ABSTRACT
The metaphor of “observing systems,” initiated somehow as a strange but undoubtedly innovative idea, has been transformed into a fruitful and even stimulating concept. Already the title of the collection of essays by Heinz von Foerster-Observing Systems-declares the whole essence of cybernetics of cybernetics, second-order cybernetics.1 The interplay of first-and second-order observations, mutual interdependence and self-reference of subject and object, opening up the possibility of observing observers and systematizing systems, leads to new questions and formulates new answers. Both the conceptual strength and the beauty of the metaphor of “observing systems” with its double meaning has inspired and attracted many scholars from different branches of the sciences, including “sociological observers of the legal system.”2
