Niklas Luhmann

Patrick Fortmann (Harvard University)
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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. …

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 29 March 2024.]

12083 Niklas Luhmann 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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