One, if not the, central distinction of Systems Theory is that of consciousness and social system.
In this theory, when one refers to social systems, one refers to a field free of consciousness; when one refers to consciousness, one refers to a field free of sociality.
This does not mean at all that social systems could be thought of without consciousness in their environment, or that consciousness could come about without contact with social systems at all; but it does mean that the social system is not conscious, and that no elements of social systems can be found in consciousness.
This basic distinction forces sociological systems theory to state the constituent elements of social systems as distinct from the basic elements of consciousness.
In doing so, it has abandoned action as the basic concept of sociology and introduced instead that of communication.
Communication is conceived as a synthesis (or syndosis) of three selections – information, communication, understanding – that produces and reproduces itself from further syntheses of the same kind. The concept applied to this mode of reproduction is that of Autopoiesis, that is, of a mode that produces self-reproductive, closed, self-referential systems.
Consciousness, under these conditions, is conceived as a (structured) source of Noise, but no longer as a dominator, as a subject of the social system. There is no longer anyone who communicates – except communication itself.
All this is well known; it is the contested register into which the theoretical options of sociological systems theory can be hooked. Those who agree on communicating, acting, decisive subjects need not be wrong, but they have hooked themselves into a different and clearly distinct register. Less familiar, however, is what actually happens to the concept of action after it has been deprived of its basic idea prestige. A closer look reveals that it is elaborated in two directions.
The one direction refers to the fact that actions are socially disposed. What an action is, whether it is an action, to whom it is attributed, to whom it is not attributed, what consequences it has, is the subject of communicative attributions.
Sociological research can then concentrate on investigating the corresponding attribution routines. This in itself is significant enough, insofar as it is then no longer a matter of drawing on the motives, the intentions, the self-descriptions of subjects, but rather of exploring the social structures to which a consciousness owes not only the pressure to have to name motives at all (in order to then get used to having some), but also the set of admitted, communicable motives.
The other direction makes use of the fact that communication processes must calculate 'points' to which messages can be attributed. Somebody, something must have demonstrated a behavior to which can be connected, because it has been interpreted as a communicative behavior, in this meaning as a deed, an act, an action.
Communication, this is Luhmann's assessment, simplifies or materializes as a chain of events that stand out as acts of communication. In a metaphor borrowed from Freud, one could say that communication is the projection of communication as consciousness is the projection of a surface.
If communication is, as we have assumed, element of an autopoietic context, then it is, to remain in the metaphor, the projector. It itself determines, through its specific temporality, which is always that of the addendum, of différance, which behavior is to be considered as communicating behavior, which is not. It projects communicants and thus creates a kind of skeleton for itself, a Scaffolding from which it pushes off or along which it spins. What is important here is that it would not work without this scaffolding, because it is very difficult to imagine that communication could work with information that is not communicated.
Thus, action theory (in the meaning of sociological systems theory) is concerned with the communicative fabrication of actors.
When formulated in this way, however, there is still the misunderstanding that these actors are in some ontological meaning subjects or acting psychophysical entities that are characterized by sociality.
DOT FROM lambda-browsing