CONSTRUCTIVISM AS POSTMODERNIST REALISM
Among the many radicalisms that Luhmann adorned himself with was that of radical constructivism.1 Such a self-designation was, academically speaking, among the less contentious of Luhmann’s many radicalisms, since radical constructivism had been embraced by others before him.2 Luhmann made fun of this somewhat unnecessary amplification of the term “constructivism.” He called it “the latest fashion in epistemology,” probably because he felt uneasy allying himself with a trend, considering that once a radicalism becomes a fashion it is no longer particularly radical.3 Luhmann apparently only wanted to paradoxically underline his own radicalism by rhetorically distancing himself from a relatively established and thus no longer radical intellectual movement. He might have tried to salvage his own radical originality by adopting radical constructivism only in an ironic way. What makes Luhmann’s constructivism radical is its ability to perform some sort of self-overcoming. In the end, Luhmann’s constructivism is so radical that it turns out to be a realism at the same time. Simply put, Luhmann’s constructivism says that what a construction constructs is reality, or, the other way around, reality is what a construction is capable of constructing. Realism and constructivism do not oppose but imply one another. Their difference collapses and they are reconciled.
How is such reconciliation possible? Constructivism, as unambiguously implied in the very title of his most important essay on this topic, “Cognition as Construction,” is for Luhmann an epistemology, and thus not an ontology. Realism, on the other hand, is an ontology that can peacefully coexist with a constructivist epistemology. That Luhmann’s radical constructivism does not stand in the way of a realistic ontology is evident from Luhmann’s pronouncement: “Es gibt Systeme” (there are systems).4 This is one of the primary axioms of social systems theory. Notwithstanding this axiom, Luhmann was careful not to stress the ontological dimensions of his theory and instead focused on his theory of cognition. In fact, he believed that ontology, in the sense of a theoretical distinction between being and nonbeing, had become obsolete and was no longer of primary importance.5
In spite of Luhmann’s terminological aversion to the old-European notion of ontology, it might be permissible to say that a statement such as “there are systems” is ontological insofar as it refers to scientific or theoretical objects of research and thus facts (Sachverhalte in German).6 In nearly the same terms as the early Wittgenstein,7 Luhmann defines reality, or that which is, as that which is the case. Luhmann’s ontology is therefore a realistic ontology of what is observed as “being the case.” Constructivism supplies the epistemological analysis of the mechanisms that are capable of coming up with observations that constitute reality. Thus, constructivism, to put it in Kantian terms, describes the “conditions of the possibility” of reality, and is, in this way, theoretically prior to ontology. What was theoretically most interesting for Luhmann was not to ontologically distinguish what is from what is not, but to outline the epistemological foundations for making such an ontological distinction in the first place.
In this context, Luhmann, unlike Kant (and Hegel), is nevertheless not an idealist.8 Cognition, for Luhmann, is not to be equated with consciousness. Luhmann’s epistemology is functionalist. It is not concerned with the substance, which may or may not have cognition. In other words, not only mental or spiritual systems have the capacity to observe. Living systems and social systems are observing systems as well, and there may well be many more modes of observation other than mental, biological, or communicative processes. Reality is an effect of observation, but observation is not substantially defined. For the (German) idealists, epistemology was ultimately an enquiry into a certain substance, Vernuft (reason) in Kant’s Critique, and Geist (spirit) and Bewusstsein (consciousness) in Hegel’s Phenomenology.9 Luhmann’s epistemology is not grounded in such “ideal” conceptions. Whereas Luhmann’s ontology can be described as an outcome of his epistemology, the idealist’s epistemologies can be described as outcomes of their ontologies.
The epigraph that Luhmann chose for the final outline of his general theory, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, is axiom 2, part 1, from Spinoza’s Ethics: “Id quod per aliud non potest concipi, per se concipi debet” (that which cannot be conceived through something else must be conceived through itself).10 It is likely, I believe, that Luhmann read this sentence as a proclamation of a constructivist epistemology. Given the absence of a transcendent or transcendental access to reality, whatever is real depends on constructive self-conception. There is no reality given from above, nor is there any a priori mechanism that reality necessarily results from. Luhmann’s theory, like Spinoza’s, is one of radical immanence, which means that the emergence of whatever is real, or “the case,” is an effect of immanent construction. Reality, in order to become real, has to construct itself. The act of constructing reality is an act of cognitive observation. It is its “own achievement,” or, in the German constructivist vocabulary, it is Eigenleistung.
Here, something else has to be stressed: unlike Kant, Hegel and Spinoza, Luhmann is not a metaphysician. He conceived of himself as a sociologist. Luhmann borrows cognitive constructivism, along with the theory of autopoiesis, from evolutionary biology and second-order cybernetics, that is, from relatively applied fields. For Luhmann, a constructivist self-conception of reality as a systemic “own-achievement” is, first and foremost, communicative or social. Luhmann’s radical constructivism is a radical social constructivism. The “facts” (in his Wittgensteinian conception of reality) that his theory deals with are the Eigenleistungen of society. This is what the obscure title of Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, which, literally translated, means The Society of Society, says: society, as the social reality in general, is an “own-achievement” of social construction, that is, of communication as a form of observing or of cognition by making distinctions. Just as the reality of color vision emerges as an effect of the ability to cognitively distinguish colors, and thus can be described as the color-vision of color-vision, the reality of a distinct society emerges as an effect of communicative distinctions, and thus can be described as the society of society.
If the reality of society is an effect of social construction, then the descriptions of these constructions are also immanent social constructions. Luhmann’s immanent epistemology results in an immanent ontology. Socially constructed realities, including the theories that describe these realities, are intrasocial phenomena. As opposed to either a transcendent idealist or a transcendental idealist, a radical epistemological constructivism is able to conceive of itself as well as of all the normative and evaluative standards in society as “society’s own achievements instead of assuming that they are regulative ideas or components of the concept of communication.”11
Luhmann’s social constructivism is radical not despite but because it is a realism at the same time. Luhmann’s constructivist realism does not deny the social reality of such ideas as free will, human rationality, or human rights. However, unlike social theory from Kant to Habermas and Rawls, it states that their very reality is an immanent effect of contingent social construction. This excludes the possibility of accusing radical constructivism of denying the reality of the real. It does not. It only states that the cognition of reality is, so to speak, the “real reality.” In other words, when concepts such as general will, human rights, or a rationality of understanding come to the fore, they do so not because the things these terms are supposed to designate constitute a social reality, but because the discourses using such a language do.12
The descriptive analysis of society is itself an effect of what is described and does not have access to any a priori social normative or evaluative standards. Or, as Luhmann chose to express it: “In this way, the epistemologist becomes him/herself a rat in the labyrinth and has to reflect on the position from which he/she observes the other rats.”13 This is, to stay within Luhmann’s image, not to deny the reality of the rats, but to acknowledge the fact that the observation of rats is itself a rather unusual social phenomenon, which can in turn be observed, just as the rats can. The radical constructivist observes the observer and thereby, autologically, posits some sort of labyrinth of immanence (or a “plane of immanence” to use Deleuze’s expression.)
Theorists like Kant and Habermas look at the rats in the labyrinth believing that they are thereby looking transcendentally at reality or phenomena. Luhmann reflects on the strange fact that he is observing rats and that this constitutes the social reality of which one is a part and which needs to be explained as its “own-achievement.” What has to be explained are not so much the rats, but rather the strange reality that someone is looking at rats in order to discover reality there. In more technical language, Luhmann describes this “autological” constructivist epistemological thusly: “Regardless of how cognition reflects on itself, the primary reality lies not in ‘the world out there’, but rather in the cognitive operations themselves.” Once more, to avoid misunderstandings: for Luhmann, the social theorist, these cognitive operations in society are communications or discourses. Luhmann summarized his ontology even more succinctly when he said, “Reality is produced within the system by means of sense-making.”14
A specific peculiarity of a realist ontology based on constructivist “sense-making” is that it, unlike most classical (Parmenidean, Platonic, and post-Platonic) “dialectical” ontologies (i.e., those that tried to arrive, simply put, at a “synthesis”), no longer assumes that reality is ultimately one, singular, or self-identical. Luhmann’s ontology, I believe, can be classified as “postmodernist” precisely because of this break with the traditional philosophical preference of the one over the many. Like Derrida, Luhmann is a theoretician of differentiation rather than identification.15 In a telling footnote at the beginning of Social Systems, Luhmann says (with regard to his usage of the identity/difference distinction): “An attentive reader will notice that we are discussing the difference between identity and difference, and not their identity. This is where the following reflections diverge from the dialectical tradition—despite similarities that may be noticed from time to time.”16 A whole book has been written on this issue. It tries to answer the question of which theoretical consequences result from Luhmann’s shift from a primacy of identity to a primacy of difference.17
Interestingly enough (at least for me), this simple reevaluation of the identity-difference distinction can be traced back to Wittgenstein (just as Luhmann’s usage of the term Sachverhalte as a basic ontological concept can). In his biography of Wittgenstein, Ray Monk mentions a conversation between Wittgenstein and Maurice Drury, his physician, that took place in Dublin in 1948 or 1949. According to Drury’s recollection, Drury said something like: “Hegel seems to me to be always wanting to say that things which look different are really the same.” Wittgenstein is reported to have replied: “Whereas my interest is in showing that things which look the same are really different.” Ray Monk then adds that Wittgenstein “was thinking of using as a motto for his book [Philosophical Investigations] the Earl of Kent’s phrase from King Lear (Act I, scene iv): ‘I’ll teach you differences.’”18
For Luhmann (just as, perhaps, for Wittgenstein), the construction of reality begins with the construction of difference. The “unmarked space” has to be violated in order for reality to emerge. “Draw a distinction!” is a dictum coined by the mathematician George Spencer Brown frequently quoted by Luhmann. For Luhmann, unlike for the “dialectical tradition,” the difference established by drawing an epistemological distinction remains ontologically prior. In effect, this results in an ontology of radical differentiation. Simply put, reality is irreducible to any form of identity. It is, so to speak, hopelessly pluralistic. If reality emerges as an effect of contingent modes of cognitive observation, then it emerges in multiple ways that are incommensurable with one another. Luhmann’s constructivist epistemology therefore leads to an ontology of multiple realities (but not multiple worlds).
With respect to social theory, Luhmann’s insistence on the irreducible primacy of difference leads to a conception of multiple simultaneous social realities. On the one hand, each social system is capable of constructing a social reality as its “own-achievement.” Unlike in unified social visions, such as that of Socrates in the Republic or Habermas’s discourse community, society is not based on integrating ideas (such as goodness or justice) or norms stemming from general rationality. Luhmann speaks of the “dissolution of systems rationality” in modern society:19 every social system, in Luhmann’s terms, produces its own systemic rationality, and there is no lowest common denominator that unifies them. Luhmann maintains that his view on modern society “can be condensed into a difference-theoretical concept of systems rationality.”20 But, it may be asked, just how rational, in the Enlightenment-sense of this term from Kant to Habermas, is such a “difference-theoretical” multiple rationality?
When a society based on functional differentiation emerges, varieties of rationalities emerge and evolve. Legal rationality differs from political rationality, and political rationality differs from economic rationality, and so on. In a coevolutionary systems-environment context, all of these rationalities are continually changing. Along with these incommensurable rationalities, incommensurable realities emerge and evolve. The legal reality differs from that of politics or the economy. All these realities are subject to ceaseless change. Just as reality looks and feels different, and has different effects on different organisms within a specific ecosystem—and thus is different for every different organism included in it (the reality of a lake is radically different for the plants living in it than it is for the fish living there)—social reality is different for each social subsystem, including academic and scientific theories of society. The reality of society that emerges from a scientific or theoretical self-description of society is not “the” social reality, but one more in addition to those that already exist. By theoretically reducing social complexity in the form of a coherent social theory, social reality inevitably increases in complexity since another social construct has been achieved—just as attempts to de-complexify administrative structures by creating administrative units for administrative de-complexification will inevitably increase real administrative complexity.
To give a concrete example from the science system: I am writing this text on Luhmann in order to clarify his theory and to come up with a comprehensive interpretation that is supposed to unify its understanding and bring about consensus with respect to its meaning, value, and consequences. In effect, however, once this text is published, it will—if academically and thus socially successful—in turn be interpreted, thus increasing the complexities with respect to the reception of Luhmann’s theory. In order for it to be socially successful, it must, therefore, paradoxically, but inevitably, miss its goal and not achieve consensus.
Or, to give another similar example: Kant’s Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Present Itself as Science was metaphysically (as an academic book on metaphysics, and thus as social communication) successful only because of and not despite its complete failure to be what its title promised. The publication of this treatise did not mark the beginning of a “future metaphysics that will be able to present itself as science,” but, to the contrary, the end of such presumptuous metaphysical attempts. After this treatise, the history, or more precisely, the genealogy, of scientific metaphysics could be written. That was its major effect. To speak in Hegelian terms, it functioned according to the logic of the inverted or topsy-turvy world (verkehrte Welt).21 Rather than determining the future development of metaphysics by providing it with a foundational grounding, Kant joined the ship of fools of metaphysicians and made it possible to look at the reality of metaphysics as a curious episode within the evolution of modern society. Instead of being the founder of a new science, Kant could be considered a philosopher who made the foolishness of the endeavor of a Prolegomena for Any Future Metaphysics finally obvious. Kant, like Habermas and others who followed in his footsteps, failed to understand this “social ontology.” Reality, by being observed, described, and analyzed, becomes further complicated than it had been before it was observed.
Accidentally, we may now have reached one of the “similarities that may be noticed from time to time” with the “dialectical tradition,” or, more precisely, with Hegel. If Donald Phillip Verene is correct, Hegel’s concept of the topsy-turvy world was borrowed from a play of that title by Ludwig Tieck, a contemporary of Hegel and a leading German romantic author. This play, in turn, is related to a much earlier work of German literature, the Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools) by Sebastian Brant (1494).22 According to Verene’s reading, Hegel’s concept of the topsy-turvy world was, given these connections, intended to be ironic and was meant to expose the grotesque self-contradictions and self-refutations within the scientific philosophies of Kant and others. By attempting to define the order of reality, such philosophies only further confused it.
Just as Verene, via Tieck and the Ship of Fools, discovers a level of irony in Hegel’s treatment of the history of philosophy in the Phenomenology, one cannot but discover a level of irony in Luhmann’s realist ontology. Given that reality is incommensurably plural, and any observation of reality only adds to this plurality, an ontology necessarily contains some degree of self-refutation. Insofar as Luhmann’s ontology is complete, it is, paradoxically, incomplete. Unlike Kant’s ontology (and that of social theorists like Habermas), Luhmann’s ontology (and perhaps Hegel’s, if one follows Verene’s interpretation) is ironical. Its wisdom consists, at least in part, in consciously demonstrating its paradoxical limitations and contradictions. An ontology based on difference rather than identity is bound to imply the possibility of different ontologies and thus necessarily includes a proof of its own contingency. While Kant’s Prolegomena represents a serious attempt to determine reality and to rid it of its paradoxes, Luhmann’s theory attempts to prove why such attempts, including his own, are inherently paradoxical.
However, just as I think that Luhmann’s constructivist realism does not lack in realism only because it is constructivist, I do not think that his postmodernist pluralist realism is less realist only because it is pluralist. Similarly, I would oppose accusations that it is not fully realist only because it is ironic or paradoxical. To the contrary, I think that a realism that is capable of fully accounting for a radically pluralist and paradoxical reality may be more realist than traditional ontologies. To reiterate the ironic Hegelian theme of the topsy-turvy world: if reality actually is topsy-turvy, then an ontology that is able to account for this topsy-turviness may well be more realist than one that pretends to be capable of straightening it out.
To conclude these reflections on Luhmann’s ontology of difference, I return once more to Wittgenstein. In his Tractatus, Wittgenstein had conceived of reality (or “the world”) as the sum of all facts that are “the case.” Reality, therefore, does not consist of things, but of effects of observation. For the early Wittgenstein, the mode of observation that would allow for the establishment of whatever is the case was language, and, in particular, a purified and logically correct and coherent language. In his later works, however, Wittgenstein admitted “severe errors” in his earlier approach.23 Instead of looking to establish an artificially purified, logically coherent language that would provide us with the possibility to see clearly that “which is the case,” and thus establish a similarly coherent world or reality, Wittgenstein was now concerned with “ordinary language.” He came to accept the fact that real language is not necessarily coherent or pure. The artificial “language game” of the Tractatus did not clarify the facts, but simply constituted another way of doing philosophy by adding another text to the world. The later Wittgenstein denounced his earlier obsession with linguistic purity as a means for delineating the real world and shifted toward a preoccupation with the often incoherent and incommensurable differences that exist in language. This is, I suppose, why he intended to choose “I’ll teach you differences” as a motto.
At one point in Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein metaphorically accuses himself of having gotten on to “slippery ice,” onto a surface that is too smooth for people to walk on. He urges himself to return: “Back on to the rough ground!”24 If I understand it correctly, what Wittgenstein is saying is: back on to the rough ground of “ordinary language.” And thus away from the all too smooth and slippery ground of the artificially purified language that the Tractatus had envisioned. Wittgenstein was ready to shift from a language philosophy based on logical coherence and identity to one of difference and plurality. Language and that which is the case, and thus the world or reality, is not smooth; it is a “rough ground.”
Luhmann was not a language philosopher. He was a social theorist, which for him meant a theorist of communication. Language is only one of the means by which communication can operate. Nevertheless, for Luhmann, real or ordinary communication was “rough ground” as well. Unlike for Habermas, for Luhmann it made no sense to try and smooth it out so that it becomes an even surface. Wittgenstein said that, in a certain way, a perfectly smooth and icy surface could be called an ideal ground—but it is also a ground that one cannot walk on.25 If I am not mistaken, Luhmann’s constructivist ontology of a social reality based on difference rather than identity opposes attempts by traditional “rationalist” theoreticians like Kant and Habermas to “smooth” society, communication, and reality. Such a seemingly ideal society, he was afraid, might be too unreal to be inhabitable.