Burrowing into the legal system: using interview methods while respecting the theoretical basis of systems theory.

There is a difficulty reconciling the anti-humanistic approach of systems theory (as developed by Niklas Luhmann) with methodologies centering the individual. Society is viewed as a constellation of systems - politics, law, economy, media - and not the agglomeration of billions of individuals. This fore fronting of systems, and the unknowability of the cognitive processes of individuals, makes empirical operationalization of systems theory difficult. Can an interview method ever be accepted as a robust empirical operationalization of a theory which views society as a collection of intertwined and self-reinforcing systems, recursively communicating according to their own internalized contingencies? This paper attempts a theoretical justification for a methodology where individuals (researcher and interviewees) observe a system from which, theoretically, the human agent is excised and the focus is only on the construction of systemic possibilities. Reconciling theory and method is an important step in recognizing the possibilities of systems theory as a way of examining society.