238 - Questions for Johannes F.K. Schmidt who is one of the scholars working on publishing the Luhmann Archive online. He seems to be the most knowledgeable, so thinking about questions I’d have for him is a good way to get at what I don’t quite understand about the zettelkasten.
Department Level
How did Luhmann’s department level categories work? Did he create them beforehand or did they emerge overtime? By the numbering system, it sounds like he created them beforehand. See 1 - Subject area below. This means that people are mistaken when they say the zettelkasten has a flat file structure or is heterarchy?
Note Contents
I wonder what the breakdown is (percentage wise) between the different types of content within a note (e.g. own thoughts, references to other notes, references to books).
Examples
Would love to see some examples of how disparate information was actually connected within his zettelkasten.
1 - Subject Area
Of course the file collection is not simply a chaotic compilation of notes but an aggregation of a vast number of cards on specific concepts and topics. This order per subject area on a top level is reflected in the first number assigned to the card followed by a comma (first collection) or slash (second collection) that separates it from the rest of the number given each card (see below). The first collection features 108 sections differentiated by subject areas, exploring and reflecting on largely predetermined, fairly detailed fields of knowledge in law, administrative sciences, philosophy and sociology, such as state, equality, planning, power, constitution, revolution, hierarchy, science, role, concept of world, information, and so on