Barriers of the Reception of Niklas Luhmann’s Communicative Sociology

Abstract

In the Russian sociological community, the reception of the theoretical sociology of Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) lags behind the perception of the ideas of P. Bourdieu, E. Goffman, J. Habermas. The reasons for these differences include special difficulties and barriers to the reception of Luhmann’s sociology: autonomous conceptual apparatus of his theory of social systems, not used in other sociologies; a specially developed concept of social communication against the background of many other definitions of this concept in the social sciences; a complex logical structure of his detailed theory. Barriers create difficulties in the formation of an independent school of Luhmann’s followers. This article discusses several beginnings and the necessary conditions for the reception of Luhmann’s sociology, participation in a general theoretical discussion about it. Such principles and requirements include the mastery of its extensive conceptual apparatus, including the concept of generalized mediums of communication, which is crucial to the theory of a complex society. Some barrier to the reception of Luhmann’s sociology is the growth of applied research in communication, the functions of the mass media as a special subsystem of society, against which the information transfer metaphor obscures the selectivity of communication, which has become the core of the theory of elementary communicative act in Luhmann’s sociology. An effective approach to Luhmann’s sociology is to analyze the controversy with his principal opponent J. Habermas on worldview questions and their implications for social theory. Discussion of the reception barriers of Luhmann’s sociology activates debates in theoretical sociology, attracts young specialists to participate in them.