System's Sole Constituent,the Operation: Clarifying a Central Concept of Luhmannian Theory

Abstract

The autopoietic turn in Luhmann's later theory is not thinkable without the refocusing of systems theory around a new concept of operativity. The article shows the lines of development from the earlier theory towards the final prevailing of a purely operativist conception of the system. The movement is one of deconstructing all intuitive representations of a border-defined, thing-like system. The radical version that emerges leaves the operation as the sole and unique systemic constituent. The article shows that such a strain of thought contracting an extensive transitive structure into a purely operative core has major philosophical antecedents: Aristotle's conception of the actuation of life or intellection in a composite being, Fichte's self-position of the transcendental I. Heidegger's subject and authorless 'Ereignis' constitute very similar figures of 'operativization'. This sheds light on the most problematic aspect of Luhmannian theory, namely its reliance on a 'protologic' that does not elaborate, like similar philosophical endeavours before it, on the fundaments of its own evidence.