Systems Theory, Ethics, and the Bilingual Model
Abstract
The theory of autopoiesis and operational closure, central to biological systems, also finds applications in sociology, marking a departure from traditional epistemological theories focused on ‘representation’ within the philosophical tradition. Systems exist through operational closure, constructing and maintaining themselves and their realities through self-production within a self-referential network. In this context, I engage with Luhmann’s theory of social systems and cybernetic epistemology, while also emphasizing Heinz von Foerster’s theory of cybernetics in relation to Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein’s theory of language games, with its ethical significance, can be reinterpreted in the context of lifeworld epistemology. This highlights the role of structural coupling, co-constitution, and the ethical implications involved in forming a bilingual model that bridges science and religion, underlying the public theology of science.
Introduction
Luhmann characterizes the concept of autopoiesis and the theory of autopoietic systems as a radical paradigm shift. This radicalism is based on the hypothesis of operational closure, which signifies a fundamental change not only in epistemology but also in the ontology it implies. The theory of operational closure marks a break from the epistemology of the ontological tradition, in which it is assumed that something from the environment enters human understanding, with the human mind representing the environment in a way that mirrors, imitates, or simulates it.[1]
In this context, concepts like praxis and poiesis are distinguished. Praxis refers to an action that embodies the dynamic relationship between potentiality and the process of moving toward a purpose in a teleological sense. This is what Aristotle had in mind when discussing the ethos of life in the polis, its virtue, and excellence (arête).
Indeed, the very concept of praxis entails self-reference, because poiesis, as explained by Maturana, is the process that produces something external to itself—namely, a product. Poiesis involves action within the network, but this action cannot be defined as virtuous at a cellular level. Instead, poiesis refers to its product through an autonomous praxis. What is meant here is that a system is both its own product and the process of producing itself. The operation is the condition for the production of operations.[2]
Crucial to this epistemology of autopoiesis is the observer’s role in describing the unity within the interactions among components and their relations. The observer’s claim to knowledge, then, becomes the fundamental cognitive operation—an operation of distinction. “Everything said is said by an observer.”[3]
This observation, in the description of biological life as a living system, carries significant sociological and ethical implications, particularly according to Francisco Varela. Living systems in general—and human beings in particular—participate in the construction of social systems, which are realized through processes of social change. The coupling of living systems with one another leads to the emergence of a social system, where the realization of autopoiesis as living life and its evolvability are integral to its operation.[4]
Given this, I argue that if a human being is defined as an autopoietic living system, then human life is constructed within its own systemic reality. Each individual’s potential and dynamic towards actualization are realized through self-realization, in interaction with others in an intersubjective manner. Systems such as education, religion, and legal societies are operationally closed, meaning they do not rely on a singular, common environment inherent to each system, regulation, or discourse.
In other words, the systemic construction of reality cannot be “represented” within any one system due to its autopoietic autonomy and the distinctive activities occurring within its own network. Each system exists in its own reality, differentiated from other systems, with its own unique environment. This implies that reality consists of a multitude of system-environment constructions, each with its own uniqueness, as proposed in the concept of language games.
A radical shift is therefore grounded in the concept of the autopoietic living system, which ranges from basic cellular life to society and culture, and extends to functional differentiation and global interdependence.
Communication, Systems, and Modernity
Francisco Varela, a Chilean biologist working with Humberto Maturana, elaborates on the concept of autopoiesis in biological cells—the smallest living systems. A living system, in this context, is a self-organizing entity that preserves itself through its organization. This self-preservation occurs because the system produces components that, in turn, produce more components via metabolic pathways.
For example, enzymes produce more enzymes, and the cell’s boundary is defined by its membrane, which acts as a limiting process that controls diffusion, thereby preserving the internal network of production that maintains the membrane. Biological autopoiesis is just one example of self-organization. Other instances include language, and potentially families and firms, as applied in social systems theory or world systems theory.[5]
The neurobiological research program reaches a conceptual apex in Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory of communication, which draws on Husserlian phenomenology to bridge the biological and social domains. While cell reproduction is governed by chemical processes and the brain functions through neurophysiological impulses, systems based on consciousness or communication require something more: they depend on meaning (Sinn) for their reproduction and continuity.
Meaning plays a central role in Luhmann’s theory of social systems. Following Edmund Husserl, Luhmann views meaning as the “horizon” of possibilities accompanying every actualization. This phenomenological perspective defines meaning as the difference between the actual and the possible, framed within a spectrum of horizons. It allows systems to orient themselves within an open yet structured field of potential actions, interpretations, and developments.
In this framework, meaning is not merely symbolic or subjective; it serves as the medium through which social systems reduce the complexity of the world through functional differentiation. For Luhmann, communication is the elementary operation of social systems. It reproduces itself not merely by transmitting information, but by recursively processing meaning. In modernity, where functional differentiation divides social life into distinct subsystems (e.g., law, economy, politics), meaning acts as the connective tissue that enables these systems to maintain operational closure while remaining structurally coupled to one another.[6]
In exploring the nature of modernity, Luhmann offers a theory of social functional differentiation, emphasizing numerous non-hierarchical social subsystems. This approach generalizes contingency, paradoxically providing stability within the system. In place of a rationality based on prolepsis, Luhmann introduces the notion of risk.
Moreover, Luhmann incorporates the Husserlian correlation between the intentionality of consciousness (noesis) and its corresponding structure of meaning (noema) into his theory of social systems. He reinterprets this phenomenological framework through the lens of second-order cybernetics, operationally closed autopoietic systems, and radical constructivism, as proposed by von Foerster.[7]
In Luhmann’s view, Husserl’s phenomenology already anticipated the need for a systems-theoretical perspective—one in which meaning is not directly transferred but emerges through recursive operations within a closed system. Luhmann, therefore, transforms transcendental subjectivity into a self-referential system of communication, replacing the conscious ego with networks of meaning reproduction in socially differentiated systems.
Building on the biological theory of autopoiesis, Luhmann conceptualizes systems theory by distinguishing three main types of systems:
- Social systems (systems of communication),
- Living systems (biological entities such as cells, bodies, and brains), and
- Systems of consciousness (minds).
Each of these systems operates autonomously and maintains its own operational closure, yet remains structurally coupled to the others by treating them as part of its environment. This framework exemplifies Luhmann’s creative synthesis of biology and social theory, extending the logic of autopoiesis from living cells to the dynamics of meaning in society.
These functional systems are differentiated into sectors such as the economy, politics, law, and mass media. They can be identified by their respective codes. For example, the legal system operates based on the legal/illegal code, while the system of science is grounded in the true/false code. This code applies in connection with specific scientific theories, methods, and paradigms.
These functional systems are differentiated into sectors such as the economy, politics, law, and mass media. Each system can be identified by its respective code. For example, the legal system operates on the basis of the legal/illegal code, while the system of science is based on the true/false code. This code is applied in conjunction with specific scientific theories, methods, and paradigms.[8]
However, such binary codes tend to sidestep the sociopolitical factors that shape and even direct competitive research programs. A theory of social systems is embedded with functional differentiation, consisting of subsystems, but it undermines a critical analysis of discourse in elective affinity with material interests, power relations, and bureaucratic governance, as applied to the reality of social and cultural stratification.
According to Luhmann, however, the emergence and existence of consciousness and communication become feasible due to their structural coupling. Consciousness could not have evolved without communication, and similarly, meaningful communication would not be possible without consciousness. This coordination of different forms of autopoiesis leads to an increase in complexity within the realm of social communication. The mechanism of this coupling is grounded in language as communication.[9]
In Luhmann’s model, everything must pass through and be filtered by the “eye of the needle” of communication within the system itself. However, communication is not merely an interpersonal or dialogical exchange. Following the linguistic turn, it becomes the elementary operation of social systems. Communication is understood as a complex event involving the selection of information, the expression of meaning, and the understanding of that meaning—a recursive process that enables systems to reproduce themselves through social cybernetic feedback and exchange, ultimately improving their performance.
This systems-theoretical approach integrates elements of structuralism and functionalism, allowing Luhmann to draw analogies between social systems and non-Darwinian models of biological evolution, particularly in terms of variation, evolvability, and intentionality. Social systems, like biological systems, are self-regulating, boundary-maintaining, and epistemologically closed—they generate and process their own criteria for meaning internally, while maintaining dynamic relationships with their environments. In doing so, they form the basis for a theory of sociocultural evolution that emphasizes complexity, differentiation, and internal variation.[10]
This systems-theoretical perspective resonates conceptually with Max Weber’s theory of rationalization, particularly his analysis of specialization, differentiation, and institutionalization in the development of modern society, as further refined by Talcott Parsons, a prominent American structural-functional sociologist.
Weber’s concept of instrumental rationality (Zweckrationalität)—which drives the disenchantment of the world—leads to what he famously termed the “iron cage”: a society increasingly dominated by scientific technological rationality and bureaucratic structures that constrain individual freedom and meaning of life. While Weber’s analysis is rooted in methodological individualism, Luhmann departs from this by offering a systems-based alternative.
Within this evolutionary framework, Luhmann identifies different types of social organization based on their primary mode of differentiation. This allows him to describe modernization as a shift from stratified societies—organized hierarchically—to functionally differentiated societies, where distinct systems (e.g., law, economy, education, politics) operate according to their own codes and rationalities. This structural transformation is central to understanding the complexity of modernity.
Luhmann’s theory of self-referential systems moves beyond the grand legitimizing metanarratives of classical social theory. Instead, it explains the cognitive operations of theory itself within an evolutionary, post-transcendental epistemology. In this view, modernity is no longer anchored in universal truths or overarching narratives, but in the differentiation and recursive closure of communicative systems that continuously adapt and evolve in relation to their environments.
This systems-theoretical approach can find resonance within a structural theory of systemic forms of life, which focuses on the crucial aspects of structure and the shared embodiment of interaction and authentic speech through the lifeworld episteme. Lifeworld serves as sources of meaning and deep structure for the systemic construction of sociocultural reality. Building on this line of thought, I engage with the relationship between paradigm and scientific discourse for creative translation, participation, and bilinguality. Here, second-order cybernetics comes into focus, emphasizing the significance of participation within systemic networks.
The Second-Order Cybernetics and Autopoiesis
According to Heinz von Foerster, the entropy of a system within an envelope must increase over time, causing the system to disorganize itself. However, in certain regions, entropy may indeed decrease without external intervention. This perspective makes the concept of a self-organizing system problematic, as it contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. The term “self-organizing system” becomes meaningless if the system is not in close contact with an environment that possesses available energy and order, existing in a state of perpetual interaction and “living” at the expense of this environment.[11]
As von Feorster continues, “living organism is a third order relator which computes the relations that maintain the organism’s integrity. The full force of recursive expressions is now applied to a recursive definition of living organisms first proposed by H. R. Maturana, and further developed by him and F. Varela in their concept of “autopoiesis.”[12]
According to Varela and his colleagues, the brain can be seen to operate based on massive interconnections in a distributed form, where the actual connections among ensembles of neurons change as a result of experience. In brief, these ensembles exhibit a self-organizing capacity that is absent in the symbol manipulation paradigm.[13] Cybernetics has made major technological breakthroughs, laying the foundation for the dominant approach to the scientific study of the mind: the cognitivist paradigm.[14]
According to von Foerster, cybernetics interfaces hard competence with the challenging problems of the soft sciences. The term was coined by Norbert Wiener, who referred to it as the study of “circular-causal and feedback mechanisms in biological and social systems.” This description persisted until he wrote his famous book, in which cybernetics was defined as the science of “communication and control in the animal and the machine.” Today, cybernetics has come to represent the science of regulation in the most general sense, serving as a paradigm for regulation at its core.[15]
For von Foerster “cybernetics is the science of regulation, computation, ordering, and entropy retardation,” applying it human brain.[16] The second generation of cybernetics culminated in the realization that the observer is situation-dependent and a participant in the system.
Although the political system is one example of a system through functional differentiation, it would be a trivial machine in a deterministic system, which is characterized by a one-to-one relationship between its “input” (stimulus, cause) and its “output” (response, effect) in an invariable relationship.
In non-trivial machines, however, the input-output relationship is not invariant; instead, previous steps determine present reactions. They are unpredictable, as a previous output, once observed, will most likely not be the same for the same input given later.[17]
If bodies, minds, and society are classified as biological, psychic, and communication systems, respectively, they are operationally closed but open towards each other. They are also structurally coupled. Second-order cybernetics emphasizes structural coupling as a necessary and complementary component of the constructivist view of cognition and self-renewal.
Including the role of the observer within the system being observed (eigenbehavior and eigenvalue emergent through continuous recursive interactions) has far-reaching consequences for the social systemic construction of reality, highlighting the significance of the observer. This contrasts with the first-order cybernetics approach, which observes and controls an external system as an objective, observer-independent reality. The observer and the observed exist within a shared structural coupling, reinforcing the constructivist position in intersubjective communication and the systemic construction of reality, interacting in a historical and socially congruent way with the environment.
A complex system can generate order from noise, as it is perturbed by its environment, while creating new order in response to these disturbances. Cybernetic epistemology is imbued with structural coupling, irritation, construction, and rupture, leading to a paradigm shift toward a new order at a higher level.
In autopoietic living systems, they are organizationally closed, with all their processes and components contributing to the creation and maintenance of the system’s own organization and structure. Structural coupling describes the dynamic, reciprocal interactions between an autopoietic system and other self-referential systems, as well as the environment, in terms of continuous mutual perturbation. The system’s internal structure (eigenbehavior and eigenvalue) triggers internal changes and determines how it responds to perturbations from other systems and the environment, which in turn affects how it is perturbed by the system’s own structure. These constant interactions, undergoing mutually congruent structural transformations, result in a history of mutual structural changes or co-constitution, bringing forth a meaningful world.
If the nervous system as a whole is organized in an autopoietic way, organizing itself to compute a stable reality in the sense of epistemological closure, such epistemic homeostasis should be explained and clarified through a biological construction of ‘a reality’ rather than ‘the reality.’ “The laws of physics, the so-called “laws of nature,” can be described by us. The laws of brain functions—or ever more generally—the laws of biology, must be written in such a way that the writing of these laws can be deducted from them, i.e., they have to write themselves.”[18]
According to von Foerster, the faculties of perception, memory, and inference are responsible for the totality of cognitive processes. If these faculties are separated functionally or locally, cognition is doomed to fail.[19]
Necessary components of cognitive processes such as perception (self-referential relation), memory (a particular modus operandi) and inference are interactions with neural network which is characterized by self- reference and recursive operation. All this whole system is called a “Cognitive Element,” which represents a minimal case of a cognitive process, or a “Cognitive Tile,” used in conjunction with other such tiles that form whole mosaics—or “tessellations.” [20]
The cognitive whole and ensemble, in the pattern of tessellations, allow for high flexibility in representing relational structures—both of what has been perceived and of the symbols, the “linguistic operators.” The cognitive whole ultimately serves to convey in natural language all that can be inferred from what has been perceived and remembered.[21]
Von Foerster’s epistemological proposal is characterized as “a search for mechanisms within living organisms that enable them to turn their environment into a trivial machine, rather than a search for mechanisms in the environment that turn the organisms into trivial machines.”[22]
Von Foerster’s second-order cybernetics is the study of observing systems, focusing on the observer as an indispensable part of the system through reflexivity and embodiment. In the context of circularity and recursion, the observer’s actions influence and are influenced by the system they are observing. This perspective shares a phenomenological focus on the role of first-person experience in constructing knowledge, particularly through the relationship between consciousness and perception.
The recursive function can be proposed as a descriptive (phenomenological) formalism to account for memory as potential awareness of previous interpretations of experiences. This framework helps explain the origin of the concept of “change” and accounts for transitions in domains, such as moving from “facts” to “descriptions of facts,” and—since these are also facts—to “descriptions of descriptions of facts,” and so on.[23]
Von Foerster adds ethical significance to his concept of second-order cybernetics through the ethical lens of Wittgenstein. Under operational or epistemological closure, the observer is included in the system of their observation, in contrast to the scientific rule of “objectivity.” Scientific objectivity does not allow the observer to enter the descriptions of their observations. Its claim to objectivity shifts the perspective from “I” to “it,” adopting a strategy to avoid responsibility.[24]
Paradigm and Language in Lebensform
To examine the significance of Wittgenstein for von Foerster’s cybernetic constructivism, I explore Wittgenstein in connection with Thomas Kuhn. Wittgenstein’s strength lies in his rejection of both logical positivism and the performativity model promoted by the Vienna Circle. Instead, he emphasizes a public conception of language grounded in language games, communicative interaction, and the meaning systems embedded in social forms of life. This framework offers a powerful insight into the postmodern condition, in which meaning is distributed across a multitude of distinct, localized language games—rather than being legitimized by any totalizing universal metanarrative.
In this regard, Wittgenstein anticipates and complements postmodern critiques, including those within systems theory, which also embraces differentiation and rejects the dominance of a single legitimizing logic. His concept of language games captures the shared practices, implicit rules, and forms of understanding that underlie not only everyday communication but also the specialized discourses of science.
Similarly, Thomas Kuhn’s concept of paradigm underscores the pre-theoretical structures that govern scientific inquiry. For Kuhn, paradigms are often prior to, more binding than, and more comprehensive than any explicit set of rules for scientific research. In fact, what counts as “normal science” is determined less by formal criteria and more by the communal adherence to a paradigm, which can be inspected directly through its application rather than abstractly formulated.
According to Kuhn, Wittgenstein’s theory of language games maintains that there is not a set of characteristics simultaneously applicable to all members of a class. Rather, we see a close family resemblance in the language game to a number of activities. Games, chairs, or leaves are each constituted by a network of overlapping and crisscrossing resemblances. It is the existence of such a network that accounts for the success in identifying the corresponding object or activity.[25]
In this way, Kuhn and Wittgenstein can be classified as thinkers of network theory and the structural theory of living communities within self-referential systems, distinguished from other references by incommensurability.
Framed within the concept of family resemblance, both offer models of translation and understanding across different domains of knowledge, where meaning is always situated, embedded, and enacted within particular forms of life. Research problems and techniques within a single normal-scientific tradition are not incommensurable or independent. Rather, “they may relate by resemblance and by modeling to one or another part of the scientific corpus which the community in question already recognizes as among its established achievements.” [26]
Given this position, I see consonance between Kuhn and Wittgenstein, as Wittgenstein’s concept of language games describes the shared practices, rules, and forms of understanding that govern how meaning is generated and communicated within a community.
In the context of science, these language games can be seen as structuring the internal logic of a scientific paradigm. A paradigm is self-referential in nature because it is connected to the network of language games, so that the words relate to one another in many different ways—through relationships, similarities, or their ensemble—rather than having much in common across diverse language games. In the examination of different card games, there is “a complicated network of similarities, overlapping and criss-crossing” (PI I. 66).
For Wittgenstein, a paradigm in a language game is a method of signifier in difference to that is signified as such. The word “green” is an instrument of language used in ascriptions of color, rather than something to be represented. It is a means of representation. For instance, the standard meter in Paris is defined only to mark its peculiar role in the language game of measuring with a meter rule. In fact, existence cannot be attributed to an element.[27]
If a word or sign can be used in different language games, in different and diverse ways as a means of representation, a paradigm becomes a means of representing or signifying the research program within a given scientific community. A language game is self-referential; in other words, it is paradigm-referential. A normal science confronting anomalies may interact with other research programs, using other references to resolve the problem.
In this structural interaction, the language game operates with self-referential circularity through internal communication, as described in second-order cybernetics. The user of the language is part of the system’s existence in the structural form of life, which cannot be attributed to any element.
Similarly, Thomas Kuhn argues that paradigms are often prior to, more binding than, and more comprehensive than any formal set of rules for conducting research. Scientific practice, or normal science, is guided less by explicit methodological instructions and more by the tacit assumptions and models embedded within the paradigm itself. Thus, paradigms can be understood and evaluated through direct engagement—by observing how they function in scientific inquiry—rather than solely by analyzing formal rules or assumptions.[28]
While power operates within scientific communities—shaping consensus and legitimizing knowledge—a paradigm shift, as described by Thomas Kuhn, does not arise solely from social or political forces. Rather, it emerges from within the crisis of normal science, when persistent anomalies challenge the established paradigm and disrupt its puzzle-solving capacity.
Although social, political, and even emotional factors may influence the reception and consolidation of a new paradigm during a given historical period, Kuhn maintains that the shift is driven by the internal dynamics of scientific inquiry itself.
As Kuhn emphasizes, “Briefly put, what the participants in a communication breakdown can do is recognize each other as members of different language communities and then become translators.”[29]
Wittgenstein’s concept of language games, in this context, emphasizes that meaning is not abstract or detached but is grounded in the shared practices, actions, and forms of life of a community. Power manifests in determining which language games are legitimized, whose rules become consensus-based and authoritative, and how cultural forms of life are maintained or transformed.
Meaning, therefore, is not fixed by formal logic or mental states but is embodied, intersubjective, and context-dependent—shaped by the communicative and embodied practices through which communities engage with the world. This perspective aligns with phenomenological approaches that locate cognition and meaning within lived experience and social interaction, rather than in purely representational or rule-bound models.
The actual application of shared rules—as grammar—does not necessarily presuppose any external or internal authority. Instead, these rules gain their normative force through the practical engagement of participants within a form of life or structure of a scientific community. Their authority is immanent to the practice itself, not imposed from outside or derived from inner mental states.
This structural approach to diverse systems of language games and forms of life provides insight for integrating Wittgenstein’s cultural-linguistic position into a theory of the lifeworld in a general-relative way, particularly when exploring how the structure of autopoiesis and its ensemble operate in autonomy, cybernetic circularity, and radical constructivism, along with their ethical implications.
For Wittgenstein, a set of rules or regulations cannot determine any course of action, because every course of action can be performed in accordance with the rules. If everything can be established to accord with the rule, then it should not work as a universal, authoritative law, as this would conflict with the diversity of language games and their ethical consensus for a meaningful form of life.
Language and Ethics of Life-Meaning
A rule of life in every course of action implies an ethical language of life. Ludwig Wittgenstein delivered a lecture on ethics in Cambridge on November 17, 1929,[30] when he was forty years old. Wittgenstein’s lecture is a major part of his writing on ethics (§6.4ff), especially because the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) contains only three somewhat terse pages on ethics.
At this point, von Foerster’s cybernetic approach to ethics is inspired by Wittgenstein’s reflection on ethics, as demonstrated in Number 6.421 of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: “It is clearthat ethics cannot be articulated.” (“Es ist klar, dass sich Ethik nicht aussprechen last.”)
This position is connected with the following ethical stance in Wittgenstein: “It is clear, however, that ethics has nothing to with punishment and reward in the usual sense of the terms. Nevertheless, there must indeed be some kind of ethical reward and punishment, but they must reside in the action itself.”[31]
If the cyberneticist takes language and action to ride on an underground river of ethics, this perspective finds its significance in second-order cybernetics, particularly in the intersystemic interaction, as well as in the systems construction of a form of life through public discourse. It involves following ethical rules and grammar to find meaning in life.
However, second-order cybernetics can be advanced for systemic circularity of communication through Wittgenstein’s later theory of language games and ethics, particularly in support of ethical constructivism within the structural form of life. If Philosophical Investigations (PI), posthumously published in 1953, clarifies language in the use of words within different language games and forms of life, his ethical inquiry shows the limits of language grounded in the description of facts. It remains crucial in describing and characterizing forms of human life and in the deep-seated human desire to articulate the absolute value or meaning of life.
In Wittgenstein’s concept of language games, speaking of language is part of activity, or a form of life, following certain rules between two dialogue partners (PI 1.23). It involves working through and conversing about the ethical aspects of life in concert with others. Language is defined as a part of human life, and it is in language games that I can mean something by something (PI I. 38).
Language is self-referential and operationally closed within its own system of the game, creating its own meaning. Language “goes on holiday” (PI 1.38) when it comes to other forms of life and their different language games. Meaning lies in the use of the word within the language network, depending on the complexity of the network in interaction. It is a general structure within the systemic construction of life reality, while relative, or even absent, in other-reference systems.
Ethics, as expressed in Wittgenstein’s philosophy, is an issue embedded in our forms of life—manifested in the ways we act in our lives and by interacting with others in a socialized form of the lifeworld. Ethics runs through, and is implicated by, every branch of thought and life, characterizing Wittgenstein’s conception of ethics as a careful evaluation of the notion of ‘form of life.’
The ethical dimension is imbued with a theory of language underlying a structural form of life, which is linked to the meaning and value of the lifeworld, preventing life from running against the walls of the iron cage. Ethical language, more than just describing facts, could also describe value or the absolute meaning of life, despite linguistic limitations. As Wittgenstein suggests, “the good life is the world seen sub specie aeternitatis”[32]—in other words, under the aspects of the lifeworld.
The linguistic signifier has a symbolic ethical relation with the signified that it indicates, bringing forth a meaningful life. Language relates to the ethical, or language is used in a relative sense, since such ethical language is a meaningful use within the underlying systemic construction of human life’s reality. Language that borders on the ethical may also be used to reveal the intersubjective dimension and moral values in living together, thereby featuring a human being as an ethical being. As Wittgenstein states, “Ethics is the enquiry into the meaning of life, or into what makes life worth living, or into the right way of living.”[33]
Lifeworld Explication and Emergent Epistemology
The lifeworld episteme incorporates the semantics of language-games and their respective forms of life within a universal-relative framework, situated in a phenomenological-emergent context. In contrast to the nostalgic pursuit of unity or totality (archonism), it affirms a regime of differences—while still committing to a shared project of immanent critique, the common good, and emancipation.
Power relations, as both enabling and constraining, are enacted through the rule-following activity of speech, wherein meaning emerges within a form of life. In this sense, grammar becomes a broader notion that captures the essence of language as a rule-governed practice, in which language-games and forms of life are deeply interwoven. If theology can be seen as a grammar shaping religious life, then autopoiesis, as a biological concept, may also be understood as a grammar of cellular activity—a form of operational rule-following that constitutes a biological form of life.
The autopoietic form of life has little to do with communication rationality and practice through the ideal speech situation within the universal moral framework (as per Habermas), which downgrades the autopoietic creativity and autonomy as discourse justice in the systemic construction of life reality and validity, along with its ethical implications. There are diverse forms of universal-relative moral frameworks.
According to Maturana and Valera, insofar as the human beings are autopoietic systems, all their activities as social organisms have ethical significance. A social change in a human society takes places as a permanent phenomenon as a cultural change: “a revolution is a revolution only if it is an ethical revolution.”[34]
This ethical position within constructivism, emphasizing co-constitution between system and environment, contrasts with Luhmann’s theory of moral binary codes, framed by the distinction between positive (good) and negative (bad) values for managing risks within systems of communication. Against the risks of morality, Luhmann defines ethics as the reflection on morality—what he terms a “reflective theory of morality” in a negative sense. This explains how morality functions within a functionally differentiated society, implying a negative ethics essential to modern society, where one is required to act within various function systems.[35]
However, I sense that Luhmann’s ethics falls short of providing guidelines for practical morality and co-construction through radical constructivism. His theory is less concerned with specific moral or immoral acts and instead classifies morality as a specific type of communication, with risks tied to each system (politics, law, education, economics, and even science) while processing information related to esteem or disesteem.
Luhmann, loosely connected to Ludwig Wittgenstein, claims that ‘there can be no ethical propositions” [36] in his system theory. This view diverges from my structural theory of autopoiesis, which carries a stronger ethical significance, committed to the common good of those marginalized and stratified within diverse public spheres.
On the other hand, Wittgenstein’s notion of “family resemblance”—a network of overlapping similarities without fixed boundaries—offers an alternative to the strong incommensurability thesis. While Kuhn emphasizes the discontinuity between competing scientific paradigms, he does not reject Wittgenstein’s insight. Rather, he acknowledges that despite the apparent incommensurability, participants in differing paradigms can still recognize each other as members of distinct language communities.
For Wittgenstein “The truth is that the scientific way of looking at a fact is not the way to look at it as a miracle.”[37] Although all who ever tried to write or talk about ethics or religion was inclined to run against the boundaries of language, or the walls of our cage, “ethics, so far as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable can be no science.” “But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it.”[38]
An ethical or religious dimension is not reducible to the realm of natural science, which describes facts according to observation and empirical experimentation. However, natural science cannot dispense with ethical responsibility and value rationality when considering the meaning of life and its religious dimension.
Coda
Luhmann’s contribution is articulated through his theory of system communication and his autopoietic turn, which signals a paradigm shift by incorporating the significance of living social systems as emergent orders and functional differentiations. His creative synthesis hinges on his ability to translate the autopoietic, self-referential operation from biological systems to human social systems through communication and cybernetic observation. This translation exemplifies a bilingual model bridging science and sociology, resonating with the goals of public theology of science.
While Luhmann introduces a self-referential, recursive system in interaction with its environment, he tends to overemphasize the distinction between self-reference and other-reference, without sufficiently considering Varela’s calculus of indication, self-crossing, and structural coupling for self-renewal, co-constitution, and ethical revolution. As a result, systems theory within Luhmann’s framework can only differentiate through self-reference, which is possible only under specific environmental conditions. The environment is a necessary correlate of self-referential operation; paradoxically, self-referential closure can create openness.[39]
By contrast, I emphasize an emergent model that brings forth a meaningful world, through the concept of a human being as an autopoietic existence embodied within a systemic form of life, incorporating Wittgenstein’s language games and ethical significance in comparison with Thomas Kuhn. Language and systems construct meaning and communication through public, relational processes and practices. Communication itself, as a public system, generates meaning and complexity through structural coupling, remaining open to certain influences through language games, its specific form of life, and creative translation. The legal system, a closed but structurally open system, forms structural couplings with societal institutions through meetings, reports, and conversation. This perspective aligns with my lifeworld clarification of incommensurability, family resemblance, and contextual translation, offering a bilingual model imbued with ethical significance.
Rather than separating cultural history from natural history, we must strive to unify these domains by conceiving the lifeworld as both a deep structure and a source of systemic meaning—a dynamic interface where human life and ecological emergence intertwine.
This critical-emancipatory stance is vital for advancing a structural theory of autopiesis, especially when engaging with emerging fields like critical neuroscience of lifelines and social epigenetics. Accounting for ecological and epigenetic factors enriches our understanding of collective organism behavior, offering a more integrated framework for systemic inquiry and the autopoietic, self-referential operation of social systems. This epistemic stance will be further explored in the chapters to come.
[1] Niklas Luhmann, Theories of Distinction: Redescribing the Descriptions of Modernity. Trans. Joseph O’Neil, et al. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 114.
[2] Ibid., 110–11.
[3] Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Valera, Autopiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living (:ondon, England: D. Reidel, 1980), xxii.
[4] Ibid., xxiv.
[5] Hans-Georg Moeller, Luhmann Explained: From Souls to Systems, 13.
[6] Luhmann, Social Systems, xxiii.
[7] Luhmann, Die neuzeitlichee Wissenschaften und die Phänomenologie, 47.
[8] Hans-Georg Moeller, Luhmann Explained: From Souls to Systems, 25.
[9] Luhmann, Theories of Distinction, 122.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Heinz von Foerster, Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition (New York: Springer, 2003), 3.
[12] Ibid., 251.
[13] Valera, et al. The Embodied Mind, 85.
[14] Ibid., 39.
[15] Heinz von Foerster, Understanding Understanding, 192.
[16] Ibid., 195.
[17] Ibid., 208.
[18] Ibid., 231.
[19] Ibid., 105.
[20] Ibid., 119.
[21] Ibid., 122.
[22] Ibid., 164.
[23] Ibid., 164.
[24] Ibid., 281.
[25] Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution, 45.
[26] Ibid., 45-46.
[27] Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations I: 50.
[28] Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 44. 46.
[29] Ibid., 202.
[30] Lecture on Ethics: Ludwig Wittgenstein, First Edition. Edoardo Zamuner, et al. (West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2014).
[31] Cited in ibid., 290.
[32] Ibid., 31.
[33] Ibid., 44.
[34] Maturana and Valera, Autopiesis and Cognition, xxvii.
[35] Moeller, Luhmann Explained: From Souls to Systems, 111.
[36] Ibid., 114.
[37] Lecture on Ethics: Ludwig Wittgenstein, 50.
[38] Ibid., 51.
[39] Luhmann, Systems Theory, 9.