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“Like Seeing Fallen Brightly Away”: A New Theory for the Emerson/Stevens Genealogy

Cary Wolfe

in Ecological Poetics; or, Wallace Stevens's Birds

This chapter argues that what binds the Romanticism of Stevens to the genealogy of Ralph Waldo Emerson is not just what has been described (variously) as a denaturalized naturalism, or a detotalizing ... More

This chapter argues that what binds the Romanticism of Stevens to the genealogy of Ralph Waldo Emerson is not just what has been described (variously) as a denaturalized naturalism, or a detotalizing holism, but, more specifically, both writers’ focus on the paradoxical forms of observation (and their attendant insistence on the inescapable logical problem of self-reference). For both Emerson and Stevens, the paradoxical problem of observation is almost always offered under the privileged trope of vision and the eye. As Emerson famously said in “Nature,” “I am nothing. I see all.” For Stanley Cavell, the starting point for this genealogical shift is Emerson’s confrontation with the philosophical and existential consequences of what he calls the Kantian “settlement” with philosophical skepticism. This chapter contends, however, that second-order systems theory and deconstruction enable us to theorize the problem with greater precision, and in a way that decisively abandons a representationalist framework. In the services of what Cavell calls Emersonian “onwardness,” poetry for Stevens thus becomes a matter of seeing, not as representing either a subject or object, but as moving through the world, propelled by the blindness and incompletion unavoidably produced by the paradoxical self-reference of observation.Less

From Cultures to Cultural Practices and Back Again

Helmut Reimitz

in Cultures in Motion

This book concludes with two afterwords, the first of which argues how centering itinerancy as concept and method enables a reconsideration of scale in the historian's craft. It emphasizes the book's ... More

This book concludes with two afterwords, the first of which argues how centering itinerancy as concept and method enables a reconsideration of scale in the historian's craft. It emphasizes the book's focus on itinerant matter and cultural practices, from music and musicians to body movements, pidgin, gift-giving, and aluminum, that traverse vast spaces—oceans, regions—or centuries, or both at the same time. The second afterword draws on the work of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann to reflect on the culture concept itself and the ways in which it needs to be implicated in the moving practices explored by the book. It also considers how cultural processes extending backward past European modernity raises new questions about the history of how the modern concept of culture was itself established in Europe.Less

System, Lifeworld, and Habermas's “Communication Theory of Society”

in Habermas: The Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy

In his Theory of Communication Action, Jürgen Habermas talks about a “reconstructive social theory which employs a dual perspective”—the perspective of “system” and “lifeworld.” Habermas's proposed ... More

In his Theory of Communication Action, Jürgen Habermas talks about a “reconstructive social theory which employs a dual perspective”—the perspective of “system” and “lifeworld.” Habermas's proposed theory “should explain how the reconstructed normative self-understanding of modern legal orders connects with the social reality of highly complex societies.” In developing the “communication theory of society” in which his “discourse theory of law” is to be situated, Habermas departs from his earlier understanding of the relation between system and lifeworld. This chapter explores Habermas's concepts of system and lifeworld as well as his communication theory of society. It considers his “model of the circulation of political power”, which presents the idea of “civil society” as an elaboration of the lifeworld's “private sphere.” It also discusses Habermas's reference to the three “structural components” (culture, society, and personality) and argues that his notion of “system” and “lifeworld” is similar to the post-Parsons “autopoietic” systems theory of Niklas Luhmann. Finally, the chapter rejects the concept of lifeworld as separate social sphere.Less

The Socio-Legal Construction of the ‘Best Interests of the Child’: Law's Autonomy, Sociology, and Family Law

Robert van Krieken

in Law and Sociology

This chapter explores the association between law and sociology in family law against the background of a discussion of Niklas Luhmann's analysis of law's combined operational closure and cognitive ... More

This chapter explores the association between law and sociology in family law against the background of a discussion of Niklas Luhmann's analysis of law's combined operational closure and cognitive openness. For Luhmann, the thought of autonomy or closure does not mean that the legal system moves as if there was no environment, or that it is not subject to external determination. Moreover, recent Australian developments in the field of family law, separation, and child custody are explored in detail. Although this chapter revolves around the autonomy and closure of law from other sources of cognitive authority, it may be helpful to conclude by reflecting on how this question might need to be seen alongside that of the closure of other communicative systems, or in terms of the limits of legal action.Less

From Solution to Problem: The Welfare State as a System

Peter C. Caldwell

in Democracy, Capitalism, and the Welfare State: Debating Social Order in Postwar West Germany, 1949-1989

The 1970s and 1980s saw two important changes in the West German discussion of the welfare state. First, global trade put direct economic pressure on expensive welfare states in the western world. ... More

The 1970s and 1980s saw two important changes in the West German discussion of the welfare state. First, global trade put direct economic pressure on expensive welfare states in the western world. Second, the social science discussion of the welfare state shifted to a language of systems, which no longer viewed the welfare state as a tool of state or society, but asked about how systems of social policy could have unintended consequences—how social solutions could pose their own problems. Young Marxists, breaking with the SPD, questioned the possibility of a welfare state that could aid workers under capitalism; conservative state theorists questioned whether democracy, with its demands for state solutions, could paralyze the state. The result was a more complex reading of how the modern word created complex challenges for individuals and states alike, especially well articulated in the work of Kaufmann and Luhmann.Less

Reanimating Musical Organicism

Holly Watkins

in Musical Vitalities: Ventures in a Biotic Aesthetics of Music

Chapter 1, “Reanimating Musical Organicism,” revisits the legacy of organicism to discover fresh critical potential in a discourse currently maligned as a relic of Austro-German aesthetic values. ... More

Chapter 1, “Reanimating Musical Organicism,” revisits the legacy of organicism to discover fresh critical potential in a discourse currently maligned as a relic of Austro-German aesthetic values. Even a casual perusal of the primary literature shows that organicism was always beset by internal tensions, many of which stem from the peculiarities of the organisms that typically served as this literature’s inspiration: plants. Touching on figures ranging from Immanuel Kant, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Theodor Adorno to the music critics Christian Friedrich Michaelis, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and Eduard Hanslick, the chapter shows that organicist writings, many of which compared the real-time unfolding of musical works such as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde to plant growth, continue to raise questions about the lives and identities of both organisms and artifacts as well as the relationships between these different expressions of vitality. Drawing on the social systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, whose conceptual and analytical tools deftly mediate between organic and cultural modes of organization, the chapter offers a series of novel perspectives on the quasi-organic traits of musical form and stylistic change in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music.Less

Scapes and Spheres

Cary Wolfe

in Ecological Poetics; or, Wallace Stevens's Birds

This chapter opens a two-chapter focus on Stevens’s later long poems, and maps the evolution of Stevens’s poetics from “the death of the gods” to the crafting of a “supreme fiction” as a kind of ... More

This chapter opens a two-chapter focus on Stevens’s later long poems, and maps the evolution of Stevens’s poetics from “the death of the gods” to the crafting of a “supreme fiction” as a kind of substitute religion, and finally to the transfiguration of dwelling as “onwardness” that we find in “An Ordinary Evening in New Haven.” Here, the question of properly dwelling on the earth and among others (human and non-human) is taken up not just in light of Heidegger’s famous meditations on the topic, but more importantly in light of Peter Sloterdijk’s recent investigations of “homo habilitans” in his massive Spheres project. As Stevens moves from “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction,” through “The Auroras of Autumn,” and into “Ordinary Evening,” we find in an increasingly refined and complex poetics that relies less on familiar cultural thematics (the “death of the gods,” poetry as “supreme fiction,” and “substitute religion") and more on (often minimalist) formal procedures to confront the transition from the world of “globes” (in Sloterdijk’s terms) to the world of “foams,” where the principles of formal coherence resemble distributed tensegrity more than top-bottom or center-periphery modes of organization.Less

Every Language Is Foreign: Self and Cybernetics in the Event-Machine

Ryan White

in The Hidden God: Pragmatism and Posthumanism in American Thought

Charles S. Peirce declares that the individual amounts to no more than a “negation.” In this chapter, that remark triggers a comparison of Peirce’s semiotics to Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction and ... More

Charles S. Peirce declares that the individual amounts to no more than a “negation.” In this chapter, that remark triggers a comparison of Peirce’s semiotics to Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction and Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory. In all three cases it is argued that humanist presumptions of communication are abandoned in favor of a posthumanist theory of communication in which human consciousness is totally excluded from participation in systems of communication but instead acts as their occluded environment, the “negation” or exclusion which makes communication possible.Less

Modelling Systematic Communication Differences between Law and Science

Paul Dougan, Fernand Gobet, and Michael King

in Law and Psychology: Current Legal Issues Volume 9

Niklas Luhmann proposed that different social systems, such as law and science, encode information using different binary codes and programmes. A plausible consequence is that communications within ... More

Niklas Luhmann proposed that different social systems, such as law and science, encode information using different binary codes and programmes. A plausible consequence is that communications within those systems – for example law cases for the law system and academic journal articles for the (social) science system – should have not only different surface structures, for example style and convention, but also different semantic structures. However, it is critical to control the input to the two systems, insofar as this should relate as nearly as possible to identical topics. This chapter presents an empirical study aimed at providing some scientific evidence to support Luhmann's theory about social systems. Measurable and statistically reliable differences were observed in the semantic structure between the law and science systems of communication. The terms related to a particular domain had a higher average weight within the network associated with this domain than with the network associated with the other domain.Less

Communication and Information: Noise and Form in Michel Serres and Niklas Luhmann

Bruce Clarke

in Neocybernetics and Narrative

This chapter addresses the differences between information theory and autopoietic theory since neither of these discursive traditions can be reduced to the other, nor be merged as one. The term noise ... More

This chapter addresses the differences between information theory and autopoietic theory since neither of these discursive traditions can be reduced to the other, nor be merged as one. The term noise particularly stands out amongst the theories derived from information theory for its investigative potency and intellectual glamour, as seen through Michael Serres’ work. The concept of noise is a central point within postmodernist scientific and cultural paradigms, denoting the unpredictable development of unforeseen orderings. Furthermore, information theory has redefined communication as a problem of transmission. It is also a primary concept in Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory, which deems communication as the sole and self-produced product of the operations of social autopoiesis.Less

A Sociology of Jurisprudence

Richard Nobles

in Law and Sociology

This chapter explores the implications of sociological theory and systems theory, most particularly as set out in the writings of Niklas Luhmann, for jurisprudence. This theory offers a sociological ... More

This chapter explores the implications of sociological theory and systems theory, most particularly as set out in the writings of Niklas Luhmann, for jurisprudence. This theory offers a sociological account for endless debates amongst and between different schools of jurisprudence on topics such as the origin and/or source of law, the nature of law's determinacy or indeterminacy, and the role of justice. This project aims to extend the work started by Luhmann in his book, Das Recht der Gesellschaft. It also tries to illustrate the explanatory power and sociological enterprise of systems theory by applying it to the writings of Ronald Dworkin, in the context of his debate with analytical positivists, most notably Joseph Raz, on the nature or basis of the unity or identity of law. In addition, it discusses Dworkin's attempt to defuse the tautology and unfold the paradox of law. It is noted that systems theory agrees with Raz by showing that judges have regard towards morality in their decisions, Dworkin has not indicated that morality is part of law.Less

The Double Consciousness: American Thought and the Theory of Theory

Ryan White

in The Hidden God: Pragmatism and Posthumanism in American Thought

In many respects the “thesis statement” of the book as a whole, this chapter attempts to theorize the meaning of paradoxical statements in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Sanders ... More

In many respects the “thesis statement” of the book as a whole, this chapter attempts to theorize the meaning of paradoxical statements in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Sanders Peirce. Utilizing and extending Gregory Bateson’s theory of communication, this essay observes a distinction between content and form which then entails a “second-order” observation as articulated in the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann. Form is theorized as radical discontinuity, a concept without identity, the “double consciousness.” This thesis not only allows Emerson and Peirce to be drawn into the purview of systems theory, but it also discovers an unheralded “posthumanist” tradition in American thought.Less

On True Virtue: Jonathan Edwards and the Ethics of Self-Reference

Ryan White

in The Hidden God: Pragmatism and Posthumanism in American Thought

Contemporary interpretations of the Puritan theology of Jonathan Edwards are often hindered by the implicit assumption of a modern framework that imports either romanticist subjectivity into his ... More

Contemporary interpretations of the Puritan theology of Jonathan Edwards are often hindered by the implicit assumption of a modern framework that imports either romanticist subjectivity into his thought or a strict theological dualism. This chapter argues that the concept of self-reference, a formal condition with a strong precedent in medieval theology, is the key for unlocking this difficulty and showing that the difficult concept of “true virtue” as presented by Edwards is paradoxically achievable only as unachievable. Much like Peirce’s pragmatism and its relationship to reality, Edwards demonstrates that only through self-limitation is an ethical program capable of presenting the possibility for a “true” ethics.Less

Legal Theory and Language

Christopher Hutton

in Language, Meaning and the Law

This chapter offers a brief introduction to topics and approaches in legal theory and language. It offers a critical summary of the differences between natural law and legal positivism, describes in ... More

This chapter offers a brief introduction to topics and approaches in legal theory and language. It offers a critical summary of the differences between natural law and legal positivism, describes in outline the formalist position as opposed to the realist, summarizes the idea of the rule of law in liberal ideology, and shows how this idea of the relative autonomy of the legal system and legal language comes under attack in radical approaches to law. It then looks at how the law and economics framework might deal with linguistic questions, and contrasts the different understanding of law and language in Luhmann and Habermas. The fundamental issue at stake is the notion of law's autonomy.Less

Systems, Media, Narrative: From the Trace to the Telepathic Imaginary

Bruce Clarke

in Neocybernetics and Narrative

The discourse of cybernetic systems emerges around a functional similarity in the self-regulation of mechanical and organic systems. One result of this parallel development is a tendency for ... More

The discourse of cybernetic systems emerges around a functional similarity in the self-regulation of mechanical and organic systems. One result of this parallel development is a tendency for informatics and cybernetics to get tangled up, their conceptual differences disregarded. This chapter disconnects that entanglement and traces their separation to the early 1970s, when second-order cybernetics and autopoietic systems theory merged to hypothesize a noninformatic conception of cognition. The systems theory that assembles this conceptual progression came to be known as second-order systems theory or Neocybernetics. The chapter cites Niklas Luhmann as a prominent thinker in self-referential systems theory, whose work was influenced by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela’s concept of autopoiesis and Heinz von Foerster’s work in second-order cybernetics.Less

How Law Grows Up in a Group

Laurence Claus

in Law’s Evolution and Human Understanding

Law lets us live with people we do not know. Law is the way a growing group uses a group language to fulfill its members' need to interact with unknown people. Law tells us what people are likely to ... More

Law lets us live with people we do not know. Law is the way a growing group uses a group language to fulfill its members' need to interact with unknown people. Law tells us what people are likely to do and to expect, just because they are in our group. Law evolves rather than being created. The evolution of our group customs accelerates when we evolve customs of following leaders, that is, customs of treating the sayings of particular people as expressions of new customs or...laws. The recorded sayings of our leaders become a consultable guide to life in our community. The reality of leadership depends upon community response to the assertions of assertive individuals—so-called “charismatic authority” is not a personal possession, it is a psychological dynamic among people in a group. Niklas Luhmann's pioneering vision of law as a self-evolving social system insufficiently distinguishes law as the system of communication about the character of life in law's community and insufficiently accounts for the “variety of laws.” H. L. A. Hart's “fundamental objection” to treating law as all about prediction fails to recognize the way in which law contributes to moral reasoning. Keeping the words we call our law predictive is a moral reason to do what law predicts. We should act on that reason unless we have morally weightier reasons to do differently. Legal rules do not exist to substitute for moral reasoning. Legal rules exist to inform us about each other, about what is likely to be done and expected in our community. Rules are vehicles for understanding each other, and therein lies their moral contribution to our own all-things-considered judgments about what to do.Less

Histories for Systems

Clifford Siskin

in System: The Shaping of Modern Knowledge

History is a genre consisting historically of different kinds with different functions. Instead of just writing “a history” of system, we need to recover the changing relationship between these two ... More

History is a genre consisting historically of different kinds with different functions. Instead of just writing “a history” of system, we need to recover the changing relationship between these two genres—starting with Bacon’s emphasis on the need for new histories and Galileo’s focus on system. This chapter follows their interrelations into the eighteenth century using a new computational resource I call Tectonics. It maps spatially over time the coming together of system and history at the century’s end as they share more and more title pages, modifying each other and forming a new platform for knowledge: the narrow-but-deep disciplines of modernity. The chapter confirms this finding using Encyclopedia Britannica and then—with turns to William Jones and the novel--shows how history itself became one of those narrowed disciplines by foregrounding “ideas” and the modern subject that embodies them. The chapter shows how these interrelations of system and history shaped the efforts of system theory, including Immanuel Wallerstein and Niklas Luhmann, and recovers for this book a different kind of history: Bacon’s notion of a capacious literary history that would tell the “story of learning” from age to age. The chapter concludes with Carl Woese’s efforts to transform biology through a newly capacious history, and with explanations of the scope and kinds of history featured in this book: the histories of “mediation,” “blame,” and the “real.”.Less