second order observation

is, for example, abstaining from using the term 'agency' to account for social causes and outcomes, and instead of philosophizing about the nature of agency, we can now observe when agency and related concepts are being employed to explain some outcome and when an observer resorts to more structural explanations, possibly for the very same outcomes. Explanation and making sense are social activities, and, as such, they vary together with other social variables.

to overcome the essentialism of the agency/structure duality, it is necessary to allow for variation. One way to do this is, with luhmann, to switch to a second level of observation and observe when first-order observers use either 'agency' or 'structure' to account for social causes and outcomes. then, agency and structure turn into variable devices for sense making employed by different observers, the observers themselves located in different positions in the social structure. Instead of philosophizing about the nature of agency, we can now observe when agency and related concepts are being employed to explain some outcome and when an observer resorts to more structural explanations, possibly for the very same outcomes. Explanation and making sense are social activities, and, as such, they vary together with other social variables' (Fuchs 'beyond')

is concerned not with wisdom, nor prudence, nor reason, but with describing how others describe what others describe.

The main preoccupation of intellectuals is no longer wisdom, nor prudence, nor reason, but second-order descriptions. They describe how others describe what others describe. This may amount to the loose talk of French writers or to the dreadful rigor of analytic philosophers. Second-order description, however, seems to be a general characteristic of a specialization concerned with the interpretation of texts. This form of communication seems to have difficulties in producing stable 'eigenvalues,' as Heinz von Foerster would predict (Observing Systems), and 'postmodernity' may offer itself as an appropriate conclusion. (luhmann 1995: 182).

second order observation, n.All

second order observation