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Tanto en la cultura occidental como en la teoría social contemporánea, el término persona se usa habitualmente como equivalente a los de ser humano, individuo y sujeto. Frente a esta semántica sustancialista, y partiendo de la recuperación del sentido originario del término latino persona que realizó la filosofía política barroca para cimentar teóricamente los nacientes Estados europeos, en el artículo se propone una fundamentación estrictamente sociológica del concepto de persona. Para ello, se realizará un recorrido genealógico que arrancará con el análisis realizado por Thomas Hobbes de la persona, en el que esta es definida como un actor. A continuación, se pasará revista a algunos de los más conspicuos representantes de la tradición sociológica, en cuya obra la persona es conceptualizada no ya como un actor, sino como un actor social. A tal efecto, se recorrerán las obras de Ferdinand Tönnies, Georg Simmel y Erving Goffman –en este último caso, en conexión con la teoría de la autoconciencia de George Herbert Mead–. Finalmente, apoyándose en los conceptos de doble contingencia y comunicación, en cuanto problema constitutivo y operación característica de los sistemas sociales, respectivamente, el artículo propondrá una radicalización socio-estructural del enfoque sociológico de la persona, con el fin de determinar conceptualmente a qué necesidades básicas de la construcción de los órdenes sociales responde la conversión de los seres humanos en actores sociales, y cómo es esta conversión el factor clave para la misma estructuración de las conciencias, que desemboca en la construcción de la autoconciencia. La tesis fundamental sobre la que se apoya esta operación de radicalización sociológica del concepto de persona es la interpretación de esta como una de las formas básicas de estructuración social: el direccionamiento social; es decir, la comprensión de las personas como direcciones sociales que ayudan a determinar y reducir la complejidad de los sistemas sociales en cuanto sistemas de comunicación. In both Western culture and contemporary social theory, the term person is commonly used as an equivalent of human being, individual and subject. Faced with this substantialist semantics, and starting from the recovery of the original meaning of the Latin term persona, carried out by de baroque political philosophie to theoretical cement the emerging european states. To do this, a genealogical tour will be carried out that will start with Thomas Hobbes analysis of the person as an actor. We will then review some of the most conspicuous representatives of the sociological tradition, in whose work the person is conceptualizated not merely as an actor, but as an social actor. To do this, we will explore the Works of Tönnies, Simmel and Goffman –in the latter case, in connection with Mead´s theory of self–. Finally, base don the concepts of double contingency and communication, as constitutive problema and characteristic operation of the social systems, the article propose a socio-structural radicalization of the sociological approach to the person, in order to determine conceptually which basic needs of the social orders meets the construction of human beings as social actors, and how this construction is the key factor for the structuring of their consciousness, wich leads to the development of the self. The fundamental thesis on wich this sociological radicalization is based is the interpretation of the person as one of the basic forms of social structuring: the social addressing; that is, the understanding of human beings as social addresses that help to determine and reduce the complexity os social systems as systems of communication.

In both Western culture and contemporary social theory, the term person is commonly used as an equivalent of human being, individual and subject. Faced with this substantialist semantics, and starting from the recovery of the original meaning of the Latin term persona, carried out by de baroque political philosophie to theoretical cement the emerging european states. To do this, a genealogical tour will be carried out that will start with Thomas Hobbes analysis of the person as an actor. We will then review some of the most conspicuous representatives of the sociological tradition, in whose work the person is conceptualizated not merely as an actor, but as an social actor. To do this, we will explore the Works of Tönnies, Simmel and Goffman -in the latter case, in connection with Mead's theory of self-. Finally, base don the concepts of double contingency and communication, as constitutive problema and characteristic operation of the social systems, the article propose a socio-structural radicalization of the sociological approach to the person, in order to determine conceptually which basic needs of the social orders meets the construction of human beings as social actors, and how this construction is the key factor for the structuring of their consciousness, wich leads to the development of the self. The fundamental thesis on wich this sociological radicalization is based is the interpretation of the person as one of the basic forms of social structuring: the social addressing; that is, the understanding of human beings as social addresses that help to determine and reduce the complexity os social systems as systems of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Niklas Luhmann is one of the most important social scientists of the last century. He wrote a great many and high-quality works that stimulated social research. Despite this, Luhmann has not received the recognition he deserves in Turkey. The following article is an attempt to pres)ent Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. For this, his predecessors are first introduced; these are Thomas Hobbes, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Talcott Parsons. Then, Luhmann’s model of society in the triangle of system, environment, and communication media is discussed. It is shown that Luhmann conceptually departed from the idea of culture, values, norms, and the indi)vidual. Instead of them, he let the system guide him as an independent entity. Instead of them, he proposes the function of symbolically generalized communication media for the stability of soci)ety. By society, Luhmann does not mean the concrete society but the semantics of this society, that is, the society as an object of the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management of uncertainty in clinical practice has been an enduring topic of sociological scholarship. However, little of this addresses how uncertainty and non-knowledge are attributed to the self and other actors. We take the example of checking for developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH), part of infant screening in UK primary care, to examine the ‘double contingency’ of attributions of uncertainty and ignorance. Our data come from interviews with parents and General Practitioners (GPs), and observations of the six-week check conducted as part of a study to develop a checklist to aid GPs' diagnostic and referral decisions. Parents' pervasive uncertainties about managing with a new-born infant place them in a trusting relation to biomedicine, in which knowledge about infant hips is delegated to the clinical team: most described themselves as not-knowing about DDH. GPs focus on the uncertainties of applying sensory and experiential knowledge of infant bodies, in a consultation with more diffuse aims than screening for DDH. A prototype checklist, developed by orthopaedic specialists, was an explicit attempt to reduce uncertainty around thresholds for referral. However, using the checklist surfaced multiple logics of uncertainty. It also surfaced attributions of uncertainty and non-knowledge to other actors: orthopaedic specialists' assumptions about GPs' uncertain technical knowledge; GPs' assumptions about orthopaedic specialists' ignorance of the primary care setting; and clinicians' assumptions about the role of parental ignorance. This ‘double contingency’ of attributions of other actors' non-knowledge is a salient additional dimension to the uncertainty that infuses biomedical practice.

In previous work, we described the geometry of Bayesian learning on a manifold. In this paper, inspired by the notion of modified double contingency of communications from sociologist Niklas Luhmann, we take two manifolds in equal parts and a potential function on their product to set up mutual Bayesian learning. Particularly, given a parametric statistical model, we consider mutual learning between two copies of the parameter space. Here, we associate the potential with the relative entropy (i.e., the Kullback–Leibler divergence). Although the mutual learning forgets all elements about the model except the relative entropy, it still substitutes for the usual Bayesian estimation of the parameter in a certain case. We propose it as a globalization of the information geometry.

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From a system-theory perspective, the form of address list based communication, as made possible by the Internet – often categorized under “social media” or “social networks” – is analyzed. Examples of address-list based communication are online dating services, online social networking sites such as Facebook, networking sites for the business community, travel networking sites, etc. The paper theorizes how address-lists as media represent a technologically supported possibility to cope with the problem of double contingency in terms of initiative and stabilization of interaction systems. The paper addresses, as a case example, the advantages (hopefulness) and the disadvantages (disappointments) of address-list based communication in the initiation of love or romantic relationships. Thus, it shows that the problem of initiative can be overcome, but address list communication creates problems for the continuity or stability of interaction systems within love as a symbolically generalized medium of communication. Last, but not least, it shows that address lists increase the importance of reputation-oriented communication.

Copyright of Cinta de Moebio is the property of Universidad de Chile, Facultad de Ciencas Sociales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This contribution explores The Status of Law in World Society by looking at the practice turn in particular. Without challenging Kratochwil’s interest in practices per se, this contribution poses two questions: first, it acknowledges that the ‘practice turn’ itself is, like every intellectual movement, ambiguous with conflicting trends and developments. One of these ambiguities, however, concerns the position of the observer. Leaving this position undefined, the practice turn transports this ambiguity into constructivism with important repercussions on what constructivists assume to know and where the boundaries of their possible critique are. Second, this contribution asks whether there is a conflict between an interest in practices and the question of order. In particular, the latter incorporates the question of the ‘third’ that Kratochwil acknowledges, but does not develop in more detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Internacional de Sociología is the property of Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article we propose that in the sociological theory of Niklas Luhmann is possible to reconstruct two different treatments regarding the problem of social order. On the one hand, a problem which is related to the recognition of an order of reality that is social in its own right; and on the other hand, one that is connected with the matter of regulation and control over the action. This duality is particularly observable when we analyze the different meanings and valuations that the problem of contingency of action has in the elaboration of the general proposal of the author. The analysis allows us to present the hypothesis that in social theory, there is diversity not only in the answers granted to the problem of order, but also in the ways in which the problem is conceived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management of uncertainty in clinical practice has been an enduring topic of sociological scholarship. However, little of this addresses how uncertainty and non-knowledge are attributed to the self and other actors. We take the example of checking for developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH), part of infant screening in UK primary care, to examine the 'double contingency' of attributions of uncertainty and ignorance. Our data come from interviews with parents and General Practitioners (GPs), and observations of the six-week check conducted as part of a study to develop a checklist to aid GPs' diagnostic and referral decisions. Parents' pervasive uncertainties about managing with a new-born infant place them in a trusting relation to biomedicine, in which knowledge about infant hips is delegated to the clinical team: most described themselves as not-knowing about DDH. GPs focus on the uncertainties of applying sensory and experiential knowledge of infant bodies, in a consultation with more diffuse aims than screening for DDH. A prototype checklist, developed by orthopaedic specialists, was an explicit attempt to reduce uncertainty around thresholds for referral. However, using the checklist surfaced multiple logics of uncertainty. It also surfaced attributions of uncertainty and non-knowledge to other actors: orthopaedic specialists' assumptions about GPs' uncertain technical knowledge; GPs' assumptions about orthopaedic specialists' ignorance of the primary care setting; and clinicians' assumptions about the role of parental ignorance. This 'double contingency' of attributions of other actors' non-knowledge is a salient additional dimension to the uncertainty that infuses biomedical practice., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2022 The Authors.)