Is society a self-organizing system?

Abstract

Should society be considered a self-organizing (“autopoietic”) system? If so, what are the implications of this approach for sociological theory? The concept of paradigms has provided the sociology of science with a mental model for understanding self-organization as an agency at the supra-individual level. In the sociology of scientific knowledge this “anomaly” in sociological theorizing has been elaborated by using the distinction between reflexive and substantive discourses. This essay specifies the conditions necessary for a social system to become self-organizing in terms of communications. “Interpenetration” by action can then be analyzed in terms of structural and operational couplings of the social communication system.