"Meaning" as a sociological concept

[Loet Leydesdorff]

"Meaning" as a sociological concept: 

A review of the modeling, mapping, and simulation of the communication of
knowledge and meaning

 

The development of discursive knowledge presumes the communication of
meaning as analytically different from the communication of information.
Knowledge can then be considered as a meaning which makes a difference.
Whereas the communication of information is studied in the information
sciences and scientometrics, the communication of meaning has been central
to Luhmann's attempts to make the theory of autopoiesis relevant for
sociology. Analytical techniques such as semantic maps and the simulation of
anticipatory systems enable us to operationalize the distinctions which
Luhmann proposed as relevant to the elaboration of Husserl's "horizons of
meaning" in empirical research: interactions among communications, the
organization of meaning in instantiations, and the self-organization of
interhuman communication in terms of symbolically generalized media such as
truth, love, and power. Horizons of meaning, however, remain uncertain
orders of expectations, and one should caution against reification from the
meta-biological perspective of systems theory.

 

Available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.3244

 

** apologies for cross-postings

  _____  

Loet Leydesdorff 

Professor, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam.
Tel. +31-20-525 6598; fax: +31-842239111

 <mailto:loet at leydesdorff.net> loet at leydesdorff.net ;
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/ 
Visiting Professor 2007-2010, ISTIC,
<http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html> Beijing; Honorary Fellow
2007-2010, SPRU,  <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/> University of Sussex 

 

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