Conclusion: Sociological Systems Theory as a Perspective

This concluding chapter consolidates the book’s argument by clarifying what is at stake in describing systems theory as sociological. Three theoretical contributions are drawn out: that “sociological” is best understood as an adverb naming an epistemological orientation rather than as a noun naming a subject matter; that systems thinking and sociological thinking converge at the level of their deepest intellectual motivation, which is the refusal of the naturalness of social arrangements; and that the difference-theoretical approach, suitably extended for the social-media environment, supplies the most rigorous formalization of the sociological gaze available to contemporary theory. The principled limits of the framework—its descriptive rather than prescriptive character, and its better-developed account of social reproduction than of social change—are stated honestly, and sociological systems theory is positioned in relation to the alternative programs of Habermas, Bourdieu, and Latour. A brief excursus on the comparative study of modernity indicates one direction in which the framework’s universality can be tested. The chapter closes by characterizing sociological systems theory, in the spirit of Heinz von Foerster, as the peculiar discipline that turns its own blind spot into the organ of sight.