Society is a particular type of →Social System. Society is the social system that encompasses all social systems and incorporates all communications; hence, no communication exists outside of society. Society sets the boundaries of social complexity because it limits the possibilities that can be grasped and realized in communication. Every distinction of particular social systems occurs within society.
Unlike corresponding formulations in traditional sociology, it is not individuals, relationships between individuals, or social roles that are the elements of society, but communication. Nor are the boundaries of society territorial boundaries, but rather they are boundaries of communication. Individuals (as psychic and bodily systems) are in the environment of society and society relates to individuals as systems in the environment [→Interpenetration and Structural Coupling].
Society is only one type of social system alongside interaction and organization. Its uniqueness can be observed as a particular effect of complexity reduction: society is the social system that institutionalizes the final fundamental reductions in complexity and, in doing so, sets the premises for the operation of all other types of social systems (interactions and organizations). Society’s selectivity facilitates the selectivity of all other social systems; society is the basis for every further →differentiation in the domain of communication.
The societal system serves as a point of reference for understanding social evolution. Society is always internally differentiated [→Differentiation of Society]. Over the course of society’s evolution, the form of the primary differentiation varies. This form is the structure of society; hence, social evolution consists of changes in the structure of society.
Society differentiates itself primarily in subsystems that produce communications under conditions of strict limitations. These are not interactions or organizations, but specific systems that reproduce society as a whole from a particular perspective. These subsystems vary with the change in the structure of society: for instance, they are functional system, social strata, tribes. These systems are localized within society. Based on the first reduction of complexity undertaken by society, they can constitute specific forms of communication.
Theory of society is a specific theory within sociology, related to a particular case of the theory of social systems. This theory delivers a →self-description of society from the perspective of science; it is a perspective included in society that thematizes society itself. Since it results from the operation of an autopoietic subsystem, i.e. the scientific systems, theory of society does not reflect any objective reality, but offers one particular perspective among other observations of society. Due to its scientific nature, sociological observation is distinct from other observations, since it can include the observer: sociology knows that its description of society is an internal product of society itself. For this reason, sociology can reflect on the structural conditions of this description.
Sociological self-description thematizes the →meaning dimensions in which society’s operations assume a form. It is realized as the theory of communication and the media that make communication probable (social dimension), as evolutionary theory (temporal dimension), and as the theory of differentiation (fact dimension). These specific theories together constitute the theory of society. [C.B.] – (Unlocking Luhmann, p 223–224)
Theory of Society (2012: Ch. 1.1, 1.5); Social Systems (1995: Ch. 10.II); The Self-Description of Society, (1984); Gesellschaft (1970).