Mensch, Beobachter, Kommunikation. Welche Theorie wofür?

Abstract

The article takes up the autopoiesis debate that was conducted in the 1980s and 1990s between Niklas Luhmann on the one hand, Humberto Maturana and Heinz von Foerster on the other. The central irreconcilable positions on the importance of humans as observers and on the definition of systems and the determination of system elements are recapitulated. With respect to a praxeology of systemic counseling and therapy, the claim that organismic, mental, and social systems are autopoietic systems will be challenged. Referring to cultural studies theories of practice, on the other hand, an understanding of communication systems (as systems of constitutively connected communicative, material and affective practices) is argued for, which can be analytically investigated without following a logic of separation of individual and society resp. nature and sociality.