This article systematically discusses the status of recognition in the social systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, a German sociologist. In the sociological context, Luhmann's theory relates to the problem of meaning construction and micro-macro link. In the other research fields, the problem of intersubjectivity in Husserl's phenomenology, a theory of autopoiesis by Maturana and Varela, constructivism in cognitive theories, social constructivism in science studies are especially important as academic contexts. Succeeding to these intellectual heritages Luhmann has defined the psychic system and the social system as autopoietic, meaning constructing systems. In such a system its elements are produced and reproduced by the same elements in an operationally closed network. In the psychic system, thoughts reproduce thoughts, and in the social system, communications reproduce communications. The relation of these two systems is characterized as the structural coupling, and both systems determine their own operations self-referentially though they exchange some turbulence with each other. The self-referentiality of the social system characterizes the status of social systems theory as the second-order observation, and leads it to the epistemology socialized without any ultimate foundation. In the last part, cognitive sociology and neurosociology are introduced as a recent research trend in cognition. This trend is characterized as a scientific exploration into Quine's “epistemology naturalized”.
