Niklas Luhmann Quotes & Sayings

The work of art is an ostentatiously improbable occurrence. — Niklas Luhmann

Reality is what one does not perceive when one perceives it. — Niklas Luhmann

In the twentieth century, one encounters artworks that seek to cancel the difference between a real and an imagined reality by presenting themselves in ways that make them indistinguishable from real objects. Should we take this trend as an internal reaction of art against itself? ... No ordinary object insists on being taken for an ordinary thing, but a work that does so betrays itself by this very effort. The function of art in such a case is to reproduce the difference of art. But the mere fact that art seeks to cancel this difference and fails in its effort to do so perhaps says more about art than could any excuse or critique. — Niklas Luhmann

Communication is improbable. — Niklas Luhmann

Humans cannot communicate; not even their brains can communicate; not even their conscious minds can communicate. Only communication can communicate. — Niklas Luhmann