Free eBooks Art As A Social System (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics) Available To Downloads
This is the definitive analysis of art as a social and perceptual system by Germany's leading social theorist of the late twentieth century. It not only represents an important intellectual step in discussions of art—in its rigor and in its having refreshingly set itself the task of creating a set of distinctions for determining what counts as art that could be valid for those creating as well as those receiving art works—but it also represents an important advance in systems theory.Returning to the eighteenth-century notion of aesthetics as pertaining to the "knowledge of the senses," Luhmann begins with the idea that all art, including literature, is rooted in perception. He insists on the radical incommensurability between psychic systems (perception) and social systems (communication). Art is a special kind of communication that uses perceptions instead of language. It operates at the boundary between the social system and consciousness in ways that profoundly irritate communication while remaining strictly internal to the social.In seven densely argued chapters, Luhmann develops this basic premise in great historical and empirical detail. Framed by the general problem of art's status as a social system, each chapter elaborates, in both its synchronic and diachronic dimensions, a particular aspect of this problem. The consideration of art within the context of a theory of second-order observation leads to a reconceptualization of aesthetic form. The remaining chapters explore the question of the system's code, its function, and its evolution, concluding with an analysis of "self-description."Art as a Social System draws on a vast body of scholarship, combining the results of three decades of research in the social sciences, phenomenology, evolutionary biology, cybernetics, and information theory with an intimate knowledge of art history, literature, aesthetics, and contemporary literary theory. The book also engages virtually every major theorist of art and aesthetics from Baumgarten to Derrida.
Series: Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics
Paperback: 424 pages
Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1 edition (August 1, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0804739072
ISBN-13: 978-0804739078
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.2 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
Best Sellers Rank: #179,885 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #19 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Sociology > Social Theory #109 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Aesthetics #463 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Pop Culture > Art
The scope and breadth of Luhmann’s undertaking and analysis is truly astounding, and based on this “astonishment” alone, one might be tempted to call his writings in totality a work of art. “[T]o borrow a phrase from antiquity, the work of art is created for the sake of astonishment.” (p. 40) Luhmann would no doubt have objected to such a description, blurring as it does the boundaries of differentiated subsystems which are operatively closed, according to the theory, a condition which “might be described as autonomy[,]” meaning that “within its boundaries, autopoiesis functions unconditionally, the only alternative being that the system ceases to exist.” (p. 157) In this context, “an autopoietic system” is merely a “self-determining process” of communication. (p. 11) Luhmann goes on to note that a “system that partially relies on external elements or structures because it cannot operate without them—a computer, for example—is not an autopoietic system.” (p. 157)This appears to be one of the more problematic aspects of Luhmann’s theory, when he states in his conclusion that the “art system . . . remains dependent on its social environment, and such dependencies (of an economic nature, for example) may increase.” Luhmann attempts to mitigate (or ignore) this difficulty through the concept of “structural coupling[]” such as “between the nervous system and consciousness[.]” (p. 8) Such connections “between system and environment are presupposed.” (p. 50; citing Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco Varela, The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding (Boston, 1992), pp. 75ff, 181ff) Indeed, “artistic communication realizes specific forms of structural coupling between consciousness and society.” (p.
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