Introduction

The chapter asks what kind of biography in writing about Niklas Luhmann as a person is compatible with Luhmann’s own theory. In contrast to most other canonical authors in social science, with whom Luhmann was well acquainted, his biographical writings are characterised by an ‘ambitious modesty’ (to use Michael King’s and Anton Schütz’ label and reveal a sceptical distance to information on the non-scholarly person. By adopting a Luhmannian perspective and using his theoretical distinctions the chapter introduces Luhmann as a divided person. A central concern of the chapter resumes in an effort to reconstruct a Luhmannian perspective on biography and to use his view on methodology and empirical research. In the last part, the chapter debunks allegations of Luhmann’s involvement in Nazi Germany and demonstrates instead the usefulness of Luhmann’s theories for studies of Nazi violence.

Niklas Luhmann Individualised and Divided

We need both names, Luhmann and Niklas, to refer to the phenomenon that has become recognised in the discipline of sociology. Luhmann insists throughout his work that sociology should not speak of ‘the’ individual, but refer to addresses (billions) when conceiving individuals: Which individual? Sometimes it is necessary to use bureaucratic data, like ‘born in 1927 in Lüneburg, died 1998 in Oerlinghausen’ in order to identify and address him, because there are fake Niklas Luhmann (not only on Facebook) and other Niklas Luhmann (real, named after him?).

Not only the rise of individuality in the Western world is a topic in Niklas Luhmann’s work, but we also find a theory of ‘personal division’, dividuality. Luhmann’s distinction between social communication and psychic processes, which he derived in part from US role theory, suggests the distinction between social and psychic Luhmann. The latter is visible for a sociologist only by observing the psyche in its communicative academic and lay versions. In Christian faith the soul, and in sociology the psyche (in Luhmannian parlance: consciousness), can be conceived of as individual, that is: indivisible. Non-sociological academic analysis does not think in this way: the psyche (observed by psychology) and the body (observed by biology) must be seen as divided as Luhmannian sociology conceives the person in communication as being divided.