**6. Niklas Luhmann's contingency functionalism**

62 Sociological Landscape – Theories, Realities and Trends

The numerous critical discussions since concerning the application of functional analysis and systems theoretical models in social sciences have shown how right Hempel was in his judgment. Recurrent themes in these discussions concern: the difficulties of defining the borders of social systems as well as specifying the criteria for social change; accusations of conservatism, of justifying the present social structure, the status quo, as the best possible form; and accusations of positioning the developmental path leading to present state of society as an universal and unilinear model of social structural changes. Hempel's concluding judgment is that at best functional analysis has only heuristic meaning; it is possible to use it as a scheme in assessing the system likeness of an object, especially

Ernst Nagel (1972:68-9; see also Cummins, 1975:743-45), another prominent neopositivist philosopher of science, starts his analysis of functional explanation from the supposition that it aims at giving an explanation to the existence of the object under scrutiny. Nagel (1979 [1961]:421-24) moves the focus of functional analysis from the self-preservation of a system in an environment to an examination of the inner constitution of complex wholes; to the study of the features, relationships and operations of different parts of the system as far as they are distinctive to the typical ways functioning of an entity. His final judgement concerning the capacity of functional analysis to yield an explanation to the existence of phenomena, both in natural sciences and especially in social sciences, is as critical as

However, Nagel's analysis was a kind of watershed in the discussion concerning functional analysis, because he delineates two alternative ways to understand the purpose of the method. One possibility is to continue the attempts to find unfailing grounds for the assertion that functional analysis is a distinct and genuine form of explanation of its own. The other possibility is to give up the ambition of offering explanations entirely and instead tie up the functional approach to an analysis of the ways complex unities function. The former choice is presented by different selectionist neo-teleogical approaches, which try to show that in the context of evolution theory functional explanations are completely valid. According to them, the existence of a trait or feature is justifiably explainable on the basis of the evolutionary advantages it offers to its carriers in the selection processes happening at the level of population (see e.g. Wright, 1973; Neander, 1991; Milligan, 2002). The latter form of functional analysis is put forward by Robert Cummins (1975, 2002). He criticises neoteleologists for merging two different independent forms of explanations: the explanation for the existence of a phenomenon and the explanation of the function of a phenomenon, together. By so doing they trivialize natural selection by jumping over the messy history of a trait coming into being, the process being insensitive to the function in question. Cummins disengages functional analysis altogether from the task of giving an explanation for the presence of a trait and confines it solely to an analysis of the inner composition of the whole, and its capacities to perform such-and-such things under consideration. A corollary of this is that items or traits have no absolute functions, but the effects are always perspective-related and connected to the capacities or dispositions of the system, which are of interest at the given time. Cummins' sort of functionalism has with good reason been labelled as pragmatist and observation-relative (see e.g. Milligan, 2002; Wortmann, 2007). According to it, functional analysis has an important role in evolution research, but functionality is not the

regarding its self-regulatory mechanisms related to the environment.

principle behind the series of changes happening in evolution.

Hempel's.

Independently of Robert Cummins above mentioned work, this is the direction Niklas Luhmann has developed his own account of functional analysis. Luhmann (1970b) criticized earlier sociological discussion for not making a clear enough distinction between functionalism as a substantial theory of society and functionalism as a research method. If the list of necessary functions, derived from the study of society as a system and its presumed requirements of existence and model of evolutionary changes, is rejected, and instead the research starts from the premise that forms of differentiation are but historically conditioned structural shapes of societies and accomplishments of evolution, not its goals (see, for example, Luhmann, 1997:413-516), the question of a functional method has to be framed in a new way. According to Luhmann the key to this remodeling can already be found in the early functional studies: the question of explaining the phenomenon on the grounds of its task (such as Malinowski's analysis of certain kind of rituals and forms of magic as adaptation mechanisms, the existence of which is based on the relief they offer in situations causing emotional stress in a social community) is, in fact a question of the problem and its solution. This more general formulation also opens up the possibility of determining alternative solutions to the problem. For Luhmann, functional analysis is primarily a 'regulative principle', through which the search is made to find for existence of a phenomenon a relevant 'reference problem' as well as possible functionally equivalent alternative solutions. Accordingly, Luhmann (1970a; 1984:83-91) calls his method equivalent functionalism. The existence of functional equivalents is not for Luhmann, as it was for neopositivists Hempel and Nagel, part of the problems connected with functional analysis, but part of the solution, the price of which is giving up the idea of functional analysis as an explanatory method in a strict sense. Instead of giving an account of the genesis of a social phenomenon, functional analysis directs the attention to the question of how, among many functionally equivalent alternatives, this particular way of solving the problem is maintained and reproduced in a social setting (Luhmann, 1970a:27). This had already been pointed out by Robert Merton (1968:127). For Luhmann, the greatest achievement of the earlier functionalist tradition was the handling of this problem/problem solving scheme, however implicitly it was done.

Luhmann (1970a; 1984:83-91) thus considers functional analysis to be an independent method reducible neither to causal analysis nor to teleological explanation, and characterizes it as a comparative method. Through finding and constructing functional equivalent solutions to a reference problem, which could be posited either on the side of causes or on the side of effects depending on the study (1970a:17) it aims at demolishing the self-evidence that often characterizes social institutions and by so doing opens up social order for the study of its constitutive conditions. In addition, methods alienating purpose also allows insight into equivalent problem solutions behind the seemingly very different social phenomena, as is the case, for instance, in functional subsystems of society according to Luhmann's (1997:42) analysis. In a way, Luhmann's scheme of analysis (social phenomena/solution -> problem delineation) inverts functional analysis top-down. The starting points of analysis are not the aprioristically defined system problems, but solutions to which relevant problems are then delineated, the purpose being to delimit other kinds of solutions to the problems and by so doing to show the contingent character of the existent solution, that is, social phenomena (see e.g. Schneider, 2009:64-5). Not allowing variation on the side of the reference problems, but instead, reifying (originally empirically defined)

Contingency Theoretical Functionalism and the Problem of Functional Differentiation 65

problems, as Nassehi (2007:170) aptly emphasizes, are first of all practical problems related to the continuance of communication, or more commonly expressed, problems of linking actions to each other in real time, in the contexts of interaction, organization as well as society. On an abstract level, functional analysis may be used to define and characterize the different types of systems having their own kind of logic of connectivity; interaction, organization and society in their theoretical specificity (see e.g. Luhmann, 1997:813-47). In regard to empirical research this means that one has to take into account that communication happens often, if not always, at the intersection of different types of systems and contextures, formed by the differentiation of society into various functional subsystems, each structuring communication in its own way. In its 'thickest' form communication occurs as interaction in organizational contexts, where, in addition to the two mentioned systems, interaction and organization with their different logics of connectivity, the resources (and restrictions) coming from functional subsystems (scientific knowledge, economic resources,

As an example of this kind of 'polycontextural' (Vogd, 2009:107) or 'multisystem inclusiveness' (Stichweh, 2000:16) Armin Nassehi (2008a:97) gives an illustration of decision making in a medical context. While making a decision, a doctor has to take into account at the same time the specific interaction context and its demands, the decision-making structure of the organization with the time limits it sets, scientific medical knowledge related to the case in question, legal and normative regulation, and economic resources, to mention some. From the point of view of functional analysis, this means that understanding the specific logic of connectivity of communication episodes requires that several different communication contexts in their specificity have to be taken into consideration at the same time. Different contexts with their specific logic of connectivity both open up and restrict possibilities for networking communication episodes. The formulation of reference problems and making of the solutions or their insolubleness presuppose in empirical analysis an understanding and attention to the logic of working of different kind of simultaneously existing and communication conditioning contexts and their respective

Formulated more generally with the help of the three dimensions meaning (fact, time and social dimension) differentiated by Luhmann (1984:111-35), functional analysis requires that in analyzing the way the fundamental contingency (that is the degrees of freedom related to all the possible ways of linking communicative events to each other), is conditioned, one has to take into account at the same time very different kinds of systems. Both the restrictions and possibilities related to relevant factually differently orientated functional subsystems (legal system, political system, economy and so on), limitations and allowances entailed by organizations working with different time horizons, and the opportunities and hindrances coming from different interaction contexts each defining the inclusion criteria its own way (see e.g. Saake and Nassehi, 2007). In different contexts of communication the same kind of problems are solved, but they are not solved in the same way; and how this is done in one context affects to various degrees other contexts as well (see, for example, Nassehi, 2008a:102). To sum up the above discussion, the reference problems of functional analysis are not presumed or aprioristically defined system problems. The raison d'être of functional analysis is, as Luhmann (1970a:19-20; 1984:84) says, seeing the society as a 'problem system', in which the different ways of structuring communication are analyzed as problem

reference problems, to put it into words of Luhmannian functional analysis.

legal norms and so on) have an enormous conditioning role.

problems as the sole problems (as Parsons does with respect to AGIL –schema) has, according to Nassehi (2008a:93-4; 2008b:13), been the main reason for the bad reputation of functionalism. It is from this impasse that Luhmann hopes to save functional analysis.

It could be claimed that Luhmann's approach and method of functional analysis satisfy the criteria defining the 'new empiricism', set forward in recent discussion by authors demanding a new kind of orientation, 'aposteriorist non-normative analysis' (Lash, 2009) or 'descriptive assemblage' (Mike Savage, 2009) in empirical research. As the 'new empiricism' demands, Luhmann's analysis does not start from aprioristic, value-related presumptions and normative ideals concerning social order and social change directing research at the outset. Neither does it aim at producing a 'deep model' of social life with all the suppositions concerning the essential causal factors and main variables (class, gender, national community and so on) to be taken into account as *explanans*. In this respect Luhmann operates with what Bruno Latour (2009:51) calls a 'flat concept of society', a way of outlining society, free of the above mentioned starting points and suppositions.

Functional analysis as method and system theory as substantial theory of the social world are anyhow closely connected in Luhmann's (1970b:38; see also Schneider, 2009:52-71) sociological oeuvre. This is the point where Luhmann departs from Merton, whose definition of functional analysis he accepted to a great extent. He steps on the side of Parsons because Merton was reluctant to define a whole in respect to something is said to be functional (Stephen P. Savage, 1981:139-42). For Luhmann the horizon of possible problems and solutions opened up by the application of functional analysis are always relative to the system under investigation. In addition, reduction in the number of the alternative problems opened up and their functionally equivalent solutions is only possible by taking into account the system relative limitations, constraints occurring from the state, the composition and ways of functioning of a system under consideration.

In the Luhmannian tradition of systems thinking, the substantial theory is about the existence and reproduction of operative and dynamic social systems composed of networks of communication episodes, emerging and continuing in time from one event to the next, forming an emergent system not reducible to the psychic processing of communication (Luhmann, 1995). The lasting fundamental problem concerning the system's constitution and maintenance, which at the same time is the most general theoretical and theory technical reference problem of the theory in question, is the control of the ever present contingency related to the linking of communicative episodes in time (Nassehi, 2007:170; 2008b:377-94; Luhmann, 2010:29). Luhmann uses the concept of structure as the most general answer to this problem. The function of structures is to make possible autopoiesis, self-reproduction of the systems, by making certain kinds of linkages between communicative episodes possible, and expected, as they at the same time bar other ways of linking communicative episodes (Luhmann, 1984:377-94).

This is the point where the abstract theory of social systems and the method related to it, functional analysis, need to be integrated with empirical observation. There are no aprioristic answers to be found to the question of how communication is structured and to which problems they are answers, neither from the (implicit) rationality structures of language and communication (Habermas), nor from the list of necessary functions to be derived from the presumed conditions for the existence of social systems (Parsons). The

problems as the sole problems (as Parsons does with respect to AGIL –schema) has, according to Nassehi (2008a:93-4; 2008b:13), been the main reason for the bad reputation of functionalism. It is from this impasse that Luhmann hopes to save functional analysis.

It could be claimed that Luhmann's approach and method of functional analysis satisfy the criteria defining the 'new empiricism', set forward in recent discussion by authors demanding a new kind of orientation, 'aposteriorist non-normative analysis' (Lash, 2009) or 'descriptive assemblage' (Mike Savage, 2009) in empirical research. As the 'new empiricism' demands, Luhmann's analysis does not start from aprioristic, value-related presumptions and normative ideals concerning social order and social change directing research at the outset. Neither does it aim at producing a 'deep model' of social life with all the suppositions concerning the essential causal factors and main variables (class, gender, national community and so on) to be taken into account as *explanans*. In this respect Luhmann operates with what Bruno Latour (2009:51) calls a 'flat concept of society', a way

of outlining society, free of the above mentioned starting points and suppositions.

and ways of functioning of a system under consideration.

linking communicative episodes (Luhmann, 1984:377-94).

Functional analysis as method and system theory as substantial theory of the social world are anyhow closely connected in Luhmann's (1970b:38; see also Schneider, 2009:52-71) sociological oeuvre. This is the point where Luhmann departs from Merton, whose definition of functional analysis he accepted to a great extent. He steps on the side of Parsons because Merton was reluctant to define a whole in respect to something is said to be functional (Stephen P. Savage, 1981:139-42). For Luhmann the horizon of possible problems and solutions opened up by the application of functional analysis are always relative to the system under investigation. In addition, reduction in the number of the alternative problems opened up and their functionally equivalent solutions is only possible by taking into account the system relative limitations, constraints occurring from the state, the composition

In the Luhmannian tradition of systems thinking, the substantial theory is about the existence and reproduction of operative and dynamic social systems composed of networks of communication episodes, emerging and continuing in time from one event to the next, forming an emergent system not reducible to the psychic processing of communication (Luhmann, 1995). The lasting fundamental problem concerning the system's constitution and maintenance, which at the same time is the most general theoretical and theory technical reference problem of the theory in question, is the control of the ever present contingency related to the linking of communicative episodes in time (Nassehi, 2007:170; 2008b:377-94; Luhmann, 2010:29). Luhmann uses the concept of structure as the most general answer to this problem. The function of structures is to make possible autopoiesis, self-reproduction of the systems, by making certain kinds of linkages between communicative episodes possible, and expected, as they at the same time bar other ways of

This is the point where the abstract theory of social systems and the method related to it, functional analysis, need to be integrated with empirical observation. There are no aprioristic answers to be found to the question of how communication is structured and to which problems they are answers, neither from the (implicit) rationality structures of language and communication (Habermas), nor from the list of necessary functions to be derived from the presumed conditions for the existence of social systems (Parsons). The problems, as Nassehi (2007:170) aptly emphasizes, are first of all practical problems related to the continuance of communication, or more commonly expressed, problems of linking actions to each other in real time, in the contexts of interaction, organization as well as society. On an abstract level, functional analysis may be used to define and characterize the different types of systems having their own kind of logic of connectivity; interaction, organization and society in their theoretical specificity (see e.g. Luhmann, 1997:813-47). In regard to empirical research this means that one has to take into account that communication happens often, if not always, at the intersection of different types of systems and contextures, formed by the differentiation of society into various functional subsystems, each structuring communication in its own way. In its 'thickest' form communication occurs as interaction in organizational contexts, where, in addition to the two mentioned systems, interaction and organization with their different logics of connectivity, the resources (and restrictions) coming from functional subsystems (scientific knowledge, economic resources, legal norms and so on) have an enormous conditioning role.

As an example of this kind of 'polycontextural' (Vogd, 2009:107) or 'multisystem inclusiveness' (Stichweh, 2000:16) Armin Nassehi (2008a:97) gives an illustration of decision making in a medical context. While making a decision, a doctor has to take into account at the same time the specific interaction context and its demands, the decision-making structure of the organization with the time limits it sets, scientific medical knowledge related to the case in question, legal and normative regulation, and economic resources, to mention some. From the point of view of functional analysis, this means that understanding the specific logic of connectivity of communication episodes requires that several different communication contexts in their specificity have to be taken into consideration at the same time. Different contexts with their specific logic of connectivity both open up and restrict possibilities for networking communication episodes. The formulation of reference problems and making of the solutions or their insolubleness presuppose in empirical analysis an understanding and attention to the logic of working of different kind of simultaneously existing and communication conditioning contexts and their respective reference problems, to put it into words of Luhmannian functional analysis.

Formulated more generally with the help of the three dimensions meaning (fact, time and social dimension) differentiated by Luhmann (1984:111-35), functional analysis requires that in analyzing the way the fundamental contingency (that is the degrees of freedom related to all the possible ways of linking communicative events to each other), is conditioned, one has to take into account at the same time very different kinds of systems. Both the restrictions and possibilities related to relevant factually differently orientated functional subsystems (legal system, political system, economy and so on), limitations and allowances entailed by organizations working with different time horizons, and the opportunities and hindrances coming from different interaction contexts each defining the inclusion criteria its own way (see e.g. Saake and Nassehi, 2007). In different contexts of communication the same kind of problems are solved, but they are not solved in the same way; and how this is done in one context affects to various degrees other contexts as well (see, for example, Nassehi, 2008a:102).

To sum up the above discussion, the reference problems of functional analysis are not presumed or aprioristically defined system problems. The raison d'être of functional analysis is, as Luhmann (1970a:19-20; 1984:84) says, seeing the society as a 'problem system', in which the different ways of structuring communication are analyzed as problem

Contingency Theoretical Functionalism and the Problem of Functional Differentiation 67

problem, which I will not go into. It is only a reminder that Luhmann's theory is more like toolbox, a 'distancing' way to approach social phenomena rather than a readymade theory. In this connection, two aspects already mentioned in the foregoing discussion related to Luhmann's differentiation conception are of interest. Firstly, the process happens not as the differentiation *of* society but as processes *in* society by way of forming different kinds of separate communication –'thickening' contexts. To underline this difference, Luhmann (1997:595-609) refers to this process with the concept of 'Ausdifferenzierung' instead of 'Differenzierung' (differentiation) and defines it as a replication of the system/environment distinction inside the system, which is itself based on this distinction; in this case, communication being distinguished from its environment. This is strongly reminiscent of the 'German' branch of differentiation theory in which the process is seen as cultivating different kinds of separate and selective ways of linking communications and meaning, whether they be called cultural systems (Dilthey) or life orders (Weber), each having their own peculiar logic of connectivity or rationality. In this respect, Luhmann's theory is what comes to differentiation of society, but a variation of this 'old theme'. Secondly, in contrast to that postulated in theories of functional prerequisites of the existence of society, Luhmann's theory has no aprioristic or necessary reasons for the existence of differentiation in the form that it has taken in modern western societies. It is an end effect of a historical (and an evolutionary) process, where among the many problems and their different solutions arising in daily practice (variation), some are chosen (selection) and have an effect in the long run (restabilization), and even beyond the limits of the narrow interactive contexts of their origin, to formulate it with the help of the tripartite structure of the basic

The process being cut out of all the necessity and teleology, the reasons for society having the structural shape it has in modern (western) societies are only to be found on the basis of 'hard' historical-reconstructive work (Luhmann, 1976:291; 1997:358). In this respect, the evolutionary mechanism behind the process of (macro level) changes in society are more like speciation, the isolation of a group and its formation into a reproductive community closed to itself and finally bringing about a new species, than adaptation, selection and reproduction of the specific traits of biological or social systems on the basis of the evolutionary advantages the trait, that is, the function offers to its carriers. This was recently hinted at by Rudolf Stichweh (2007:532-36). Whereas in the latter case functionality is behind the selection mechanism adapting the system to its environment, the former process has nothing to do with functionality in this sense. Using functionalist terminology in this (adaptionists) sense may be completely misleading what comes to (speciationist) macroevolutionary level of system formation. Its sphere of validity is below that level explaining changes in, for example, institutional structure or forms of practice on the basis of adaptive advantages. As Hendrik Wortmann (2007:105) succinctly formulates, functions are

Nevertheless, Wortmann misses the point by reducing Luhmann's form of functional analysis to a form of 'typological essentialism', content to classify empirical phenomena into different functional circles, defined more or less from an outside perspective. He (2007:104) fails to notice of the dynamism in Luhmann's functionalism which comes from the speciationist way of delineating the differentiation process, and which not only makes 'finegrained' empirical analysis possible, but in the full meaning of the word, necessary.

mechanisms of evolutionary change (Luhmann, 1997:456-97).

established in systems, not the other way round.

solutions, with attention paid at the same time to the fact that solutions are dependent on how and by which problem definitions and structures problems are solved elsewhere in a system.
