FUNCTIONAL DIFFERENTIATION OF EARLY MODERN EUROPEAN SOCIETY AND THE PRESENT TIME

Abstract

INTRODUCTION The modern conditions and prospects of human society, first of all, in the field of interdependence and rather complex interaction of civilizations, can not be clarified without understanding of origins and meaning of differences in the system structure of the society within each civilization. Such understanding becomes possible by using the systematic theory of one of the most prominent sociologist of the late 20 th century Niklas Luhmann. Firstly, there are some remarks concerning this sociological theory itself. German scientist described its different aspects in dozens of his comprehensive works. “The Social Systems” (1984) 1 and “Society of the Society” 2 are the most well-known and generalized among them. Originality, if not unusualness of the theory, is associated with the fact that the society is considered as a system constructed on communications between people in it alone. The people themselves, as consciousness systems, or psychological systems are in the environment of the system. They make communications possible, but they are not their part, thus, they are not the part of the society as well. Communications have only meaningful relation between each other. Every individual communicative operation consists of three elements: the addresser’s message, the information contained in the message, understanding of the message (extracting personal information from the message) by the addressee. Understanding is the most essential element here since both the nature and the meaning of further communication operations depend on it, namely, continuation (or cessation) of communications as well as their inclusion in one or another consciousness system (or subsystem). In the terms of historical process and its studying