The Making of Meaning: From the Individual to Social Order

Abstract For the first time, this publication makes available to Anglophone readers a sociology of knowledge and culture as developed by the sociologist and social theorist Niklas Luhmann. Luhmann is typically described as writing only about systems and as such about a topic that sociologists relegate to the annals of history. However, this publication reveals that sociology has acted prematurely, overlooking the rich and detailed sociology of knowledge and culture that on the one hand uses terms like ‘meaning,’ ‘memory,’ and ‘communication’ and on the other is very capable of using such terms in the form of a historical analysis that unravels the making and transformation of key concepts and questions that shape the understanding of modern society, like individuality and individualism, culture and memory, and social class. This theoretical approach and the empirical material as well as the insights drawn from their combination yield rich and surprising results and show a very different image of Luhmann than that of system theorist. As such, this volume will be of great interest to scholars in the field of social theory, sociology of knowledge, and cultural sociology, but also conceptual and cultural history as well as culturally oriented research in the arts and humanities.