material synthesis. Consciousness is already fully and genuinely present in communication. When communication is actuated, consciousness and cerebral life are as well. Aristotle had already stressed this presupposition relationship of the lower actuality by the higher one.31 In Luh- mannian terms: whereas only communication communicates, there is no communication without consciousness and no consciousness without cerebral life.

The difference between the two visions lies in Luhmann's conception of the absorption of the subordinate actuality in the effectuation of the more specific one in terms of contribution and stimulation. Since the lower actuality does not imply the realization of the higher one, since

e.g. consciousness is not already communication, the coming to pass of communication must be specifically conditioned. Communication

being autopoietic, the continuous connection of its operations from one instant to the next,

building more or less coherent sequences, is

purely communicative in nature. That means that each level of actuality is completely autonomous in its sequence-building and

time-consuming operation. The system endures on the basis of self-motion and self-continuation

through the structural connectibility of its parts - each operation demanding the connection of a new one of the same actuality. The lower

actuality systems do not condition the operative continuity of the higher ones - these would otherwise not be autopoietic; rather they supply them with the type of actuality they need, which is in turn transformed by them, through a specific reticulation into the higher type actuality. The 'material' out of which communication is made is conscious 'Erlebnisse, sense

syntheses of the specific kind that I call consciousness. These syntheses build the basic 'material' of communication by entering into the higher syntheses specific to this higher type of sense system.

Not all conscious syntheses enter, however, into the higher communicative ones, as the transformation of conscious experience (thought, in Luhmann's terminology) into

intersubjective communication is not itself automatic. Moreover, not all conscious syntheses are equally appropriate to enter into communication - some being structurally excluded, like incommunicable, ineffable con-




scious experiences. The choice of the terms 'contributions' and 'stimulations' to describe the relations between a pair of asymmetrically conditioned levels of actuality reflects this

unequal and selective structure of systemic coupling. Some conscious operations are more stimulated than others to engage in communication. Once communication is actual, the

theory considers that the conscious material has ceased to operate and has acceded to the

higher operative synthesis of communication. The problem of a conscious experience of communication itself during its own operation is not that of a confusion of the two levels of

operation, but that of a simultaneity or double-

stage effectuation (Vollzug) of the two syntheses. The problem is prevented through the multi- dimensional structure of communication itself in Luhmannian theory. Through its conception of communication as a threefold operation consisting of information, impartation (Mit- teilung)12 and comprehension (Verstehen), the

theory accounts explicitly for the phenomenon of the continuous 'quant ? soi underwriting communication. Thus, the unquestionable phenomenon of a current being-for-myself, feeling and judging in myself of the contents of

communication, while engaged in communica-

tion, is not occulted in the theory. The conscious

sequences accompanying continuously actual communication and forming, so to speak, its

background, are respectively among the con-

stituting acts of communication. The unim-

peachable autonomy and self-referentiality of the communicative sequences guarantee the

autopoietic character of the communication

system and inhibit any attempt to resolve communication into consciousness.

A possible interpretation of Aristotle's act

theory points towards a new logismic horizon that I will have to explore. It has been

suggested to conceive of the Aristotelian actuation of a specific and individual being as a continuous realization of a form in its

adequate matter. The actuation of vegetative life in a rose is thus an actuation of being-a- rose in adequate matter, throughout each moment of its existence; that of a cell, the continuous actuation and thereby maintenance of the being or form cell in adequate matter throughout all its metabolic processes. The metaphor that bears the whole interpretation is that of a whirlpool maintaining the

stability of the form through the flow of matter. This conception of 'transtemporal stability', within which specific and individual form

actuating is a 'sempiternal wrap or bend

informing the local matter',33 goes beyond the heretofore explored theoretical space. With such a view of the temporal-operative event continuum we enter the domain of the concrete realization of the prime originary actuality. We leave the protological level,

reaching what we could call a strictly operational one. Whereas the former described the state of things at their untemporal, time-

inaugural emergence, the latter corresponds to a consideration of the concrete actual- effectual (Nur-Vollzug) event. In real time, the

compactness of the Nur-Vollzug structure is reflected in a very specific form. One would

expect that, in the protological event of a self-

reflecting difference, the bundling or knotting of all extensive terms into one circular actual effectuation must embody in a contraction of the operator and the operatum into a time-

consuming self-centred operatio. The empirical world is, however, when compared to its

originating matrix, a world of cooled out derivatives. It constitutes a level of constructed

reality opposite to the protological one and

structurally unable to host its circular arche-

types. These must, when the departure is taken from the empirical level, always be reinvented in a stark effort of theoretical thought.

The whirlpool metaphor is thus the best suited one to conceive of the sole-being and the

circularity of the operation, as well as the derivative, transitory status of its cooled forma- tions. It has, moreover, a not uninteresting, most concrete basis in biological phenomena. Actually, the material components of living tissues are continuously renewed and replaced within relatively constant periods, while the

biological form is altogether maintained. Thus, the metaphor is in a way inescapable or ceases almost to be one. It offers a convenient transition towards metaphysically unsaddled

representations of operative processes. Presup- positions on the status, ideal identity or

supratemporal sameness of the act forms need not to be made within it. The conception of a

transtemporally stable operatum through the

unceasing, continuous action of a specific, contingent operatio (eventually consuming time and matter) fits quite well as a de-

ontologization of Aristotelian act theory. It establishes the problematic on an empirical operative ground and draws on the contingence and (evolutionary) variability of the form as

opposed to its supposed incorruptible ideal sameness. On the whole, this conception




seems to be very close to Luhmann's view of the

operation as a prime constituent of the system with no guarantee of ontological identity and

stability. Through the flow of time, the concretions

of life, consciousness and communication are cooled forms of current continuous operations. These maintain transtemporally identifiable,

functionally in fine advantageous operata. The

stability of the operata (a cell, a thought, a

specific communication such as a friendly interaction, a work conflict, a legal procedure) is nothing but the permanence, from instant to

instant, of the actual effectuation of the

corresponding operation. The operata have no subsistence and no substance outside the

operation. But what then probabilizes coherent,

enduring, system-building operations rather than anarchic, non-self-confirming, non-con-

densing, instantly vanishing ones? Within Aristotle's act theory, such a question is irrelevant. The act form is an ontologically firm eidos, ever since, and self-identical under all conditions. Within de-ontologized frameworks like systems theory, the tendency to condensation must be especially accounted for, Luh- mann's proposal elaborates on the ground of the self-organization theory in a protological differentialist formulation. Thus, each difference that scratches the surface of the world tends, from its prime event on, to iterate in a way that builds a nucleus for redundancy as well as for variation. Redundancy is the basic, variation-

enabling process, while variation is the mar-

ginal one. Both are the substance, the content of the operative life pulsing in the constituted form

through the time-matter flow. Each operation, from moment to moment, either confirms and condenses further the form, or inflects its

wrapping movement and prepares the possible (not necessary) emergence of new forms. The double trajectory of confirmation and variation is an unpredictable one. Predictions of evolution have some pertinence after bifurcation has occurred, in phases of necessary condensation

through strong redundancy, the post-bifurcative phase being similar to theoretically initial ones. The nearer to the inaugural distinction, the more redundant operating is likely to prevail. The more virginal the ground where the distinction is drawn, or the more originary the level of emergence, the more hasty and intense are the processes of iteration. This is clear from

protological, form-theoretical premises: the reflection of the difference system-environment within the system is stronger, and enhances the

building of self-identity, when the environment is not already so differentiated as to impose internal complexification of the system through the differentiation of diverse roles and functions within the latter. These processes are namely factors of variation that inflect the actuated form in a number of directions. The systemic structure is maintained as long as variation does not provoke a switch to a changed form, whose confirmation would require anew a high measure of shape- or structure-building redun-

dancy. A major feature of Luhmann's systems operativity theory is finally its inversion of the status of structure (in all functionalist and

systemic theories) from one of a superordinated commanding magnitude, whose stability enhancing is the finality of the functional

processes, to one of a flowing process with no real anchoring in things. Structure reflects just the temporary redundancy tendencies of operations, with 'enslaving' effects upon certain

operative sequences.34 To sum up: a system would be a sort of

transtemporally stable whirlpool, a form maintained in actuality through a constant bend of its individual operative components into a

global structure. The complex mechanisms that link together or mutually indent the successive operations are not deterministic.

They are inherently unstable because they are

grounded on paradoxes. These paradoxes are the main source of systemic dis-equilibrium as well as the main resources for complexity- building and actuality-furthering variation.

Pure event The last instantiation of the logismic figure of

Nur-Vollzug I would like to present before

closing this commentary on Luhmann's systemic operation could help us understand its 'evential' aspect. Operation 'happens' as the

asymmetrical reflection of a difference in a form act. The 'products' of this happening are

living beings, conscious contents and social

interchanges. Luhmann's theory tends to deconstruct these cooled objectivities into their constituting operations. But as soon as we leave the real-objective level for the

operative one, we face the problem of the

representability of protological complexes. One of the problematic aspects of thinkability of

originary operativity is the 'happening' of pure operations. What does it mean that an operation happens or comes to pass? Once more the evocation of a philosophical figure is most instructive. It is Heidegger's doctrine of




'Ereignis' (event).35 The idea of 'Ereignis' represents the climax of the fundamental effort of Heidegger to think 'be' (Sein) in its difference to the 'being' (Seiendes). This effort leads to a

complete 'verbalization' of thought structures with a concentration on building ways of access to the non-objective, purely actual universe of prime reality. The main statements have the form: Welt weitet. Nichts nichtet,

Ereignis ereignet, ist istet . . . ,36 reminiscent of that fundamental structure of pure actuality where operator, operatum and operatio are contracted in a sole intransitive, internally actual, circular act. Heidegger's novelty is that pure actuality is thought as ab-solute finite, with no anchoring in any transcendent nor transcendental nor worldly rarity. Being is the pure event of itself, the gift of time and

being, winding in itself like an out-less finite

ring. The pure event is a circular event, a

coming into its own being (Er-eignen). Once

again, the circular structure is a complex one with a dual movement of giving time and being to the reciprocal duality of themselves.

Luhmann's protological conception of a

self-sustaining operativity is certainly nearer to the asymmetrical three-moment movement of the Fichtean deduction than to Heidegger's dual, quasi-mystical movement of a self-giving being. The interest of the Heideggerian figure is, however, its insistence on the event character of circular actuality. Its shaping of the event motive is one whose central stakes are the

'saying' of the gratuity of the givenness of the

given. 'Ereignis is irrelative and causeless. There is no transcendent nor any other actor who does, makes or motivates the event. There is no internal necessity eliciting it and unfolding its movement. Sole-actuality is 'eventual' for Hei-

degger in the sense that its effectuation (Vollzug) has no motive outside of itself. When it comes to

pass and endures through time and being, it is still inaugurally motiveless, with no relation to

anything outside its pure event. This radicality of the Heideggerian figure has no correspondent in Luhmann's theory.

Thus, my last analogical presentation designed to enrich my commentary on Luh- mann's operational conception has to be much more contrastive than the preceding ones.

Operations, the sole systemic constituents,

'happen', occur, in an already existing stream of specifically identical operations. Metabolic

processes, thoughts and communications come to pass through insertion in such a stream,

connecting themselves to respectively adequate

and specific operations which are at that moment effective. This idea is developed by Luhmann along with a well-known theoretical

topic, that of the connection or connectability (Anschluss, Anschlussfahigkeit, Anschliessbarkeit) of current operations in systems. Thus, the pure operativity of systems, though circular, is not

prime-eventual. Its protological description can show it in statu nascendi as emerging and

inaugural, and elucidate its structure, moments and movement. It does not make any assumption on its prime event. Operative systems - in Luhmann's sense - appear then as structurally or immanently unstable: they can never stop operating, being, as I would say, tilted ahead and ever searching adequate connection to

operate. They are literally 'pro-clivious', bent forward in a relentless concatenation with similar entities. This ever-current connecting is nothing else than the effectuation of the

asymmetrical reflection of the difference between the system and its environment within the system. This difference can never attain the status of an in itself quiescent unity. As an actual difference, it is continuously, unceasingly in effectuation (in Vollzug). Thus, systems consisting in actual operations presuppose themselves. Their operations can never begin out of nothing, but always lack connection to other operations of the same autopoiesis in order to happen. Each singular operation is

structurally referential of other operations immediately connected to it through a puzzle- like key mesh. The operations sequence is concatenated through a sort of structural intrusion of the 'end' of one operation into the

'beginning' of the next. To be sure, the expression of this state of

things in terms of a beginning and end of

operations is not very appropriate, though it reflects the fact that the circular process of the

singular operation refers constantly backwards from its (protological) end moment to its

beginning one. In a way each operation has a

part of itself pre-posited in an undetermined next operation, specified through the key fit characteristic of the relevant autopoiesis. An

operation of social communication cannot be connected with an operation of life or of consciousness, as none of the moments of the

autopoiesis of life nor of consciousness are able to fit between the circularly organized moments of the communication operation, i.e. informa-

tion, impartation and comprehension. Each

operation of a specific autopoiesis hosts in itself the reference to a homopoietical operation




under the form of an entangling intrusion of their different moments in the circular process of their effectuation.37

3. The world problem

Although contrasting with such an embedded- ness of the advent of the like in the stream of ever-actuated like, the Heideggerian event con-

cept still has illuminating aspects. It actually shows the thought of Nur-Vollzug in a state of full completion. Unfolding its immanent motives and making explicit its internal horizons, pure operativity would tend to these extremes of pure eventuality. Acutely elaborating on the protological structures, Luhmann's approach is, for its part, not blind to the problem of pure eventuality. In its terms, the problem of the event of circular actuality would be a world

problem, outreaching the scope of a theory of

society - however radical the theory may be in its categorial casting of pure, internal-intransi-

tive, circular operativity. The achieving piece of

Nur-Vollzug thought is the reflection of an aspect of reality which hints towards a horizon that

out-ranges, and in a way engulfs the horizon of all- and self-engulfing communication.

The world problem of world event is, however, like everything having sense, a poten- tial object of social communication. It can be

indicated, discussed, referred to. Any emergence of it is socially constructed. In contrast to all other constructions of communication, it is, however, something that directly hits upon the

paradoxical, self-eluding, circular limitations of social communication itself. It unites all the

paradoxity of the latter in one enigma and gives it the name of the sole horizon of all its horizons, that is, the world. Social communication being the ultimate envelope of itself cannot cross

beyond itself. However, it does not reflect this self-limitation as a problem of communication itself, i.e. as a social problem. Communication reflects its paradoxical character as a whole in the form of a (non-social) world problem. It shows, then, in its most paradox forms like art38 or religion, that there still is a problem that is not its own. A problem that is neither a part of it nor coextensive with it. but definitely larger than it. It is the problem of a sphere that transcends communication and should not be confused with any sphere of the incommunicable within communication. We have seen that conscious experience, especially when very inti- mate and intense, is not easily communicable.

Other spheres of meaning do not motivate communication adequately. Besides, there is a whole shadow domain of communication which is structurally incommunicable: a communication can never impart, in its own act, the

impartation quality of this same act.39 A whole stream of non communication is thus co- current to that of communication, building the non attainability of the whole of communication to itself.40 These are the paradoxes of

pure operativity as structurally pro-clivious and

unending. Besides these specific paradoxes, communication hosts, very centrally, another

type of communication that does not reflect

problems of its self-reference, but the fact that

although all-engulfing and self-contextual, communication is not the 'largest' horizon of

being. Communication, thus, contains the most

paradoxical hint towards a 'world', larger than it is. The extreme of paradox is thus reached in a communication - which could be, like silence, a renunciation of communication - that shows

beyond itself. World problems are problems of the pure eventuality of ever-streaming pure operativity. They are not those of self-reference of communication, but those of the self-reference of the givenness of a world for it.41

4. Social communication: a concept for

refounding sociology

Our exploration of Luhmann's version of

systems theory showed it as a radical transformation of the initial model through a new

shaping of its central categories. The main line of thought commanding this categorial revision could be characterized as a programme of universal de-ontologization viewed as historial

necessity. My endeavour was to shed some light on the ways and motives that led to the final

centring of the whole theory upon the concept of operation. I have proceeded by establishing some conjunctions of Luhmann's approach with philosophical theories, all of which docu- mented efforts to conceive the emergence of fundamental structures of meaning at protological levels. The convergence of these theories towards a de-realization (Ent-dinglichung - or de-

substantivization) of current ontological cate-

gories was in itself instructive. Thus, most efforts went in the direction of a counter- intuitive thinking of internal-intransitive, circular, effectual actuality. I brought them under the logismic title of Nur-Vollzug. Whereas Luhmann's theory stands somewhat alone in




contemporary sociology and seems therefore erratic and incomprehensible, my procedure allowed me to situate it in a line of philosophical thought. The trajectory of the reviewed figures of sole-operation could lead us, in an altogether ordered way, from the first shapings of the

system-operation motive within the complexity problematics to the last of its reflections in the world problem.

Let us venture a last remark on the

sociological interest of such a theory of social communication. Its primary level reveals itself, once more, as very remote from the traditional

settings of social theory - and not only its

empirical ones. It would thus further the

scepticism of those who feel that its 'entry rights' are prohibitively high. Moreover, while

showing the strong stimulation such a general theory receives and exerts on the specifically a

priori theorizing of neighbouring philosophy, my interpretation could have enhanced the opinion of its marginal sociological fertility. My thesis would here be that a sound approach to Luhmann's design cannot do without a minimum

of philosophical analysis of its theoretical premises. Such an analysis should deliver a characterization of the nature and level of the involved concepts. We should avoid self-delusion and recognize the basic evidence that the ground on which Luhmann's theory stands - and falls - is

protological. Protologicity, as practised by Luh- mann, is a very new and peculiar, setting for

forging primary categories, conceptual archi- tectures and descriptive frameworks. Whereas classical sociology could lean on philosophical groundwork (Simmel and Weber on neo- Kan tianism, Scheler and Sch?tz on phenomenol- ogy, etc.), Luhmann inaugurates a new type of relation between a theory of society and the foundational or categorial work of philosophy. He rejects any reliance on a global philosophical position. Instead, he combines a multiplicity of theoretical pieces to a conception of high abstraction and logical priority. The protological status of the whole synthesis is not always clear. Yet, my conviction is that the central pieces of the theory are protological, and hence require a

philosophical elucidation. Actually, protologic is a sort of unidentified transcendental logic which is poorly established and whose contours are still very ambiguous. I can see no way to

dispense with a philosophical elucidation of its statements.

Admittedly, all this being done, the question remains as to the concrete returns of a

theory so costly in terms of conceptual elabora-

tion and so remote from the fields of its

acknowledged objects. My thesis is that the main and most potent acquisition of Luhmann's

theory is the concept of 'social communication'. To make clear what I suggest, I would compare, in strictly epistemological terms, Freud's 'invention' of the Unconscious with Luhmann's construction of 'social communication'.42 The basic epistemological feature they share is that both concepts embody a sort of coming to themselves of their respective disciplines. Actually, both social communication and the unconscious are primary object concepts, cir-

cumscribing the proper theme of a specific science. As the phenomenological thorough theorizing of these matters has shown, such

projections of specific objectivities are nothing less than inductive. They represent fundamental

'Entw?rfe' (castings) of primary objects, impul- sing a decisive differentiation of the scientific

discipline at stake and establishing it on a new basis. They open unsuspected horizons for

theory-building, allowing a much farther-

reaching inspection of their objective domains, as well as a much more rigorous formulation of their accounts. They are prior to any set of observations or cognitions, and have something of a founding performance.

Our suggestion is to consider the Luhman- nian concept of 'social communication' as an

inaugurative performance endowing sociology with its proper object: the social. In the same manner, Freud's Unconscious represented a new foundation of psychology on the basis of a

recasting of the psychic. The analogy holds in a

very pertinent manner. The problem of psychology at the beginning of the 20th century was, from a psychoanalytical point of view, the dominance of I-centred, introspective and cognitive thematizations of the psychic. The psychic as an objectivity was featured in a massively ontological manner, supposing a firm, self- identical and individual mental entity. The

concept of the Unconscious anonymized the

psychic entity, transforming it in a bundle of

processes governed by a complex affectual

economy. We can observe in Luhmann's theory a similar aversion from individualistic ontology and a striking analogy with the anonymizing effects of the position of an anthropologically de- centred - or de-anthropoiogized - third person, non-mechanical processual object. The limits of these similarities between both castings of de- individualized, centre- and nameless primary objects, is that the Freudian Unconscious has been often thought of as an objective entity




existing somewhere - a sort of Atlantis dis-

covered by a good-hearted man who, after a

long search, came across it. From a Luhman- nian point of view, Freud's casting of the psychic was not thoroughly de-ontologizing. For this

purpose, the Unconscious should have been

thought as a difference and not as an identity.43 However, on the whole, we can maintain the

analogy and insist on the autonomizing and

fertilizing effects of the switch, in both psychology and sociology, to anonymous and autonomous primary objects who allow the observation of a level of reality in its own

right. Psychic life is no more an aggregate of conscious or cognitive mental states than social

interchange is an aggregate of individual actions. The contribution of Niklas Luhmann to a refoundation of sociology on the basis of a

proper primary objectivity not only delivers the

concept of such a specific object, but also a

highly reflexive, epistemological and protological theory thematizing all central processes of

any de-ontologization project. My purpose here was to show how the idea of a circular,

internally actual operation constitutes the core of such a theory.

First version received July 1999 Final version accepted September 1999

Notes

1 Luhmann's first articles bear testimony to this consciousness, where the '?berholtsein der ?berlieferten metaphysischen Bestimmung der Wahrheit von ontologischen Pr?missen her' (Luhmann 1962:1. 63) is stated as the basis for a profound transformation in the dogmatic structure of social beliefs.

2 A political project, a juridical dogmatics, the perception of or the acting in a market, a scientific theory, a game, a conflict ... all are conceived as self-descriptions of social communication, constituting modes of representing the world within communication as well as modes of experiencing or acting related to it.

3 The text (Derrida), consciousness (Husserl), language or logic (Saussure, Spencer Brown) are other figures of the same protological paradigm. 4 A formulation Luhmann uses in biographical interviews: . . . weil man als Soziologe alles machen kann, ohne auf einen

bestimmten Themenbereich festgelegt zu sein' (1987:141). 5 Parsons' systemism was in many respects too narrow, too essentialist for that purpose, lacking the main characteristics of the required theory, namely high reflexivity. For a reconstruc- tion and critique of Parsons' essentialism, see Clam (1999:142- 150).

6 The relevant literature is immense. The theoretical sophistication has been ever-increasing. Organization theory and its literature remained a constant source of inspiration for the later Luhmann - until recently, where the evolutionary problematic in the chapter 'Evolution' of Die Gesellschaft der

Gesellschaft (Luhmann 1997) was developed partially on the basis of such literature.

7 The major reference in Luhmann's work is definitely Zweckbegriff und Systemrationalitdt (1973). Yet Legitimation durch Verfahren (1969), where the rationality of subordinate, micro- final devices like procedures is theorized, is also interesting.

8 See Clam (1997), the first part of which is dedicated to Luhmann's early work. A stimulating discussion of Luhmann's administration and organization theory is Dammann et al. (1994).

9 That is. reacting to its own variation. 10 As checked disorder. 11 It should be noted that the double contingency scheme is

the paradigm of what I would call the 'indefinite generativity of paradox'. It is the genus, so to speak, of all other reflexive paradoxes like, for instance, that of the circular making of law through legal procedures. See on this latter circularity the enlightening work of G. Teubner (1989). 12 I make a terminological distinction between spontaneous and self-organizing order. I understand spontaneous processes as reproducible, whereas self-organizing order is emergent, coming but once to pass and self-encaging. 13 We could call it the principle of 'das Feste wird . . . auf das Flie?ende gegr?ndet' (found the solid upon the flowing', Luhmann 1962:190).

14 Using the terms of the phenomenological epistemology of Husserl and Heidegger. 15 One should always insist on the fact that Luhmann's invention does not proceed like an abstract, apriorical deduction. It is nurtured through the evidence coming from constructivistically reconceived sciences (like attribution theory in psycho-sociology) and is developed along the lines of a theoretical sociology - and not those of an aprioric philosophy. 16 Like those of the sequencing (Sequenzierung) of notions and arguments in circular or reticular topics, or those of the sense and scope of abstraction in general theory (cf. Luhmann 1979:170-177).

17 Succeeding Plato's distinction of different levels of philosophizing, the top of which is the Platonic dialectic. Aristotle's pr?te' philosophia is a research on how being reveals itself as being; a research upon the most fundamental, i.e. categorial. ground of our world comprehension. 18 The Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre of 1794 is the most detailed exposition of the system. However, the Grundriss des Eigenth?mlichen der Wissenschaftslehre of 1795 contains, at its beginning, a very brief and clear presentation of the figure I am discussing. We quote from the first edition of the Werke (1834-35. 1845-46). 19 The I is understood by Fichte as a 'pure activity' (reine Tha'tigkeit) (Grundlage ?1. 6). where the actor (das Handelnde) and its product {die That) sind eins und dasselbe' ('are one and the same thing': ?1. 6). The same passage implicitly identifies das Handelnde (the actor) and die Handlung (the action). This is a very clear token of the underlying 'Nur-Vollzug structure that I discuss later.

20 No need to say that our presentation of Fichtean deduction is a most cursory one. The exegesis of the extremely dense principles (Grunds?tze) of the deduction fills an extended literature. I concentrate, in our interpretation, on the central and consensually acknowledged figure of thought (logismos). A few hints at the literature may suffice: P. Rohs (1991), brings an interesting image to illustrate the activity-based conception of the I: like a photon which is nothing when stripped of its movement, the I is nothing besides its actual activity (p. 5 3. Thathandlung being the identity of Tat (activity) and Handlung (product of the activity); Hans-J?rgen M?ller (1980:120ff.) stresses the problems of the sequenciation of circular activity under the title of 'symbolic narrative' (the Thathandlung being




explained in the deduction 'symbolisch erz?hlend') as well as the fact that the Thathandlung of the I is the paradigm of every position (setzen); Dieter Henrich (1982) brings into discussion the later (1801) Fichtean formula 'an activity whom an eye has been implanted' (p. 75ff.) which would fit very well into our interpretation -however, he proposes a divergent assessment of it; Reinhard Lauth (1984:19ff.) analyses very accurately the doubling of self-reflection/determination and hetero-determination in one unique act (Vollzug or Selbstvollzug). 21 The transcendental philosophy of consciousness is no longer modelled on the perfect and divine intellectus originarius, of whom the human intellect represents a derivative form (intellectus derivativus). Thus far, the statement that worldliness begins with a finite subjectivity does not prejudge the givenness or not givenness of a pre-worldly consciousness.

22 First edition: London (1969); second edition: New York (1972) containing some significant complements. 23 A recent discussion of Spencer Brown's logic with a clear link to Luhmann's revival of its central stakes is to be found in the two volumes edited by Dirk Baecker (1993a, b). 24 The 'allgemeine Gegenstandstheorie' in the manner of the pure Logistik of the beginning does not reach such deep originary levels as Spencer Brown's protologic. It doesn't really propose a theory of purely actual, paradoxical and circular objects. 25 The context of the statement is the following: Aber Menschen k?nnen nicht kommunizieren, nicht einmal ihre Gehirne k?nnen kommunizieren, nicht einmal das Bewusstsein kann kommunizieren. Nur die Kommunikation kann kommunizieren' (in the chapter entitled 'Wie ist Bewusstsein an Kommunikation beteiligt?' Luhmann 199 5b: 3 7).

26 The main text is De anima (especially Book 11:412a-b, 414a). Our interpretation draws on Inciarte (1970), Frede & Patzig (1988) and Liske (1985).

27 Plato, Republic 436a, 544e, 580d-e, 588c-e; Timaeus 69c-?.

28 Autopoiesis means, in our context, self-producing circular actuality and activity.

29 Cf. Hamelin (1953). I suppose that Aristotle, with his theory of the totalizing unity of the most specific form act, resolved the problem of the coupling between the principle of intellectual knowledge and that of animation of the body. For a detailed study of the long groping search for that solution, see Nuyens (1948). 30 I would like to add, in the wide sense of all conscious experience (Erlebnisse). However, Luhmann's texts on consciousness occult the affective domain of conscious experience.

31 With the exception that pure intellects are not only conceivable, but really exist with no anchoring in animal or vegetative life.

32 To avoid confusion I translate the second moment of the communication (Kommunikation) operation, namely Mitteilung, as 'impartation' - rendered otherwise most naturally into English 'communication'. 'Impartation' has the advantage of replicating with relative fidelity the etymological composition of the German word - an advantage the word 'utterance' (the adopted rendering in English translations of Luhmann) does not have.

33 Furth (1978, quoted in Liske 1985:256). 34 These effects have drawn the attention of the self-

organization theorists. On this point, cf. Schweitzer (1997). Most impressive examples of redundancy in initial phases of self- organizing processes are paths (or tracks: Wege).

35 The basic text is Zur Sache des Denkens (1969). As for Fichte and Aristotle, a thorough penetration of the philosophical notion requires a much greater textual basis, extending to the entire corpus. 36 One can easily figure how embarrassing the translation

of such nominal-verbal doublets is. World worlds, nothing nothings, event events, is ises . . . reflect quite accurately the challenging violence done to language in the German of the original text.

37 Empirically, all systems are described as being always in a state of operative 'ongoing'.

38 I mean the figure of art which Luhmann calls 'world art' in distinction from all other art configurations. 'World art' is the form of art characteristic of our differentiated societies, where art has no reference outside itself, concentrating its self-creating mission and paradoxity on the closure of the work of art itself on itself. See Luhmann (1990, 1995a).

39 It cannot convey or 'communicate' its own intentionality (communication quality), because the intentionality of the intentionality communicating act would, while this latter is in effectuation, itself be still veiled - awaiting a higher act of explicitation, whose intentionality again would have to be unveiled . . .

40 Erreichbarkeit (attainability) of social communication forms a consistent topic in Luhmann's theory (1997, ch. 5). It has been explicitly thematized by Fuchs (1992).

41 Luhmann does not make a clear distinction between communicational paradoxes and world problem. World, as the all-engulfing unity of difference (Einheit der Differenz), is what is 'concomited' (mitgefuhrt) in the paradoxes of communication. I opted for a formal distinction as a means of giving a higher profile to a world problem that is not just silently concomitant with current communication, but takes form as such and for itself. A basic Luhmannian text dealing with the world problematic is 'Reden und Schweigen' (1989).

42 What is at stake is not on any account an assessment of the scientific or cultural repercussions of both. That would be obviously mistaken, the weight of the Luhmannian theory being, in this respect, rather modest when compared to that of Freudian psychoanalysis. 43 Moreover, the energetic economy of psychic life by Freud is still too mechanistic, that is, not complex enough to enable the emergence of a difference theoretical theorizing.

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system's sole constituent, the operation: clarifying a central concept of luhmannian theory

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