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On the Heuristic Value of Luhmann's Systems Theory

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 Interview
On the Heuristic Value of Luhmann’s Systems Theory Edmundo Balsemão Pires
On the Heuristic Value
of Luhmann’s Systems Theory
Edmundo Balsemão Pires
Coimbra University, Portugal
edbalsemao/at/icloud.com
> Abstract • Elena Esposito’s interview is
a great opportunity to ponder on the ap-
plications of Niklas Luhmann’s systems
theory to current social themes. Among
these, I consider the meaning of a theory
of society in sociology, the value of criti-
cal theory, and the use of algorithms in
communication. I differ from Esposito re-
garding my views on these topics, in that
she seems hesitant to make a clear state-
ment regarding the constructivist stance
of systems theory’s proposals, in contrast
with other approaches.
Handling Editor • Alexander Riegler
« 1 »  Two judgments on common opin-
ions about Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory
surface in Elena Esposito’s interview:
ƒ Contradicting the common stereotype
describing Luhmann’s systems theory
as too abstract or complex, Esposito
sees in systems theory a “good tool for
a greater understanding of phenomena”
and portrays her own version as focused
on applications to “pressing social is-
sues” (§6).
ƒ In §10, she claims that Luhmann became
“unpopular for a long time” (especially
in the anglophone world) for conceiving
of society through communication.
« 2 »  In my view, the two verdicts on
Luhmann’s reception may have a common
explanation. However, the interview’s em-
phasis on the judgments blaming the very
indirect utility or the “high level of com-
plexity” of systems theory (§4) may obscure
fundamental reasons of a theoretical rank,
more decisive for understanding the feeble
initial impact of Luhmann in anglophone
milieus, especially in the 1990s. Sociological
theorizing grounded on individual agents
and actions made its successful career in
the anglophone world, where it is intimately
connected to the utilitarian tradition in
ethics and economics. Utilitarianism is a
Grand Theory, well-grounded on common
sense, and prolific in anglophone social sci-
ence. One needs to go back to the young
Talcott Parsons to understand the source of
significant indecisions in confronting the
utilitarian tradition in America. Educated in
contact with the German, French, and An-
glo-American sociological traditions, Par-
sons tried to overcome innate dichotomies
in social philosophy, i.e., the opposition be-
tween system and action, institution and in-
dividual meanings, but he did not achieve a
convincing solution. His “unit act” (Parsons
1968: 43–74) relied on a view akin to the
Aristotelian concept of ethical deliberation
and its sequels in the utilitarian description
of the set of action’s elements. Later (Parsons
& Shils 2001: 3–29), describing his views
on the interplay of the three systems influ-
encing double-contingency situations – the
system of personality, the social system, and
the cultural system – Parsons did not clearly
understand how his project still was an ad-
aptation of Aristotelian or utilitarian catego-
ries. In his model, socially shared symbols
were added to the bio-psychic personali-
ties of “ego” and “alter” engaged in double-
contingency situations, by the mediation of
the system of culture, according to a relation
between internal and external aspects. How-
ever, a place for communication was not
envisaged.
« 3 »  By contrast, Luhmann’s definition
of communication as the medium of soci-
ety should be considered in parallel with
his strategy to transcend the binary system/
action (surpassing Parsons’s frameworks),
since his earlier writings (Trust and Sociology
of Law). Classical notions developing from
an agent-centered description of society,
such as intentionality, deliberation, purpo-
siveness, utility, means/ends rationality, etc.,
were radically redesigned under his com-
municative turn. Systems theory’s reshap-
ing of the categories of action according to
the universality of communication, as the
medium of society, causes long-lasting irri-
tations in the utilitarian approach to action
and contributes to an impression of excessive
complexity. Systems theory’s communicative
redesigning of action categories is particu-
larly evident in the alternative treatment of
double contingency in Chapter 3 of Luh-
mann’s Social Systems, where the proposal
of a non-linear connection of action to com-
munication and the emphasis on the down-
ward effects of communicative selections
into agency contribute to discarding the tra-
ditional exclusiveness of first-order accounts
of social action of the utilitarian theories
(Luhmann 1995: 103–136). The explanation
for Luhmann being unpopular (§10) should
take into account the context of his overcom-
ing of the action/system binary.
« 4 »  Emphasizing the role of theory in
Luhmann’s sociology, Esposito (§7) asserts
that in other authors, such as Pierre Bour-
dieu and Bruno Latour, a theory of society
is absent or limited. I would put this more
cautiously. Bourdieu used a theory of soci-
ety inspired in Praxis (Bourdieu 1980: pas-
sim) and Latour makes frequent theoretical
incursions in his work with explicit onto-
logical claims about society, agency, and net-
works (Latour 2012: passim). So, the differ-
ences between Luhmann and other authors
are in the design of the theories and not in
having or not having a theory. In his theoret-
ical endeavors regarding society, Luhmann’s
reflective scrutiny of ontological catego-
ries1 relies on a constructivist understand-
ing of the social emergence of sociological
and philosophical concepts. His method,
which has relevant features in common with
the dialectical circle of the concept’s self-
presuppositions, crosses topics where the
ontological notions are traceable and need
evaluation, such as the evolution of society
and social differentiation, the action/system
binary, the non-hierarchical relations of the
functionally differentiated partial systems,
second-order observations, semantics, and
semantics of “Old Europe.” This reflective
method characterizes his originality in com- 375
parison to Bourdieu or Latour.
« 5 »  Esposito’s remarks on critical theo-
ry make me wonder: Can one use “critique”
in a morally neutralized sense to make it
valuable in a constructivist approach to
modern society?  Q1 My hypothesis would
be less optimistic than what can be inferred
from Esposito’s statements (§13). “Critique”
demands a historical assessment that cannot
avoid the moral grounds of the world in the
Aufklärung. Politically situated, “critique”
remains in the semantical frame of the op-
position of civil society to the absolutist
state (Koselleck 1992: 14, 30f), as historical,
1 |  On Luhmann’s constructivist overcoming
of classical ontology, see Balsemão Pires (2013:
passim).
https://constructivist.info/16/3/356.esposito
 pre-parliamentarian anticipation of later
political confrontations across the modern
government/opposition binary. It emerged
from the social processes that have led to the
divulged/secret, public/private, outward/in-
ward, hypocrite/earnest binaries that span
across the so-called “commercial society”
from the second half of the seventeenth cen-
tury until the beginning of the eighteenth
century, escorting the ideological ramifica-
tions of the Republic of Letters.
« 6 »  Bearing in mind such historical-
semantical formation, it is not easy to eradi-
cate the moral core of “critique.” Immanuel
Kant used the term to define a philosophical
endeavor turned to the analysis of the tran-
scendental conditions of knowledge. “Kri-
tik” assumed the function of a judgment on
legitimacy claims (quid juris) regarding rea-
son’s cognitive powers. In Karl Marx’s initial
use (1843–1844), the concept of critique
adopted a role in the account of alienation
in industrial labor, driving to the descrip-
tion of capitalism as a dehumanized society.
In Kant’s or Marx’s uses, critique meant the
destruction of illegitimate claims of human
faculties or institutionalized powers. On
one hand, agreeing to the modern view of
a functionally differentiated society, Marx’s
use of critique is an orientation to the social
system that refuses its valuation as a fixed
INTERVIEW
natural order, obeying eternal laws, but,
on the other hand, critique entails a moral
arguing or moral inferences from analyti-
cal premises producing judgments with a
mixed structure, normative and descriptive.
376 The discursive results of critique are uncriti-
cal because they cannot be scrutinized or are
only assumed for scrutiny if a circle of a cri-
tique of the critiques takes place, but always
as a moral circle of destruction and rebirth.
“Critique” is not yet sufficiently critique re-
garding its moral inferences. Therefore, it is
a hopeless effort trying to extricate critical
endeavors concerning society from moral or
legitimacy claims. Luhmann’s systems theo-
ry surpassed the moral semantics of critique
by assuming its constructivist program,
which consists, among other aspects, in the
emphasis of the self-referential circle of soci-
ety’s self-descriptions, where the blind spots
of the moral discourse, as critique, can be
situated.
« 7 »  Thus, instead of plunging the ob-
servational sharpness of critique into moral
CONSTRUCTIVIST FOUNDATIONs vol. 16, N°3
feats, systems theory redeems second-order
observations from moral engagements.
Concerning critical moral discourse, sys-
tems theory is a meta-critique. It is a pow-
erful contribution to subtracting the de-
scription of society from the fascination
of the moral and political commitments of
social criticism, rather than an apology for
the political order. Observation of critique
is not, again, critique, but something dif-
ferent. Let us call it a reflection on (of) the
autological form of society’s self-censorship.
Self-censorship is a trait of modern society
that has contributed to the present image of
critical theory as an institutionalized, totally
normalized, academic discourse in social
science. These considerations lead to the
following question: What is the social func-
tion of critique?  Q2 Luhmann (1978:43f)
inquired in a similar way regarding morals.
I am convinced that only through a consid-
eration of Q2 can one gain a sound method
regarding this subject. Notwithstanding
the need for further inquiry, let me convey
a hypothesis. In many of its contemporary
uses, critique makes discernible differences
in normative time, particularly between the
time of moral claims (coupled to interac-
tions and permeable to manifold irritations)
and the time of positive law that gives lim-
ited answers to those claims (more rigid,
dependent on partial systems’ codes and
institutionalization, processual oriented).
So, from my perspective, the social function
of critique would be the production of the
visibility of asynchronies in normative time
through the discourse. Here, also, lie some
of its observational blind spots or incapaci-
ties to overcome its intermediate position
between morality and positive law.
« 8 »  Considering the social use of pre-
dictions, Esposito’s fascination with the par-
allelism between old divinatory practices
and the present-day uses of “algorithms”
(§22) looks hyperbolic. Excluding this his-
torical parallelism, she is concerned with
how algorithms affect the temporal dimen-
sion of meaning in modern society (§§15–
19). Her former works on observation of
risks (quoted in Luhmann 1992: 144 note
13) and algorithmic futures (Esposito 2011:
passim) are essays on risk and social uses of
probabilistic predictions. More research is
required to embrace the complete scope of
artificial intelligence (AI), using distinctive
types of algorithms in machine learning. AI
algorithms represent a new cognitive tech-
nology demanding a special consideration
of the ways communication mobilizes cog-
nitive outputs from artificial systems. This
deserves some comments.
« 9 »  AI evolved from Warren McCull-
och & Walter Pitts’s (1943) first attempt to
formalize neural activity according to prop-
ositional logic, Donald Hebb’s (1949) clues
on the rules of neural learning, Belmont
Farley & Wesley Clark’s (1954, 1960) neu-
ral networks as “self-organizing systems,”
connectionist interpretations of Frank
Rosenblatt’s (1962) “Perceptron,” passing
through applications of the idea of parallel
distributed processing to psycholinguistics,
and advancements in neurosciences toward
contemporary digital uses. AI technologies
and machine learning mobilize adaptive ar-
tificial neural networks, embrace automated
learning, and run processes that go far be-
yond the ancient “auspicia” or probabilis-
tic prediction. Knowledge representation,
inferences, decision-making, and learning
are processes running on these machines.
Through electronic networks, the cognitive
outputs of AI algorithms are proposed to be
sequentially engrained in perceptions and
communication. Such an intertwining of
media and AI should drive us to examine a
type of “dissemination media” only cursorily
scrutinized by Luhmann (1997: 302–311) –
the electronic media. In her interview, con-
tinuing along this path, Esposito addresses
the theme of how “digitalization” affected
the mass media (§14). However, what she
calls “digitalization” and “digital life,” ac-
cording to the current meanings, is still in
need of more accurate definitions and a de-
tailed survey from a systemic perspective.
Thanks to the enablement of cognitive gains
that AI ensures in operations of psychic and
social systems, the embedment of AI tech-
nologies in electronic media gains ground.
In my view, the study of the variety of hybrid
forms linking perception, communication,
and action emerging from the cognitive
entanglements between artificial, psychic,
and social systems is one of the promising
subjects of systems theory and constructiv-
ist epistemology. Additionally, the norma-
tive issues related to AI, in the law system
and moral discourse, must not be set aside
either.
 Interview
References
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▶︎ https://cepa.info/1126
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Opacity and Complexity of Learning Black Boxes Elena Esposito
lated by Rhodes Barrett. Stanford University
Press, Stanford CA.
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lus of the ideas immanent in nervous activ-
ity. In Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics
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Edmundo Balsemão Pires is Professor of Philosophy
at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. His scientific
interests are focused on theory of systems and theory
of society, constructivism, Hegel and Luhmann. https://
constructivist.info/authors/edmundo-balsemão-pires
Funding: The author did not receive any
funding while writing the manuscript.
Competing interests: The author declares
that he has no competing interests.
Received: 31 May 2021
Revised: 28 June 2021
Accepted: 29 June 2021
Author’s Response
Opacity and Complexity
of Learning Black Boxes
Elena Esposito
Bielefeld University, Germany
elena.esposito/at/uni-bielefeld.de
> Abstract • Non-transparent machine
learning algorithms can be described as
non-trivial machines that do not have to
be understood, but controlled as com-
munication partners. From the perspec-
tive of sociological systems theory, the
normative component of control should
be addressed with a critical attitude, ob-
serving what is normal as improbable.
Handling Editor • Alexander Riegler
« 1 »  The commenters’ insightful re-
marks, in addition to productively extend-
ing the range of issues covered in our dis-
cussion, provide me with an opportunity to
clarify some fundamental points – or at least
to express my own views on them. For this
I am very grateful. My response starts with
the relationship between opacity and com-
plexity in the operation of recent algorithms
(reacting to comments by Bernd Porr, Man-
fred Füllsack, Wiebke Loosen & Armin Scholl)
and then addresses other issues that high-
light the specificity and productivity of the
constructivist approach.
« 2 »  In the widespread debate on al-
gorithms as black boxes (e.g., Pasquale
2015), Porr (§6) usefully reminds us of 377
Ross Ashby’s (1951) classic reflections on
the black box as a model of the interaction
between observers and systems: something
is a black box if it is obscure to its observer
irrespective of its internal characteristics.
If we now have a problem of obscurity in
dealing with the latest algorithms that use
advanced deep-learning techniques work-
ing with big data, a constructivist approach
asks, first of all, to which observer the algo-
rithms appear as black boxes, and for what
reasons. The obscurity may be due to rea-
sons extrinsic to the algorithms themselves,
such as information limitations due to the
confidentiality needs or desires of compa-
nies, or simply the lack of expertise of some
observers. Here I agree with Füllsack’s (§1)
observation that now-established statistical
https://constructivist.info/16/3/356.esposito