Niklas Luhmann

Niklas Luhmann
Born	(1927-12-08)December 8, 1927 Lüneburg, Germany
Died	November 11, 1998(1998-11-11) (aged 70) Oerlinghausen, Germany
Alma mater	University of Freiburg University of Münster
Known for	Theory of autopoietic social systems Functional differentiation Operational constructivist epistemology Double contingency[1]
Scientific career
Fields	Social theory Systems theory Communication theory Sociocybernetics
Institutions	University of Bielefeld
Academic advisors	Talcott Parsons
Notable students	Dirk Baecker [de; zh] Peter Fuchs [de] Rudolf Stichweh [de] Elena Esposito Maren Lehmann [de]

Niklas Luhmann (/ˈluːmɑːn/; German: [ˈluːman]; December 8, 1927 – November 11, 1998) was a German sociologist, philosopher of social science, and one main inventer of systems theory.^[2]

Niklas Luhmann is one of the most influential German sociologists of the 20th century. His thinking was based on the philosophical tradition and at the same time the reception of a wide variety of concepts from modern science. From this groundation he developed his functionalist-oriented systems theory, which claims to be able to describe all social phenomena in a theoretically consistent language.

Social systems are understood as communication contexts that have autonomy from the actors involved in them. On this basis, three types of social systems can be distinguished: interaction, organization and society.

On his general theory he saddle up^{[clarification needed]} a social theory, which describes modern society as a global society that is characterized by an internal differentiation into various autonomously working functional areas such as politics, law, economics, science, religion and art. According to Luhmann, their operations can not be coordinated centrally.^[3]