Gypsy Reason: Niklas Luhmann's Sociological Enlightenment

: Niklas Luhmann died in November 1998. He had been elaborating his theory of the society for more than thirty years which has been well received in many quarters of society in the modern world. Yet somehow we are only now beginning to read him when he is no longer there to be asked. And we are beginning to discuss his work although we cannot invite him to lecture us anymore. The following article takes up Luhmann's very recent small and comprehensive book on Husserl and places him, as he did himself, in a tradition of "enlightenment" which aims for a self-critical constitution of reason. A Self-Critical Reason Edmund Husserl's project of an empirical and operational description of the self-foundation of reason plays an important role in Luhmann's thinking right from the beginning. Luhman owes central intuitions to Husserl; see his interest in "operations" instead of in "representations", his emphasis of the distinction between self-referenc...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 1999
• Where: CHK
• Authors: Dirk Baecker
• Keywords: CHK 1999, Edmund Husserl, Husserl, Niklas Luhmann