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Niklas Luhmann’s 1956 index card wiki

by Eric Franklin on December 4, 2008

I was reading the FT Weekend Magazine on a flight back from Frankfurt this weekend and came upon a fascinating closing piece about German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, and his use of index cards to map out complex series of thought. I have heard repeatedly of Vladimir Nabokov’s system of using index cards to plot his novels by exploring various juxtapositions and settling on an order for his carded prose but what I liked most about Luhmann’s system was that it was a rigorous mapping of a thought process, something I hadn’t heard of before.
6 Nabokov index cards from "Look at the Harlequins," part of the "Nabokov Under Glass" exhibit at the NY Public Library

What Luhmann did was number each card:

If an entry got the number 57/12, for example, and took up more space than one card would allow, the second card would be 57/13. But if an observation within that first card led to a separate branch of thought, the index card would get the number 57/12a – which could run on to 57/12b.

Luhmann used the index cards to map out and develop ideas, thoughts and theories. He wound up with labels as long as 21/3d26g53 – the number of a card discussing his academic rival, Jürgen Habermas.

The claim was that this numbered system of cards allowed Luhmann “to think about society in non-linear and non-hierarchical ways.” The beauty of this system is that it allowed him to link up disparate areas of thought, via a mechanism that resembled an early, and very non-communal, wiki. Whenever Luhmann needed to refer to a thought or string of logic, he could short-hand it by inserting the referring number.

I, for one, think this would be a great project for somebody to put online at some point. I’d love to see the index cards and view the hyper-links between them.