Niklas Luhmann

Patrick Fortmann (Harvard University)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

Born 8 Dec 1927
Died 6 Nov 1998
Activity 1958-1998

Places

Born in Germany
Active in Germany

Activities

Primary

Philosopher
Social scientist

Resources

Niklas Luhmann was not a literary critic in the strict sense of the word. In fact, the German sociologist was always fond of saying that he had but one project: the theory of society. Considering the size of his œuvre, encompassing roughly three dozens of books and more than three hundred articles, the claim appears modest rather than preposterous. Intellectually a successor to thinkers such as Max Weber and Georg Simmel, Luhmann devoted his career to developing an original, universal, and comprehensive theory of the social world: a “super-theory”, as he once described it, that would be at once limitless and focused in scope, for it would consider and describe nothing less than the world, but exclusively in its social aspects. …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1956 words

Citation: Fortmann, Patrick. "Niklas Luhmann". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 April 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12083, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here