The science of society and the concept of compexity. On the 30th anniversary of the publication of Niklas Luhmann's book "Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft"

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the 30^th anniversary of the publication of Niklas Luhmann’s book The Science of Society. The system-communicative approach to the analysis of science is reconstructed with a focus on the relation of science to its highly complex external world. The problem of complexity is posed as a key one and is considered in the context of the communicative “reduction of the complexity” of the external world, which science actualizes through its unique binary opposition (truth/falsehood distinction). The complexity of the world that science is facing disintegrates into two large areas. On the one hand, science processes its own external world, i.e., nature, society, the human psyche, as its object and thus fulfills a unique function, the pursuance of research. Scientific communication in this case can be integrated in the form of transdisciplinary studies. On the other hand, science has to respond to the complexity of the internal (i.e., social) external world of the communicative system of science, namely, to interfaced communicative systems of the embracing system of world society (politics, economy, religion, education, law, etc.). In the latter case, science does not fulfill a function but delivers achievements on request to the above-mentioned communicative systems in exchange for resources for interdisciplinary studies, which are occasional and cannot serve for integrating scientific communication on a systematic basis. Science itself, in turn, is a system of world society and in this sense can enter “structural couplings” with its internal (social) external world, the complexity of which it must reduce. We will consider the answers of N. Luhmann’s system-communicative theory to the problem of the external world’s social complexity considering its recent interpretations. We will propose some corrections to this theory with account for the latest social changes, primarily transdisciplinary trends in science and the emergence of social networking and its influence on structural couplings of science and other systems. We will illustrate new formations in scientific communication, caused by the emergence of network society, by the example of Russia.