Театр как «наблюдение второго порядка»: опыт Никласа Лумана

Abstract

The article describes a viewpoint on theatre arts from the perspective of the Systems theory developed by the social philosopher Niklas Luhmann. The target of the study is theatre as a part of the social system. The theatre, being extremely dialogical and “demonstrative” kind of art, is described in terms of communication: self-reference, hetero-reference, autopoiesis, operational closure, first-and second-order observation. The paper aims to consider the theatre as a subsystem of the social system “art”, focusing on the notion of “second-order observation” which presumably can be a key to understanding the contemporary theatre form. Despite its social significance theatre has rarely been an object of social and philosophical studies. One of the aims of this article is to attempt to fill this gap. Luhmann avoided the political bias which was not always possible for social philosophers of the mid-twentieth century, so his view on the space and structure of theatre may also be of interest to contemporary researchers.