**5. Conclusion**

54 Social Sciences and Cultural Studies – Issues of Language, Public Opinion, Education and Welfare

A first order observer is necessarily self-centred and convinced that the world is as he sees it. He is prone to all sorts of "centrism" like egocentrism, geocentrism, ethnocentrism, and hodiecentrism. Second order observation on the other hand has a decentring effect. It does not only apply to situations in which people observe one another, but it can also take the form of self-observation. I can take a second order look at myself, but only after some time. Right now, I am unable to do this, because that would amount to an attempt to observe the very distinction that guides my observations. We can observe (distinguish!) a *Leitdifferenz* or guiding distinction only with the help of another *Leitdifferenz*. Only on this condition are we able to see both sides of a distinction at a single glance. This may happen in two ways. If we observe the *Leitdifferenz* of other people in the here and now, we follow a "social" approach coming so naturally that nobody has ever felt the need to take notice of it, except for cases in which cultural understanding becomes a problem. For these cases, we have specialist studies like cultural anthropology. The other possibility is the observation of our own *Leitdifferenz*, be it as an individual or as a group. Since we are unable to do this *in actu*, only a "temporal" or historical approach will do. Using our own memory or "experiential" records, like letters, photographs, diaries, and interviews, we may be able to reflect on how we

perceived the world at earlier moments. This approach is typical for cultural history.

hindsight, it seems like an anticipation of later developments.

important next to what-questions.

right.

Studies like cultural anthropology and cultural history date from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. In that time, second order observation became a dominant cultural feature. This is not to say, that people did not observe in such a way before that time. As an individual performance, second order observation is as old as humanity itself. Socially and culturally, however, it was uncommon and even unacceptable for a long time, because the traditional ontology claimed orthodoxy for itself and not tolerating heterodox or "heretic" visions. Theologians had their own idea of second order observation, when they urged religious believers to look at themselves through the eyes of the Great Observer, an idea that is still present in the masonic symbol of the "all-seeing eye" (Luhmann, 1998). With

The complexity of modern society explains why second order observation became to the fore. Important was, first, the fragmentation of the traditional worldview by the differentiation of functional subsystems having each their own perspective on society. A telling example is the conflict between the religious and the scientific worldview in the time of Bruno and Galilei. A second point is that second order observation realizes a reduction of social complexity by focusing on observations instead of events. First observation serves then as an intermediate layer for reaching the world. A second order observer can still see *what* first order observers see, albeit from a different perspective, but more important is that he can at the same time observe *how* they see it. This means that how-questions become

If we look at the natural and the social sciences, second order observation has different functions. In the natural sciences it serves as a means to standardize first order observations. Scientific experiments are arranged in such a way that researchers can expect the same result when they are repeating them. In social and cultural studies this controlled observation does not really work. A practical reason is that there is little room for experiments, but more important is that observation counts as a research object in its own It was the aim of this article to show that Luhmann's social theory offers a solution for two problems in the tradition of historicist thought, the status of individual social wholes and the historical method with its relativistic consequences. To that end, I discussed two central concepts of this theory, respectively autopoietic systems and second order observation. To accentuate the similarities between historicism and Luhmann's version of functionalism I pointed out that Luhmann's "Sociological Enlightenment" has much in common with the tradition of romantic-historic thought and the older Leibnizian philosophy. Of course, there are differences as well and although they were not subject of discussion in this chapter, I want to point at an obvious contrast by way of epilogue. Contrary to sociologists historians are self-conscious storytellers, as Luhmann rightly though somewhat condescendingly notices (Luhmann, 1997a, 570). They can take advantage of a systems theory like Luhmann's, but only in their capacity of auctorial narrator. The theory may help them in asking the right questions and finding new structures, but it represents only the perspective of the present past, the voice-over so to speak. Historians should also pay attention to the viewpoint of the historical agent in his or her past present in order to keep the narrative lively. This explains why they are more interested in the past as such than sociologists are and why they will not soon give up the individual action perspective. The tension between the perspectives of present past and past present is and will probably remain an important ingredient of modern historiography.

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