Niklas Luhmann Reading Group: Session 4.2

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• Professor Steffen Roth (University of Cambridge)
• Tuesday 20 May 2025, 13:00-14:30
• Syndicate Room 1, Wolfson College, Cambridge, UK, CB3 9BB.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Professor Steffen Roth.

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We are pleased to invite you to a reading group focused on the work of Niklas Luhmann, taking place on Monday, 20 May at 13:00. The session will explore Luhmann’s social systems theory which reconceptualises society not as a collection of individuals, but as a self-referential system of communication. “Society is often imagined as a collective of acting and interacting individuals. Social order, in this view, emerges from the coordinated actions of human beings. Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory inverts this intuition. In his framework, society is the encompassing system of communication—and nothing but communication. Persons, accordingly, are not the source but the products of communication, while action is the attribution of communication to these very products of communication.” We’re delighted to announce introductory talks by Professor Steffen Roth (Excelia Business School La Rochelle & Wolfson College, University of Cambridge), after which we’ll hold intensive discussions of the key ideas. Recommended background reading: Luhmann, N. (1995). Social Systems. Stanford University Press.Chapter: Communication and Action (pp. 137–175)

This talk is part of the Niklas Luhmann Reading Group: Session 4.2 series.

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