Niklas Luhmann: Distinction

Niklas Luhmann was German sociologist, administration expert, and social systems theorist. Explore interesting quotes on distinction.
Niklas Luhmann: 24   quotes 3   likes

“The art system operates on its own terms, but an observer of art can choose many different distinctions to indicate what he observes.”

Niklas Luhmann

Source: Art As a Social System (2000), p. 102.

Art

“Does knowledge rest on construction in the sense that it only functions because the knowing system is operatively closed, therefore: because it can maintain no operative contact with the outside world; and because it therefore remains dependent, for everything that it constructs, on its own distinction between self-reference and allo-reference?”

Niklas Luhmann

Luhmann (1991) “Wie lassen sich latente Strukturen beobachten?,” in Paul Watzlawick, Peter Krieg (eds.), Das Auge des Betrachters: Beiträge zum Konstruktivismus. Festschrift für Heinz von Foerster, Piper, München-Zürich, p. 71; cited in: Heinz von Foerster (1993) " For Niklas Luhmann: “How Recursive is Communication?” http://e1020.pbworks.com/f/fulltext-2.pdf". Translated by Richard Howe.

World , Knowledge , Sense , Dependency

“We are still spellbound by a tradition that arranged psychological faculties hierarchically, relegating ‘sensuousness’ — that is, perception — to a lower position in comparison to higher, reflective functions of reason and understanding. The most advanced versions of ‘conceptual art’ still follow this tradition. By refusing to base themselves in sensuously perceptible distinctions between works of art and other objects, these works seek to avoid reducing art to the realm of sense perception.”

Niklas Luhmann

Source: Art As a Social System (2000), p. 5 as cited by Andrew E. McNamara (2010) "Visual acuity is not what it seems : on Ian Burn's 'Late' reflections". In: Ann Stephen (Ed.) Mirror Mirror http://sydney.edu.au/museums/pdfs/Art_Gallery/mirror_mirror_catalogue.pdf.

Art , Understanding , Sense

“The activity of observing establishes a distinction in a space that remains unmarked, the space from which the observer executes the distinction. The observer must employ a distinction in order to generate the difference between unmarked and marked space, and between himself and what he indicates. The whole point of this distinction (its intention) is to mark something as distinct from something else. At the same time, the observer — in drawing a distinction - makes himself visable to others. He betrays his presence - even if a further distinction is required to distinguish him.”

Niklas Luhmann

Source: Art As a Social System (2000), p. 54 as cited in: Pamela M. Lee (2004) Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960's. p. 66.

Time , Drawing