The Controversy between Niklas Luhmann and Jűrgen Habermas Related to Sociological Approach to Law

Aleksandar Jovanoski,Agron Rustemi

doi:10.2478/seeur-2021-0004

Abstract

Abstract The aim of the paper is to present a brief insight into the significant works and views of the German sociologists Niklas Luhmann and Jűrgen Habermas on the role of law in regulating human relations in society. Educated as a lawyer, Niklas Luhmann in the late academic career was under the influence of the American sociologist Talcott Parsons. Niklas Luhmann later, under the influence of the American sociologist Talcott Parsons, he built a sociological theoretical system called the systems theory. On the other side, Jűrgen Habermas was a philosopher and sociologist, highly influenced by the Frankfurt school of sociology. According to Luhmann‘s systems theory, the social reality and the separate aspects of the social life are part of a deeper system called society, and in relation to the same they are set as subsystems. Social systems are divided into allopoietic and autopoietic. One of the significant axioms of Luhmann’s theory is that the largest number of systems tends to simplify due to the pressure of the environment for greater efficiency. Law in Luhman’s systems theory enjoys the status of an autonomous system for regulating society, rather than an instrumental contribution to politics. This brief review exposed a big clash between two influential German thinkers. In this paper we are going to use historical method and analysing of the content of different materials and previous authors that are dealing with the work of Niklas Luhmann and Jűrgen Habermas.

Highlights

Niklas Luhmann was born in 1927 in Lineburg, Germany to a family of brewers whose business was pressured by the onslaught of large breweries and liquor stores soon after Niklas was born
After the end of World War II, young Luhmann completed his legal studies at the University of Freiburg, and as a law graduate, his first job was as a clerk
A key moment in his university education was his stay in the United States, where he listened to lectures given at the University for a year by the most influential American sociologist, Talcott Parsons

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Niklas Luhmann was born in 1927 in Lineburg, Germany (died 1998) to a family of brewers whose business was pressured by the onslaught of large breweries and liquor stores soon after Niklas was born. In the period after this well-known polemical debate, Niklas Luhman published six volumes of the work Sociological Enlightenment (Sociologische Aufklärung), the first volume of which was published in 1970 and the last the sixth in 1995.The phase of Niklas Luhmann's life and academic development marked a rapid breakthrough in his thought and outreach from his Germany, before translating his works into English, and his stay as a lecturer at universities in the United States, Italy and Brazil.The basic standpoints on Luhmann/Habermas controversy, some authors like Kjaer express in several hypothesis and encounters: 1. The initial moment of starting Luhmann/Habermas controversy was whether the idea of emancipation through rational political steering – the core element in Enlightenment thinking, as well as in German idealism – could still be considered as meaningful. Habermas advocated for a revitalization of Enlightenment ideals and German idealism, to be achieved by the development of an ’updated’ theory of emancipation (Kjaer, 2006:66)

EPISTEMOLOGICAL VIEWS

CONCLUSION