Luhmann (4) Contradiction and Self-Reference

Abstract

Contradictions are central to the existence of autopoietic systems because they survive as the unities of contradiction that they have mastered. The contradictions that arise from our observation of nature are the source of logic. Communicated contradictions, or conflicts, provide the flexible solutions that enable societal evolution. When they are successfully balanced and embodied, contradictions provide richness, strength, and flexibility to societies.

Societies and interactions are both autopoietic systems. They cannot be reduced one to the other, but neither can exist without the other. Interactions have generated societies. Societies make more sophisticated interactions possible. Experimental interactions advance the development of societies, which enable more advanced interactions…

In their reproduction, societies find their boundaries in basal self-reference; they proceed to reflexivity as communication about communication; and then to reflection when they recognize their separations from their environments. With rationality, societies move beyond reflection to the prudent exploitation of the system/environment interface. With epistemology, they attend to the circularity involved when the process that creates them is the same process that they use to discover how they were created.