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The article compares philosopher Talcott Parsons's views with Habermas's theory. The entire basis of Habermas's communicative action banks on the distinctions Parsons made some sixty years previously, namely Habermas's notion of the universal validity claims underlying all speech. The three dimensions corresponding to the three validity claims are the subjective world, the objective world and the social world. This makes sense only in post conventional societies, because prior to that time, persons often drew upon only one world in making claims such as appealing to tradition, the divine right of kings, aesthetics, religion, or whatever. Habermas's penchant for grand, overarching theory was borrowed from Parsons and Parsons himself had been earlier influenced by that unique German brand of theorizing tracing back through Hegel and Marx, Simmel, Weber and Mannheim. In effect, the same logic underlying Habermas's analytic of the three worlds and the three validity claims can be found in the pages of Parsons's Amherst papers.

Behavioral sociology has developed unique features which have caused controversy and confusion in the discipline. In this paper, we briefly describe the history of behavioral sociology, and show how its major forms have been applied to behavioral analysts in complex organizations, laboratory experimental analysis of social exchange and social process, and behavioral macrosociology and theoretical extensions We also briefly examine criticisms of behavioral sociology on grounds of tautology, reduction, the omission of internal states as relevant data, and behavior control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks whether the discipline claiming professional expertise in matters social and institutional is willing and able to employ its own analytic techniques in the process of keeping itself robust, relevant and responsive. In short, can what is right with sociology fix what is wrong with sociology? The answer would appear to be a resounding no. Sounding off about the crises and contradictions of sociology has a long if not distinguished history since at least Mills (1958) and Gouldner (1970), but in recent years has become a veritable cottage industry. A review of the meta-sociological literature finds a common theme that invariably revolves around a crisis in the discipline. Wolfe (1992) for example, argues that despite the fact that sociologists are more theoretically and analytically skilled than at any point in the history of the discipline, sociology remains a weak field that is in a state of turmoil. Becker and Rau (1992 and 1971) argue that sociology in the 1990s is hopelessly fragmented and that the discipline lacks a theoretical, methodological, or institutional center. Collins (1986) worries that sociology has a bad case of the doldrums and is faced with an institutional malaise.

This article focuses on a sociological perspective on social issues. Arguably, social life in these last few years of the twentieth century has reached a new level of complexity. The population continues to grow, with worrisome consequences for the environment. A larger percentage of the world population is attaining higher levels of education. While the study of social issues is at the heart of sociology, sociologists seldom reflect self-consciously on how we interact with these problems and issues. Consequently, it may be useful to consider what should be, and can be, a sociologist's stance toward current events. It seems, then, that a set of sociological theories, grand and middle range, broad and interrelated, is the sociologist's principle tool in understanding the world, one's primary approach to identifying and explaining social processes and societal events. If this is indeed the case, one must take theory very seriously, and treat the task of theorizing with great respect. One must channel most of our energies, as sociologists, into the development and testing of high quality theories.

The article presents a tribute to Professor Edward Shils. His life was dedicated to the study of culture and civilization. Edward Shils had developed the thoroughest-the most serious, careful and searching-such theory. The work that Shils was doing was a work of revelation, he was trying-all his life, certainly in the last forty years of his life-to reveal the nature or essence of Culture. He was explicit, even naive about his election. Edward Shils conceived of intellectuals as the carriers of autonomous traditions of the transcendental center. The intellectuals of the most elevated sort seek a primacy of connection with the transcendental center of existence. Professor Shils was an intellectual of the most elevated sort. His quest was ultimately futile. The rational and empirical understanding of the fundamental nature of culture, its essential understanding, is impossible because we cannot externalize it, cannot step outside it conceptually and envision the moment of emergence, when the elements which are not in themselves cultural combine and become culture.

The article presents a behavioristic conception of the moral order. The term moral is often used in a very limited sense to designate a class of actions which are supposed to depend upon the exercise of the will, and which generally have a good deal of mystical connotation. The article consider the moral order to denote the whole organization of social behavior and as such attempt to analyze it, to bring out its principal characteristics and their relations and in particular to show how the portion of it which might in the narrow sense be called moral or ethical fits in with the rest. It seems reasonable to look at society as we know it from three main viewpoints. In the first place there is its actual societal structure, the facts of the organization of civilization. These facts are all related and intertwined, but just as in the mammalian body we can distinguish a circulatory system, a nervous system, a digestive system, though none of them has any significance by itself, we can pick out three principal phases of societal structure. The principal element in the structure of a society consists in the rites and ceremonies, the ritual. To bring out its relation to the other main elements, this denotes the relation of man to the unknown forces, the supposedly supernatural elements.