Introduction: How to Conceive Global Function Systems?

Abstract The introduction summarizes the analytical perspectives used and the conceptual structures introduced in the essays of this volume. On the basis of the results of this synthesis it proposes four directions for further research: 1. The identification of beginnings of functional differentiation in premodern societies in different world regions. 2. The analysis of conceptual transfers and of the contours of global categories that connect the regions of an emerging world society. 3. The historical-analytical tracing of the differentiation histories of the individual function systems. How do they expand on the basis of the symbol complexes of which they consist? 4. The study of the complexity of a functionally differentiated world society: The multiplicity of function systems, the intensification of interactions among them, the global problems behind the rise of new function systems, the varieties within function systems and the variant structural couplings between them.