The ArgumentThis essay attempts to show the decisive importance of the “scientific discipline” for any historical or sociological analysis of modern science. There are two reasons for this:1. A discontinuity can be observed at the beginning of modern science: the “discipline,” which up until that time had been a classificatorily generated unit of the ordering of knowledge for purposes of instruction in schools and universities, develops into a genuine and concrete social system of scientific communication. Scientific disciplines as concrete systems (Realsysteme) arise as a result of (a) the communicative stabilization of “scientific communities” at the end of the eighteenth century and the formation of “appropriate” roles and organizational structures (in universities); (b) the structural differentiation of the new scientific disciplines from the established professions (law, theology, medicine) in Europe; (c) the formation of scientific communication in the standardized form of scientific publication; the distinction of the separate action-type “scientific research” and the differentiation of these two elementary acts of all future scientific endeavor in relation to each other.2. The scientific discipline as primary unit of the internal differentiation of science has, since its genesis, been stabilized by two conditions: (a) The fact of a science differentiated into a plurality of (competing, mutually stimulating) disciplinary perspectives becomes the chief causal factor underlying the developmental dynamism of modern science; (b) Similar to the way in which the discipline functions as a cognitive address within the system of science, science also links the discipline up as a structural unit (utilized in both systems) with curricular structures in the system of education — i.e., it is stabilized by the central system/environment relation of science.

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This paper analyses the dynamics of science as one global function system in world society. One basic paradox is pointed out: globalization arises via the nationalization of science in the 19th century, but nationalization is accompanied by a progressive internal differentiation of science. Globalization is described by means of a conceptual distinction of global diffusion vs. global interconnectedness as two core aspects of globalization. The genesis of national scientific communities and of their attendant scientific institutions (the modern scientific university and so on) seems to be a potent mechanism of global diffusion of science. The other side of the same process, progressive internal differentiation, functions as the most important mechanism of global connectedness. That is, disciplinary and subdisciplinary differentiation motivates worldwide collaborative links that are one very visible aspect of a subdisciplinary structure of science that can no longer be determined by national boundaries. In the final part of the argument, this global communicative structure is related to the organizational infrastructure of science, which is dominated by national organizations. It is demonstrated how this disparity weakens the control scientific organizations can exercise on their members, especially on the external ties of their members. This is related to new types of telecommunicative links and the ongoing flow of migration and visits between scientific organizations.

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The argument of the essay has two main parts. First, it reflects on the presumed conflict between action theories and systems theories in sociology. Looking at authors such as James Coleman, Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann, the essay tries to show that there is a natural complementarity of action and systems theories, and therefore the presumed disjunction of 'action' and 'system' is not based on the empirical reality of theory-building ventures. But then another line of conflict becomes visible. Since the information theories of the late 1940s, 'communication theory' has become a viable and universalistic option in social theory, one that indeed conflicts with action theory. In its second part, the essay first gives a brief sketch of the conceptual career of communication theory since Shannon and Weaver. It then presents the sociological theory of Niklas Luhmann as the first major sociological theory that opts for communication as the constitutive element of society and other social systems. Causes and reasons for this theoretical decision are reconstructed, first in terms of problems internal to Niklas Luhmann's social theory (the distinction of psychic and social systems; the distinction of action and experience; formal properties of the concept of communication; the implications of autopoiesis) and secondly in terms of processes of societal change (the rise of the information society; the genesis of world society), which favour the switch towards a communication-based (instead of action-based) systems theory.