Book Cover
E-book
Author Luhmann, Niklas

Title Theory of Society, Volume 1
Published Palo Alto : Stanford University Press, 2012

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Description 1 online resource (488 pages)
Series Cultural Memory in the Present
Cultural memory in the present.
Contents Preface; Translator's Note; 1. Society as a Social System; 1.1. The Sociological Theory of Society; 1.2. Preliminary Remarks on Methodology; 1.3. Meaning; 1.4. The Distinction Between System and Environment; 1.5. Society as a Comprehensive Social System; 1.6. Operational Closure and Structural Couplings; 1.7. Cognition; 1.8. Ecological Problems; 1.9. Complexity; 1.10. World Society; 1.11. Demands on Rationality; 2. Communication Media; 2.1. Medium and Form; 2.2. Dissemination Media and Success Media; 2.3. Language; 2.4. Morality and the Secrets of Religion; 2.5. Writing
2.6. Printing2.7. Electronic Media; 2.8. Dissemination Media: Summary; 2.9. Symbolically Generalized Communication Media, 1: Function; 2.10. Symbolically Generalized Communication Media, 2: Differentiation; 2.11. Symbolically Generalized Communication Media, 3: Structures; 2.12. Symbolically Generalized Communication Media, 4: Self-Validation; 2.13. Moral Communication; 2.14. Effects on the Evolution of the Societal System; 3. Evolution; 3.1. Creation, Planning, Evolution; 3.2. Systems-Theoretical Basis; 3.3. The Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution; 3.4. The Variation of Elements
3.5. Selection Through Media3.6. The Restabilization of Systems; 3.7. Differentiation of Variation, Selection, and Restabilization; 3.8. Evolutionary Advances; 3.9. Technology; 3.10. The Evolution of Ideas; 3.11. The Evolution of Subsystems; 3.12. Evolution and History; 3.13. Memory; Notes; Index
Summary This first volume of Niklas Luhmann's two-part final work was initially published in German in 1997. The culmination of his thirty-year theoretical project to reconceptualize sociology, it offers a comprehensive description of modern society on a scale not attempted since Talcott Parsons. Beginning with an account of the fluidity of meaning and the accordingly high improbability of successful communication, Luhmann analyzes a range of communicative media, including language, writing, the printing press, and electronic media as well as "success media," such as money, power, truth, and love, all
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Sociology.
Social systems.
Communication.
sociology.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Anthropology -- General.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Regional Studies.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Sociology -- General.
Communication
Social systems
Sociology
Form Electronic book
Author Barrett, Rhodes
ISBN 9780804786478
080478647X