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. Luhmann’s endeavor to single-handedly perfect such a…

1956 words

Citation: Fortmann, Patrick. "Niklas Luhmann". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 April 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12083, accessed 19 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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