on knowledge (/science) and ethics

"The Radical Luhmann, Hans-Georg Moeller, 2012"

"Modesty
(...) In a functionally differentiated society, science cannot do what philosophy was one assumed to do, namely to initiated an encompassing process of Bildung in the sense outlined above.
The traditional philosophical approach toward the production of knowledge assumed that there was both a collective subject and an individual one to be improved. From the perspective of theory, no such subject exist. No one "has"  knowledge as an internal component of himself (or herself). Knowledge functions, like money and like power, as a generalized medium of communication And one "has" it in the ways one has other media (in systems-theoretical terms) that are attributed a certain value in a particular social context. Knowledge allows society to function, but dose not essentially improve an individual or a society as a whole. From the perspective of theory, more knowledge dose not lead to more Bildung anymore than more money or more power does.
The inflation of knowledge seems an excellent example of this. No person - and no nation or country or social system - is able to coherently accumulate or store knowledge. ... If knowledge, is a medium,like money or power, then those who take part in its production have no reason to believe they are taking part in an ultimately self-improving endeavor. In other words, theorists have to be more modest than the philosophers of old"(108)

"Luhmann's redefinition of ethics is another example of his irony. He first defines morality as the communicative distinction between, and distribution of, esteem and disesteem. (...) An ironical ethics also self-critical. .. Philosophical ethics, attempts to identify the correct application or meaning of the moral distinction between good and bad, or, more precisely, between good and evil. Theoretical ethics, on the other hand, outlines how this very attempt is, .. beyond good and evil. Ethical philosophy cannot but assume that it is good and advocate the goodness it estabished. Ethical theory, on the other hand, looks at morality as one form of contigent sense construction. ... Ethical theory dose not and cannot tell society what is ultimately good or bad, only what sort of nonsense is implied in ethical sense-making. (...) perhaps the most important aspect of the shift from philosophical ethics to theoretical ethics lies in a shift from advocating a serious morality to an exercise in (self-)ironical reason. A major problem with traditional philosophical ethics is that it lacks the capacity to seriously consider its own nonsense. In this way, not only science, but also ethics, can now become, at least in theory, "gay" (in the Nietzschean sense of fröhlich)" (114 - 115)

지식이 대단한, 우월적 지위를 차지하는 것은 아니다. 더 나은 앎, 지혜, 삶으로 인도하지 않는다. 그저 유통될 뿐이다. 때로는 사회를 안정적으로, 때로는 파괴적으로 만들기도 하고...
윤리 또한 마찬가지다. 도구적인 성격을 지닐 뿐이다. 체계를 가능하게 하는... 무엇이 옳고 그른지를 판단할 근거로 삼을 필요는 없다.
지식, 윤리 등에 대한 이상주의적 접근 (철학적 접근)을 버리고 이론적 접근으로 전환해야...
(religion --> philosophy --> theory_