REVIEWS: Niklas Luhmann: Law, Justice, Society by Andreas Philippopoulos‐Mihalopoulos
| Date | 01 September 2010 |
| Published date | 01 September 2010 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2010.00823_2.x |
| Author | Jiří Přibáň |
the right of rights is presumptive, not conclusive.We have as much of a say as the
courts will allow.
The Human Rights Act is confronting challenges from di¡erent quarters ^
political parties and parliamentary committees chief among them ^ for change.
Aileen Kavanagh articulates the challenge that will confront the Prime Minister
who seeks too great a change. Is the Human Rights Act now entrenched and
beyond Parliament or can the British constitution continue to change from day
to day? Constitutional lawyers will o¡er di¡erent conclusions by appealing to
di¡erent conceptions of the constitution. I suppose it will depend on who you
ask. Afterall, to question whether an Act of Parliament is constitutional is to pre-
suppose an audience.
Gre
Łgoire C. N. Webber
n
Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, Niklas Luhmann: Law, Justice, Society,
Oxford: Routledge, 2010, 237 pp, hb d75.00.
Some CDs and DVDs give parental guidance regarding lyrics and scenes. Book
publishers might consider attaching a similar sticker saying ‘This is not an easy
book!’ on the cover of some publications. Such an approach certainly would be
appropriate in the cas e of Philippopoulos -Mihalopoulos’s book Niklas Luhmann:
Law, Justice, Society, published in the Nomikoi: Critical LegalThinkers series edited by
Peter Goodrich and David Seymour.The book is di⁄cult for two reasons.The
¢rst reason relates to its subject: Luhmann’s systems theory represents one of the
most complex endeavours within recent social theory. The second reason relates
to Philippopoulos -Mihalopoulos’s ce ntral goal, which is to reinterpret Luhman n’s
theory as part of critical thinking.
Since the publication of his groundbreaking book Social Systems (¢rst pub-
lished in 1984; translated into English in1995), Luhmann has become a major ¢g-
ure within contemporarysocial theory. His description of society as consistingof
functionallydi¡erentiatedautopoietic systems contributed tothe revivalof inter-
est in general social theory. In general, one can distinguish orthodox, liberal and
pragmatic receptions and elaborations of Luhmann’s autopoietic social systems
theory. Some scholars prefer to read Luhmann’s work in a strictly literalist way
and abhor any deviance from the most likely original meaning.To these scholars,
who often contribute invaluable insights into Luhmann’s thinking, the complex-
ity of autopoietic social systems theory requires its most faithful interpretation
and application and any otherapproaches amount to the‘heresy’. Liberal interpre-
tations also build on expositions of Luhmann’s theory in all its complexities,
paradoxes, conceptual twists and paradigmatic tur ns.Unl ike orthodox interpreta-
tions, however, theycritically evaluate central categories and conceptual opposi-
tions, such as ‘self-reference’, ‘structural coupling’, ‘normative closure/cognitive
openness’, elaborating them further to produce alternative meanings of autopoi-
n
Law Department,London School of Economics & Political Science
Reviews
893
r2010The Authors. Journal Compilation r2010The Modern Law ReviewLimited.
(2010)73(5) 883^902
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