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Call for Abstracts | Luhmann Conference 2026 | Deadline: 15 May 2026

  • 1.  Call for Abstracts | Luhmann Conference 2026 | Deadline: 15 May 2026

    Posted an hour ago
    Call for Abstracts
    Luhmann Conference 2026
    Theme: Meaning. Observed with … 
    Venue: Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik, Croatia 
    Conference dates: 14–18 September 2026
    Pre-conference dinner: 14 September 2026
    Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 May 2026
     
    Conference Theme
    Coded as the distinction between actual and potential, meaning (Sinn) occupies a central position in Niklas Luhmann's theory programme. As the shared medium in which both psychic and social systems operate, meaning enables observation, selection, and the continuous opening of horizons of possibility. As a medium without an outside (Luhmann, 1995a; 1995b, 62), meaning is notoriously inescapable for meaning-processing observers (Morales, 2025), and such are the blind spots and paradoxes it entails (Tække, 2025).
    In his major theoretical works, Luhmann (1995b; 2012; 2013) distinguished three dimensions of meaning-the factual (this/that), the temporal (before/after), and the social (ego/alter). Each of these dimensions relates to a distinct sub-theory of his systems-theoretical programme: the factual dimension grounds the theory of social differentiation, the temporal dimension the theory of social evolution, and the social dimension the theory of communication (Roth 2009; Sohn, 2021). As shown by Andersen (2003), each of these meaning dimensions moreover corresponds to a dedicated strategy of deparadoxifying the inescapable paradox of observation, while they also allow for analytically differentiating forms of social systems, depending on how meaning is stabilised as semantics and processed across objects, time, and social relations (Harste, 2021; Jönhill, 2012).
    What Luhmann did not adequately address, however, is how these dimensions of meaning come about, and why meaning should be structured into precisely three dimensions rather than more-or fewer (Roth, 2021). While the triadic architecture of meaning has become canonical in systems theory, its underlying logic remained explicitly unresolved …
    Read the full call here: https://wp.me/pvO07-2ho


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    Professor Steffen Roth

    Full Professor of Management, Excelia Business School La Rochelle, France
    Visiting Fellow, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK

    myURL: http://derroth.com
    ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8502-601X
    X: derrothdotcom


    Event

    Code poetry and programme-programme communication @CRASSH, Cambridge: https://wp.me/pvO07-2iV


    Call for papers

    Luhmann Conference 2026 @IUC Dubrovnik: https://wp.me/pvO07-2ho


    Current Working Paper

    FROM SPACESHIP TO LIFEBOAT: Artemis II and the Radicalisation of a Planetary Perspective @Researchgate: https://wp.me/pvO07-2m6


    Recent publications

    REIMAGINING ESG: A tetralemma approach to multifunctional sustainability reporting@O&E: https://wp.me/pvO07-2gs

    MULTIFUNCTIONAL TETRALEMMA. Framework for the Strategic Management of Moral Trade-offs @JBusEthics: https://wp.me/pvO07-2e5

    IDEOLOGICAL REPURPOSING OF INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER MANAGEMENT EDUCATION. Historical Lessons and Contemporary Imperatives @SRBS: https://wp.me/pvO07-2gU

    GUIDING DISTINCTIONS OF SOCIAL THEORY. Results from two online brainstormings and one quantitative analysis of the ISA Books of the XX Century corpus @CurSoc: https://wp.me/pvO07-24Z




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