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Although there are many interpretations of the central themes of Talcott Parsons's sociology, it is evident that the idea of citizenship played a major role in shaping the core of his mature social thought. In addition to specific discussions of citizenship in relation to black inequality and participation, of the historical roots of universal participation in the societal community, and of the political openness and pluralism of American society, the problems of universalistic participation were in fact analytically crucial to Parsonian sociology. In other words, the theme of universalistic values was not merely an empirical issue, and not merely an aspect of political questions in his occasional essays and papers, but it coloured the basic components of Parsons's work as a theorist. For example, the notion of universalism defined one possible mode of orientation to action in the pattern variables, being contrasted with particularism. The pattern variables were not merely a passing phase in Parsons's long theoretical maturation; they were fundamental to what he understood by 'modernity'. They were as a result constitutive of Parsons's understanding of social change theory and modernization processes. Indeed, this theme of universalistic participation, its dependence on the legacy of the Protestant idea of universal salvation and its peculiar role in the formation of western societies, was a co-ordinating theme in Parsons's complex theoretical legacy. In addition to its importance in his theoretical development, it was the foundation of the pressuppositional level of his general value position, because Parsons regarded American society as the culmination of the process of modernity which, as we will see, was a process of universalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the theory of sociology given by sociologist Talcott Parsons. The fate of the functional requisites in Parsonian sociology can be regarded as happy or sad according to one's theoretical predilections. It has been shown that in many respects the development and changes that have taken place in and around the concept have reflected the development and changes in Parson's theory of society. The caveat on theory-building expressed in the book "The Structure of Social Action," has held good over the years as of March 1970. This is especially the case with respect to the universal imperatives. They are not subject to change for they are not empirical realities; they are, however, real in their consequences for social systems and for the structure of social organization in terms of all human societies. Parsons has made and elaborated the important distinction between social and personality systems in such a fashion that old notions of the individual versus the society have been seen to be inadequate. This is particularly relevant here as it paves the way to an understanding of individual and social requisites of human society, though Parsons himself has not taken full advantage of the possibilities in this context.

This article tests the proposition that a common set of norms and values or a dominant ideology is necessary for capitalist societies to exist. A test is constructed by concentrating on the minimal conditions required for the existence of capitalism in its pure form. The work of Talcott Parsons is taken as the starting point for the argument. Sociologists and political theorists often seem to assume that either a common set of norms and values or a dominant ideology is a necessary condition for the existence of a stable capitalist society. This assumption is of considerable importance and is common to much non-Marxist and Marxist theory and empirical research. Despite this, the claim about values and ideology that underpin this assumption has, with a few exceptions, gone largely unchallenged. It was said that the pure form of capitalist society is one which has no other features except those necessary for capitalism to maintain itself. An outline of the problem and of a Parsonian solution was provided. It was discussed that Parsons say that the concept of a common set of values is necessary to explain how social order is maintained because society will collapse if people acted rationally in the absence of values.

This article is a revision of the article titled "Principia Sociologica," which appeared in the third volume of "The British Journal of Sociology," which discusses theories of sociologist Talcott Parsons. In the pre-Bales era we have the action systems and the pattern variables. There has been some modification of both these sets of concepts. An action is a constituent of three systems: as a physical act it is a constituent of the organic system, as a purposeful piece of behavior it is a constituent of a personality system and if it is directed towards another person or set of persons it is a constituent of a social system. The pattern variables, are concerned with the way we apprehend the objects towards which we act and the way we orient ourselves towards them. An object may be apprehended as a member of a class or in its own right as having something of particular significance to the actor. In addition an object may be appraised for what it is or for what it does.

This article examines a sociological theory of economic administration. Talcott Parsons and Neil J. Smelser attempted to prove that economic theory is only a special case of the general theory of social systems. However, they have ignored the most highly formalized branch of economic analysis. They have concentrated on the less abstract area of applied theories which have a bearing, often remotely, on economic policy. The true achievement of the authors is that they showed how much phenomena can be treated as socially determined factors which are well inside the range of sociological theory. Nevertheless, the connection between economic administration and socialization is vague.

This article considers the propositions put forward in The Social System, by Talcott Parsons, which illustrate Parsons' analysis of social dynamics. For Parsons, the social system is a system of action. It is made up of the interactions of individuals. Of special concern to sociology is the fact that such interactions are not random but mediated by common standards of evaluation. Most important among these are moral standards, which may be called norms. Such norms structure action. Because individuals share the same definition of the situation in terms of such norms, their behaviour can be intermeshed to produce a social structure. That sociology should deal with a particular set of problems within the theory of social systems is the position taken by Parsons in his discussion of the division of labour between the social sciences. Here sociology is defined as having to do with the process of institutionalization of normative patterns : that aspect of the theory of social systems which is concerned with the phenomena of institutionalization of patterns of value-orientation in the social system, and of changes in the patterns, with conditions of conformity with and deviance from a set of such patterns, and with motivational processes in so far as they are involved in all of these. Parsons' concern with the normative and his definition of sociology as a discipline exploring the dynamics of the normative, is in one way an attempt, whether intentional or unintentional, to make the status of sociology less ambiguous by making it a special social science. But this confinement, which has a definite conceptual expression, seems to break down, both on a theoretical and an empirical level, when the problems of social stability and change are tackled.