The future has become a problem for the present. Almost every critical issue is now understood and experienced through the prism of the future since this is the primary focus for the playing out of crises. Senses of the Future offers a wide-ranging discussion of theories of the future. It covers the main ideas of the future in modern thought and explores how we should view the future today in light of a plurality of very different and conflicting visions. The (...) key contribution of this book is to bring together the different approaches with an account that is grounded in sociological and philosophical analysis as opposed to visions of the future that are inspired by extreme visions of catastrophe or approaches that see the future as only the continuation of the present. Given a revival of apocalyptical visions of the ‘end times’ and dystopian views of the future of human societies, there is urgent need for a new approach on how we should imagine the future. The author explores the future as a field of tensions that is revealed in narratives, utopian desires, hope, imaginaries, and social struggles concerning the potential possibilities of the present: the future does not just arrive; it has to be fought for. This book is an important contribution to a critical sociology of the future. It is both a work of reconstruction and critique grounded in a historical and philosophical hermeneutics of the future. Table of Contents Chapter One Introduction: Conflicting Visions of the Future Contested Visions of the Future Today Return to the Future Outline of the Chapters References Chapter Two When is the Future? The Problem of Time and the Human Condition Time in the Physical World: Lessons from Physics Has the Future already Begun? Time and History Time, Life, and the Human Condition: Biology, Evolution, and Culture Conclusion References Chapter Three Lessons from the Past: What Does the Past Tell Us about the Future? The Future in the Past Failed Societies and Civilizational Collapse Catastrophes and History Conclusion References Chapter Four Modernity and the Concept of the Future: Utopia, Progress, and Prophecy The Future as Expectation The Future as an Imaginary and the Emergence of Utopianism The Future as Possibility The Future as Experience Conclusion References Chapter Five Ideas of the Future in the Twentieth Century: Futurism, Modernism, Sociology, and Political Theory New Political Ideas of the Future after 1945 Responses to the Future: From Fear of the Future to Futurology Sociological Theory and the Future Conclusion: The New Sociology of the Future References Chapter Six Critical Theory and the Future: The Sources of Transcendence The Intellectual Origins of Critical Theory: A Brief Outline The Idea of the Future in the Critical Theory of the Early Frankfurt School Habermas and the Communication Paradigm The Responsibility Paradigm and Cosmopolitanism: Jonas and Apel Critical Cosmopolitanism and the Idea of the Future Conclusion: Cultural Models and the Future as Possibility References Chapter Seven Conclusion: In The Shadow of the Future Do We Need a Theory of the Future? Are we already in a New Historical Era? AI and a Posthuman Future Struggles for the Future References Index. (shrink)

First, this article will outline the metaphysics of `the social' that implicitly and explicitly connects the work of classical and contemporary cosmopolitan sociologists as different as Durkheim, Weber, Beck and Luhmann. In a second step, I will show that the cosmopolitan outlook of classical sociology is driven by exclusive differences. In understanding human affairs, both classical sociology and contemporary cosmopolitan sociology reflect a very modernist outlook of epistemological, conceptual, methodological and disciplinary rigour that separates the cultural sphere from the natural (...) objects of concern. I will suggest that classical sociology — in order to be cosmopolitan — is forced (1) to exclude non-social and non-human objects as part of its conceptual and methodological rigour, and (2) consequently and methodologically to rule out the non-social and the non-human. Cosmopolitan sociology imagines `the social' as a global, universal explanatory device to conceive and describe the non-social and non-human. In a third and final step the article draws upon the work of the French sociologist Gabriel Tarde and offers a possible alternative to the modernist social and cultural other-logics of social sciences. It argues for a inclusive conception of `the social' that gives the non-social and non-human a cosmopolitan voice as well. (shrink)

Like other parts of the social system, education is becoming an information-driven venture: data technologies pervade all levels of the system. This datafication of education seems to take place alongside a general turn to learning that Gert Biesta has called learnification: a progressively singular focus on the manipulable features of individual learning in education. Given rapidly rising levels of datafication, it seems timely to take up Luhmann and Schorr’s contention that education entails a technology deficit and discuss datafication as reflection (...) issue in the system of education. Against their argument that human learning is not amenable to a technology, I develop the counter-argument that data technologies are replacing human learning outright with data at the level of organisation. Data thus present a concretely digital form of what Raf Vanderstraeten has called education as an ersatz order. In a data-driven form of organising education, human dimensions of learning become secondary to a systemic dimension: making learning visible as data and so susceptible to databased manipulation. The text treats school-wide positive behaviour support interventions as an evidence-based exemplar of this trend towards datafication in the system of education. (shrink)

In the Parthenon frieze, the time of mortals and the time of gods seem to merge. Dipesh Chakrabarty has argued that with the advent of the Anthropocene the times of human history and of the Earth are similarly coming together. Are humans entering the ‘monumental time’ of the Earth, to stand alongside the Olympian gods of the other geological forces? This article first looks at the cultural shifts leading to the modern idea of separate human and Earth histories. It examines (...) the changing use of monuments to mediate between human and other temporalities. It explores the use of ‘stratigraphic sections’ as natural monuments to mark transitions between the major time units of Earth history, and the erection of intentional monuments nearby. It suggests that the Anthropocene, as a geological epoch-in-the-making, may challenge the whole system of monumental semiotics used to stabilize our way of thinking about deep time. (shrink)

It is well known that Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems is grounded in Spencer-Brown’s seminal Laws of Form (LoF) or ‘calculus of indications’. It is also known that the reception of the latter has been rather problematic. This article attempts to describe the construction of LoF, and confront it with Niklas Luhmann’s ontological and epistemological premises. I show how LoF must be considered a protologic, or research into the fundamentals of logical systems. The clue to its understanding is to (...) be found in its profoundly topological conception of common mathematics and (Boolean) algebra. Both are explained as direct offspring of their planar orientation. Self-reference is a justified instance of an extended, more intricate topological arrangement. Its consequences for ontology (non-identity) and epistemology (autology), I argue, have been adopted correctly by Niklas Luhmann. Separate sections are devoted to how Spencer-Brown’s notion of re-entry relates to Luhmann’s definition of system/environment, and to a comparison between Luhmann’s and Parsons’ functionalism. (shrink)

With an aim to develop a public theology for an age of information media (or media theology), this article proposes a new God-concept: God is a communicative system sui generis that autopoietically processes meaning/information in the supratemporal realm via perfect divine media ad intra (Word/Spirit). For this task, Niklas Luhmann's systems theory is critically appropriated in dialogue with theology. First, my working postmetaphysical/epistemological stance is articulated as realistic operational constructivism and functionalism. Second, a series of arguments are advanced to substantiate (...) the thesis: (1) God is an observing system sui generis ; (2) self-referential communication is divine operation; (3) unsurpassable complexity is divine mystery; (4) supratemporal autopoiesis of meaning is divine processing; (5) agape is the symbolic medium of divine communication. Third, this communicative model of God is developed into a trinitarian theology, with a claim that this model offers a viable alternative beyond the standard (psychic, social, process) models. Finally, some implications of this model are explored for constructive theology (conceiving creation as divine mediatization) and for science-and-religion in terms of derivative models: (1) God as a living system sui generis and (2) God as a meaning system sui generis. (shrink)

This article discusses New Confucian views on individuality and related philosophical problems. Special emphasis is given to the position of Tu Wei-Ming, a foremost living New Confucian thinker. It is pointed out that many New Confucian philosophers share a vision of a Confucian 'ideal' individuality or selfhood based on social integration - as opposed to a Western type of individuality sometimes portrayed as an individuality by isolation. These patterns of individuality are further examined on the basis of Niklas Luhmann's historical (...) analysis of the semantics of individuality and his categories of 'individuality by inclusion' and 'individuality by exclusion'. Finally, some parallels and differences between Confucian and the Luhmannian viewpoints are pointed out, and a suggestion on how a Luhmannian perspective might contribute to reformulations of New Confucian thought is attempted. (shrink)

Across the globe, education has recently been through a major semantic shift, where new notions such as ‘learning’, ‘competences’, ‘projects’ came to replace or complement an older, more established, educational vocabulary. The political approach to education has also evolved, as many authors have underlined, from established national forms of governing to global, transnational forms of governance. These evolutions, often abbreviated to shifts ‘from teaching to learning’ and ‘from governing to governance’ have resonated globally and attracted the attention of researchers. Most (...) sociological accounts of such evolutions attribute them to the development and primacy of a preponderant logic, generally politics/power, culture or the economy. Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, on which we draw in this article, suggests to start from a different, opposite, premise: not the predominance but instead the lack of any predominant logic characterizes modernity. The functional differentiation of modern society into a multiplicity of—specific yet universal—systems should therefore be the pivotal point that helps make sense of these transformations. We argue that the very coexistence of such systems, their simultaneous and therefore uncoordinated existences, increases the complexity of the social world tremendously and leaves them with an uncertain future. The so-called turns to governance and to learning, we argue, should be understood, respectively, as political and educational attempts to deal with this loss of direction. (shrink)

Among social theories, autopoiesis achieves an almost unequalled level of complexity and abstraction. Yet this has has not in any way deterred commentators from among the ranks of legal and socio-legal academics from launching critical attacks on the theory. This article argues that many of these detractors miss their mark, because their authors either misinterpret the theory by failing to recognize its radical nature and the new paradigm that it introduces, or, in the more extreme cases, project onto the theory (...) immoral or irrational ambitions which are nowhere to be found in the writings of Niklas Luhmann or other autopoietic theorists. All this brings to mind Nabokov's novel Pale Fire, which also is concerned with criticism, projection and misinterpretation. In that novel the text is a poem, while the plot, concerning a paranoid literary critic, unfolds in the notes commenting on this poem. This article reverses this device by placing the main commentaries and criticisms in the main text and the `autopoietry', extracts from the writings of autopoietic scholars, which form the subject of the critical attacks, in the footnotes. (shrink)

A distinctive characteristic of Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of hegemony is its insistence on the denial of an essence or ground of the subject. This element of their theory is derived from their notion of antagonism, in which a relation with a ground is brought into question by revealing its contingency. This article argues that the political dimension of this argument makes sense only in the context of Laclau and Mouffe’s notion of modernity. However, the universalizing of modernity as the (...) form of hegemony reduces the ontological notion of antagonism to a dialectical or empirical notion of contradiction. This article examines two key moves in this process: first, the reduction of the subject to Lacan’s account of the subject; and second, the reduction of modernity to an ontotheologicalpolitical structure derived from Lefort as the support of the hegemonic subject. From this the article examines Laclau’s response to the exhaustion of political modernity in the figure of complexity, from which antagonism is evacuated through the hegemony of the category of myth. Finally, the article discusses a nonhegemonic approach to antagonism derived from the work of Foucault, Wolin and Rancière. (shrink)

This article builds on the notion of legal tolerance and analyzes the scope of its definition. It situates the notion in the complex set of relations occurring between the major systems of society. Generally, legal tolerance, as a concept, is understood in light of the possibilities of the legal system of influencing other major systems? responses. On the other hand, tolerance is also the response of the legal system in respect to other major systems? communications. Although there is a common (...) understanding of tolerance as ?under punishing bias? in criminology or as political tolerance in political science, 1 the focus of this article is different. The central points here are, first, the analysis of legal tolerance as part of systemic communications and, second, the historicity of the transformations of the nation-state in its ability to cope with the growth of separate, distinct and partial systems of society. Tolerance seems relational and raises questions such as: ?How much can the legal system tolerate?? And also, ?Which societal topics belong to the social system's domain-matter?? These questions are relevant given that the concept of legal tolerance depends on the possibilities of a given system to steer, to direct or to influence other major systems? behavior, or to resist, respond or to address other systems, which are in its environment. The concept of legal tolerance requires an analysis of a cluster of related definitions to assess the implications of the concept. These definitions are the following: (1) The concepts that result from the historical process of structuration and that explain the emergence of social systems. (2) The definition of reflexivity and its relation with the ?second order cybernetics dilemma.? This is the place where heuristic and epistemological problems are found. Such problems result from both the problem of representation and from the ontological status of the real. This analysis will show why reflexivity is a key concept to explaining the transformations suffered by such systems. Then, legal tolerance is a newer development in respect to the idea of planning. As an alternative to hard planning, legal tolerance creates a fostering environment. Instead of a single system directing other systems, legal tolerance is relational and created collectively by the organizational national state using its (limited) power of legal creation. Legal tolerance also stems from the concerned subsystems of the society (economy, law, politics, science, along with others) by means of a variety of legislative products, public policies, alliances, and legal and other scientific communications that emerge as coordinating mechanisms among the alluded major subsystems. (shrink)

For Niklas Luhmann the body seems to almost disappear in modernity. Modern society, he argues, is a system comprised of a number of operatively closed and functionally distinct sub-systems such as economics, science, law, the mass media and so on. Each system is autonomous and observes the world in its own terms via its internal communications. Thus, Luhmann’s sociology is generally characterized as a post-human one. That is, one in which the basic unit of both social agency and sociological analysis (...) is not the embodied human subject but rather instances of impersonal communication. This article offers a challenge to this by arguing that the body still has a significant function in Luhmann’s account of social systems. My claim is that the body has the ability to migrate between different systems and, thus, has a transcendent status in social systems. That is, the body can migrate between social systems and, in Luhmann’s terms, irritate them in significant ways. (shrink)

This article discusses some possibilities for a critical interpretation of Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. On the one hand, this theory could provide a sophisticated new sociological account of well-known modern social pathologies, such as alienation and reification; on the other, it could be considered a crypto-normative model for the reciprocal mediation between system and environment in which neither blind tautologies nor colonizations would take place. I argue that as a normative model this theoretical matrix seems to resonate with aspects of (...) Adorno’s negative dialectics between subject and object and that the involuntary promise it contains could be fully realized only under other social conditions. The article also presents a preliminary critique of neoliberalism reconceptualized in systems theoretical terms as a dedifferentiation machinery that aims at establishing the primacy of economic rationality and the formation of ‘industries’ in different social spheres. (shrink)

This essay brings together some lines of thought contained in Maria Markus’s ‘Lovers and Friends’ (2010) and ‘Decent Society and/or Civil Society?’ (2001), and, on that basis, explores possibilities for thinking about friendship in the context of contemporary social change. I begin by situating current problems concerning the semantics of friendship in their historical trajectory. I then go on to elaborate friendship’s ‘normative flexibility’, that is, its relative immunity to reifying societal pressures. Finally, I reflect upon the connexions between friendship’s (...) normative particularities and Markus’s elaboration of ‘decency’. (shrink)

The background of the article is Marxism's lack of a notion of management. The article suggests that anyone rethinking capitalism should pause for a moment to check on the evidence for such a notion. It seems necessary because today's theory of capitalism can no longer be content with a structural theory of the conflict between capital and labour, but must integrate a poststructural, or operational, theory of how capitalism is sustained on a day-to-day basis by organized projects in networks. The (...) article develops a notion of `management by strata', which is matched to the traditional role of hierarchies, and a notion of `management by ties', which is tuned to the newly discovered role of hierarchies in networks. The method used in the article is a theoretical study based on the sociological theories of social systems and networks. (shrink)

In our study of U.S. counterterrorism programs, we found that anthropology needs a mode of analysis that considers security as a form distinct from insecurity, in order to capture the very heterogeneity of security objects, logics and forms of action. This article first presents a genealogy for the anthropology of security, and identifies four main approaches: violence and State terror; military, militarization, and militarism; para-state securitization; and what we submit as “security analytics.” Security analytics moves away from studying security formations, (...) and how much violence or insecurity they yield, to identifying security forms of action, whether or not they are part of the nation-state. As a framework for anthropological inquiry, it is oriented toward capturing how these forms of action work and what types of security they produce. We then illustrate this approach through our fieldwork on counterterrorism in the domains of law enforcement, biomedical research and federal-state counter extremism. In each of our cases, we use security analytics to arrive at a diagnosis of the form of action. The set of conceptual distinctions that we propose as an aid to approaching empirical situations and the study of security is, on another level, a proposal for an approach to anthropology today. We do not expect that the distinctions that aid us will suffice for every situation. Rather, we submit that this work presents a set of specific insights about contemporary U.S. security, and an example of a new approach to anthropological problems. (shrink)

The paper argues that the work of Gabriel Tarde on imitation provides a fertile means of understanding how capitalism is forging a new affective technology which conforms to a logic of propensity rather than to means-end reasoning. This it does by drawing together a biological understanding of semiconscious cognition with various practical geometric arts so as to re-stage the world as a series of susceptible situations which can be ridden rather than rigidly controlled. The paper examines the advent of technologies (...) which attend to the variable geometry of so-called animal spirits in the realm of business and then, using Tarde's work as a springboard, considers some alternative means of understanding imitative rays which have less instrumental undertones. The paper is an illustration of the way in which biology and culture have increasingly become intertwined. (shrink)

The human dynamism implied by the concept of Thrival is of particular concern to futurists engaged in exploring our human potential. This potential is not simply a matter of being able to chart a course and realise it; it is the ability to engage the multidimensional facets of out humanness in order to create maps to preferable futures that retain their promise and their openness. Such futures resist definition, challenging us as both individuals and societies to be our best, do (...) our best and dream our best. The utopian nature of any such future cannot be denied, it is a future in potential only. Much critical humanism has focussed on our current world - with its structures and illusions, its iniquities and inequities, its promises and false prophets - and developed thorough critiques of the social order. Critical futures is rooted in this tradition, it is a rebellious humanism, which at its best offers a host of heterodox and paradoxical visions rooted in the critique of those forces that seek the closure of human potential. (shrink)