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C. Wright Mills' The Sociological Imagination (1959) represents one of the most influential texts of postwar American sociology. The title has become a catchphrase that stands for a style of thought that transcends both theoretical dogma and the constraints of mere methodological rule following. This article sets out to show that Mills' vision of the sociological imagination had more in common with the then dominant lines of scholarship than his broadside against Parsonian grand theory and Lazarsfeldian abstracted empiricism in the main part of the book would suggest. Among the tools that Mills introduced as fostering the sociological imagination were 2 × 2 tables. The article traces the use of such tables over time and across scholarly communities and shows that, contrary to Mills' own estimate, these tables describe a common nexus between his own work and that of Parsons and Lazarsfeld. All three scholars made ample use of this formal tool to construct sociological arguments at central places of their oeuvre. Given its shared use across otherwise divergent schools, the 2 × 2 table is a prime example for what historians of science have called paper tools, i.e. statistical formulas, algorithms, tables, diagrams, graphs, etc., that structure scientific research across different schools of thought and theoretical approaches. Drawing on the notion of paper tools, the article advances a post-Kuhnian perspective on the history of sociology that shifts the research focus from substantive ideas to formal tools and demonstrates elements of commensurability among presumably incommensurable schools of thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the Amherst papers in relation to development of Parsons' theory. A careful analysis of the Amherst papers reveals that the basic ideas and philosophical principles that Parsons followed throughout his life were already in place, some more fully developed than others, yet forming an integrally coherent pattern to a surprising degree. The clear existence in Parsons's Amherst papers of a metatheoretical framework predating his later professional writing calls into question some still existing myths about radical breaks in the development of Parsons's theory. In one version of this mythology, Parsons began his theory as a voluntarist, then became a structural-functionalist, later moved on to become a systems-theorist and ended up as a social evolutionist. Despite such claims, Parsons always was a voluntarist, even during his so-called structural-functionalist middle period. The Amherst papers reveal an amazingly complex and logically coherent theoretical system-in the mind of a twenty-year-young man-and testify to an extraordinary scope of philosophical depth, and intellectual maturity.

The article discusses economic and social theory of Talcott Parsons. Parsons's persistent attention to economic theory has been relatively neglected by critics of Parsons who, in attacking the alleged functionalism of Parsonian sociology, concentrated on the issues of value consensus and normative integration, believing that Parsons had relatively little interest in the economic base of society. This neglect of Parsons's economic sociology was probably intensified by the Marxist undercurrent of much so-called conflict theory. In recent years there has fortunately been considerable interest shown in Parsons's analysis of economic theory and more specifically in his economic sociology. At Amherst, Parsons came under the influence of the philosopher Alexander Meiklejohn, who prompted his students to consider broad questions relating to alternatives to industrial capitalist society and who created an educational environment within which students were involved in a general analysis of the social sciences. It was this engagement with institutional economics that marked Parsons's departure from biology into the social sciences as an academic career. Parsons was introduced to a broad spectrum of social theory relating to cultural and biological dimensions of human existence as explanations of social differentiation.

The paper provides insights on the contemporary relevance of Talcott Parsons's writings by analyzing 20 textbooks from Austria, Germany, Great Britain and the United States, published in 1999–2019. Whether having knowledge of Parsons is helpful to today's students and other interested readers, and what knowledge, deserves consideration. Therefore , the paper asks: Which future gains of readers did textbook authors envision when they chose, in their own present, to discuss (or not) sociological writings from long ago? In order to understand what future opportunities authors wanted to create for readers, as well as how they chose to discuss Parsons to this end, the paper draws on Niklas Luhmann's notion of memory. The analysis reveals several key competencies that student and other interested readers might acquire through having knowledge of Parsons' writings and its critiques. These potentials would have gone unnoticed if authors had assessed Parsons's relevance only according to whether he adequately considered conflict or not, as has been done in many debates about his work until today. Moreover, through analyzing how authors remembered Parsons, I distilled two key selective criteria: First, what must be remembered in order to enable readers to acquire those competencies? Second, which memories would be impeding for readers and thus be better left out? These criteria are relevant for research, as well. Looking at the future, it would be desirable that sociologists let Parsons assist them in their research in many different ways, if possible. As a result, we might see a revival of Parsons that enables genuine advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following reflections by Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann, this paper is concerned with the changing meaning of the profession as a sociological category for analyzing modern society. Professions are practical academic occupational groups oriented to certain social values, to which a special significance for society was attributed in the social sciences for a long time, thus marking a connection between professions' research and theory of society. This paper now describes that the causal relationship between profession and society is limited to a historically relatively early period. In the transition to modern society, this close network of relationships begins to dissolve, and now professions operate in the context of some function systems of society whose task is the professional assistance of single clients, such as in the fields of health, law, and pastoral care. However, the professions' highlighted position in the knowledge and action structure of single function systems seems to dissolve more and more today so that one can ask whether we can speak here already of an end of the social form profession. This would correspond with the observation that actually the professions no longer appear at all in the newer theories of society and therefore their function as an important mechanism of social structure formation is no longer attributed to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper builds on Joel Isaac's analysis of "interstitial" arrangements that generate scientific knowledge, and also draws upon the networking model of theory groups articulated by Nicholas and Caroline Mullins. I consider how the "interstitial academy" at Harvard, as well as Talcott Parsons's navigation of it, facilitated his professional rise from a vulnerable young instructor in economics in 1927 to one of the most prominent social scientists in the United States in 1951. I examine Parsons's engagement with curriculum-building committees in sociology and social ethics, in "the area of social science" and in social relations, as well as with undergraduate courses on institutions and on sociological theory, including a graduate student discussion circle, and with seminars on Pareto, on rationality and on "basic social science." In some instances, Parsons's involvement as a newcomer or junior participant led to important peer alliances, or to the support of higher-ranking faculty and administrators who sponsored his advancement. In other instances, especially as his ascent progressed, Parsons played the more powerful role of "indispensable hub" who gained stature by organizing cross-disciplinary interaction. Parsons's interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration also placed him an initial administrative role that would prepare him to serve as chair of two academic departments. The final and most important outcome of the process of upward mobility was the creation of a "theory school" that elevated Parsons to a unique status as the most boundary-spanning theorist of the social sciences. The paper thus supplements existing accounts of the rise of Parsons while also offering a mode of analysis that might be widely applied to the careers of other social scientists, both contemporary and historical (e.g., to figures such as Jane Addams and W. E. B. DuBois), in diverse academic settings and national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline of interest among sociologists in the works of Talcott Parsons over the last several decades has been driven in substantial respects by a belief that he was personally conservative in his political views and that his theoretical formulations were rigidly tied to a conservative view of social order. The present paper reviews Parsons' major political involvements through the course of his career from his student days through the last decade of his life. The review demonstrates that Parsons was a typical academic liberal of his time and that his liberalism was expressed especially in several major applied essays. In the 1930s, he was an early and active opponent of Nazism. During World War II, he taught professionals to administer occupied territories and nations effectively. After the war, he advocated for government support of the social sciences, citing the important contributions they had made to the war effort. In the 1950s, he wrote a famous critical analysis of the Joseph McCarthy movement in American politics. In the 1960s, he contributed supportive essays to the Civil Rights movement. Later in the decade and in the 1970s, he contributed to the protection of academic freedoms while also proposing accommodations to the demands of the student movement for more "relevant" teaching and greater participation in university governance. Throughout his career, he taught and worked closely with students of various political views and sought to protect their rights of freedom of political expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decades of his life, Talcott Parsons was often indicted as conservative. More recently, his analyses of contemporary society have been perceived as obsolete. In the present paper, I argue that both these accounts are wrong. Parsons's biographical and intellectual profile is clearly – and rather consistently – that of a New Deal liberal. His "ate" works, moreover, articulate an original view of the integrative processes in modern societies that is still both theoretically compelling and politically relevant. Parsons's view of modernity has made possible the development of a sophisticated theory of societal pluralism, able to deal analytically with the astonishing variety of structural strains (and resources) arising from an increasingly diverse – in racial, religious, ethnic, sexual and moral terms - membership in contemporary societies. His sociological enthusiasm for inclusion has never been blind to the likelihood of backlashes and the strength of discontent such inclusion may bring. His work provides thus some important directions in the current storm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illuminates, in a discussion of my relationship with him, how Talcott Parsons acted out his commitment to the values of cognitive rationality, how he implemented those values when working with students who did not share his liberal politics. I illustrate how students may learn not only from divergences in perspective with one professor, but also from the contradictions between their teachers's work. There are two contentions here. One concerns the importance of professors encouraging students to encounter points-of-view divergent from the professor's viewpoint, and then the significance of supporting them when they do so. This is possible only when the values of cognitive rationality regulate activity within a university setting. I illustrate these contentions in a discussion of my work with the political sociologist, Barrington Moore, Jr., the economic theorist, Kenneth Arrow, and the political philosopher, Judith Shklar, each of whose work diverged greatly from Parsons's theoretical perspective. Lastly, I contend that an understanding of our teachers's work is manifest in our extension of it, not in criticisms of their ideas, their texts. I show how this was the case in my own work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The place of Georg Simmel in the thought of Talcott Parsons has come under increasing scrutiny, a concern fuelled by a "Simmel Renaissance" on the one hand, and by a resurgence of interest in Parsons's early writings on the other. This paper raises some question, about Parsons's interpretation of Simmel in light of the discovery of a second manuscript on Simmel that Parsons wrote in 1939. This document (which was unknown until quite recently) may best be seen as an elaboration and reworking of the fragment on Simmel that had been left out of The Structure of Social Action (1937). After summarizing and comparing the two documents, the paper demonstrates that Parsons blurred them in his recollections. This means that interpretations of his engagement with Simmel--which have often drawn on Parsons's later testimony (19681979)--need to be reconsidered. The discovery of the second manuscript also underscores the importance of examining how Simmel fit into Parsons's evolving thought, rather than narrowly focusing on why he left Simmel out of the convergence in European social thought that he traced in Structure. Taking the former approach as a point of reference, the paper outlines some interpretive issues that arise from the discovery of Parsons's second Simmel document. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article relates the details of a meeting between sociologists Talcott Parsons and Ken'ichi Tominaga in 1978. The discussion between Talcott Parsons and Ken'ichi Tominaga took place at the Iwanami Shoten publishers office in Tokyo, Japan on the afternoon of December 12, 1978. Parsons arrived in Tokyo at mid-day, after having taken the train that had departed from Osaka around 9:00 a.m. that morning. In a letter written to Parsons, a few weeks before the Parsons' visit to Tokyo, Professor Tominaga described the Iwanami Shoten session as a colloquy with himself concerning the retrospection of Parsons on the formation of his own sociological thought. What Tominaga had in mind was something along the lines that Parsons had written for Daedalus. Iwanami Shoten had already shown some interest in Parson's work, having published in 1958 a Japanese translation of Economy and society, with an introduction by Tominaga. Parsons was paid an honorarium of 50,000 yen for the discussion, the same amount that he was given for his lecture later in the day. A few days prior to the discussion, Tominaga had supplied Parson with the following list of provisional questions: voluntarism vs. utilitarianism, motivation vs. value orientation, nature of system theory, relation between the Theory of Action and the Structural-functional theory, phenomenological approach.

The following section presents several papers focused on Talcott Parsons and Georg Simmel. The first is the fragment on Simmel of Ch. XVIII, Georg Simmel and Ferdinand Toennies. This chapter has been the subject of scholarly discussion since Parsons revealed in 1968 that he had drafted it for his early major work, The Structure of Social Action (1937), but had ultimately decided not to include it. The second, Simmel and the Methodological Problems of Formal Sociology, is a previously unpublished manuscript by Parsons--apparently written in 1939--that continues his engagement with Simmel's approach. The third is a commentary on the second Simmel manuscript that Edward Shils sent Parsons, in response to the latter's request. Finally, there is William Buxton's paper, From the Missing Fragment to the Lost Manuscript: Reflections on Parsons' Engagement with Simmel, which compares the two Parsons manuscripts and reflects on their significance. In addition, Simmel's second manuscript is also published for the first time along with ore famous missing fragment on Simmel, thereby facilitating scholarly analysis and comparison. Buxton's careful and searching analysis identifies as series of issues that merit further examination.

Talcott Parsons is often identified as the 'master' of mid-twentieth-century social theory. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, his writings were hardly any longer discussed, but mostly neglected. The American University is Parsons's last monograph published during his lifetime. On the basis of extensive archival research, this paper discusses the conception, construction and publication of this monograph. The first section clarifies how and why some fine distinctions were made within 'the team,' viz. between co-author (Gerald Platt), collaborator (Neil Smelser) and editorial associate (Jackson Toby). The second section focuses on the two epilogues of this monograph, viz. Smelser's epilogue to The American University and Parsons's epilogue to Smelser's coeval study on Public Higher Education in California, in which the tensions within 'the team' surfaced most visibly. The third section looks at the publication of the monograph and the failed attempts to complete related research projects. Altogether, this reconstruction of the making of The American University clearly illuminates the descending phase of Parsons's scientific career. It also sheds light on the substantive problems of the work Parsons produced in the latter part of his life and career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the creation of an intellectual biography of the U.S. sociologist Talcott Parsons. The researcher discusses Parsons' doctoral dissertation dealing with capitalism that was analyzed by sociologist Max Weber, and how Parsons' work delivered sociology from social Darwinism at the turn of the twentieth century. The author supports Parsons' work on the basis that he was a thinker and academician who did not use inconsistent analysis. The author utilized Parsons' archives at Harvard University, such as Parsons' paper "The Problem of Controlled Institutional Change."

This section introduces the articles featured in the summer 2000 issue of The American Sociologist. As a new millennium unfolds, a global dialogue in sociology is underway that promises to enrich and renew culture-bound sociological imaginations. As Gary Marx notes, by 1911 Edward A. Ross, a towering figure in his day, had published a book for popular audiences about China as seen by a sociological traveler. Karl Marx brings this commentary up to date, and provides insight into a reality that Ross did not experience, namely, the teaching of sociology in Chinese universities. William Buxton has gathered together a fascinating set of materials about U.S. interest in Asia, with particular reference to Talcott Parsons, Harvard University and Japan. As he notes, these materials call into question simplistic views of Parsons as a Eurocentric thinker by documenting an ongoing encounter with Asia that extended from the 1940s through the late 1970s. One product of events at Harvard was a graduate-seminar paper written in 1941 by Marion Levy and rediscovered by him a half century later. In addition to its relevance for the emergent sociology of Asia, Levy's paper is a most interesting example of early functionalist analysis in U.S. sociology.

This article looks at the relationship between Joseph Schumpeter and sociologist Talcott Parsons. The two met in the late 1920s at Harvard University, where both were teaching. At the time Parsons was a young instructor, while Schumpeter was an established economist; and as a result Schumpeter influenced Parsons much more than the other way around. Parsons especially appreciated Schumpeter's view of economic theory. Their relationship continued in this way, with Schumpeter mainly influencing Parsons even if he also could keep an eye on what was happening in sociologythrough Parsons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In striking contrast to the conflict surrounding his earlier studies of Japanese society and culture, an amicable climate of mutual respect developed between Parsons and Japanese scholars in the 1970s. During this time, Parsons made two visits to Japan, where he was hailed as a great theorist whose views were taken most seriously by Japanese sociologists. The data indicate that, shortly before his sudden death in the spring of 1979, Parsons had begun to reformulate his ideas about modernization as a result of his increasing knowledge of Japanese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on the career, relevance and human side of U.S. sociologist Talcott Parsons.

From his 1940–1942 studies of Race, through his 1967 study of an "inter-sexed" person called Agnes, Garfinkel's research was always politically engaged. When Garfinkel was Parsons' PhD student at Harvard (1946–1952) and later during a period of collaboration with Parsons (1958–1964), both theorized culture as a domain of social interaction independent from social structure and resting on its own implicit social contract. This conception of culture grounded their respective "voluntaristic" and "reciprocity" based approaches to specifying assembly processes for making social categories in a way that put the empirical assembly of categories under a microscope and made social justice a scientific concern. Garfinkel emphasized the importance of social contract aspects of Parsons' theory – adapted from Durkheim – and with his studies in ethnomethodology, planned to contribute an empirical foundation for aspects of Parsons' position that were criticized for their abstraction. Nevertheless, important differences remained. Parsons' model required assimilation and consensus, thus inadvertently enforcing existing inequalities. Garfinkel, by contrast, was deeply concerned with "structural problems" like inequality, and treated assimilationist positions as scientifically and ethically unsound. His research documented reciprocity as a pre-requisite for successful interaction, while treating "troubles" generated by inequality as an important key to understanding social order writ large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to a series of articles on the works of U.S. sociologist Talcott Parsons is presented.

Talcott Parsons is one of the most famous American sociologists, yet he was trained as an economist. During the nineteen twenties and into the thirties, Parsons concentrated on the concept of modern capitalism and he wrote extensively on the works of Werner Sombart and Max Weber. Unfortunately, Parsons' early writings on modern capitalism have not received the scrutiny they deserve because they reveal that Parsons was a competent economist and could have been regarded as an heir to Weber's economic sociology. However, his increasing interest in society may have prompted his move from economics to the developing discipline of sociology. This essay is an exploration of Parsons' early writings on modern capitalism and it focuses on his Heidelberg dissertation, his two articles derived from that dissertation as well as a number of other shorter works. This essay reveals his conception of modern capitalism through his analyses of Sombart and Weber and shows that the young Parsons had a promising future as an economist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we propose a brief reconstruction of Talcott Parsons' writings − from his first major book, The Structure of Social Action, to his later writing on the 1960s and 1970s − in order to clarify his main contributions to a sociological discussion of morality. In so doing, we hope to place Talcott Parsons as one of the forerunners of the sociology of morality conceived as an emerging area of research in the social sciences. Throughout this reconstruction, we also try to situate Parsons in terms of his intellectual lineage pointing out that his formulations reveal important affinities with the theoretical perspective of morality that began with Émile Durkheim. Based on these assumptions, we aim to show, albeit on a preliminary basis, how this dialogue contributes to a more precise delineation of a research program in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution to consideration of "Talcott Parsons and Politics" explores the kind of optimism of sociology's "incurable theorist" that is evident in his mature view of the USA as the world's "New Lead" society. Statements related to optimism can be identified in his extensive writings and this article focuses upon its expression when as an "early career academic" in the late 1920s and 1930s he laid the foundations for his life-long work in sociology. Parsons' sociology developed as the USA's twentieth century contribution unfolded. His "moderate optimism" about the viability of the American experiment shares deeply and intimately in his claim that sociology had finally emerged as an analytical social science oriented by the theory of social action. His mature work considers the "societal community" to be the peculiar focus for sociology's special scientific attention. The USA has taken on this "New Lead" role at the same time that the societal community itself has emerged from within American experience. The discussion here is as much a personal memoire of the author, revisiting efforts to understand how the earliest stages of Parsons's sociology were maintained by him over a long career. Parsons sociological scholarship exhibited American characteristics. As sociology's "incurable theorist" he sought understanding of his own (American) situation, and its context, past and present, seeking to promote a social science that contributed positively to global society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

C. Wright Mills was one of the most important critics of Talcott Parsons who succeeded in establishing the image of Parsons as a conservative "grand theorist" out of touch with the real world and its real problems, as passed on in sociological textbooks. In this essay, it is argued that Mills' "translation of Parsons into English" is a one-sided interpretation based on his own theoretical premises, which he called the sociological imagination. The way Mills conceptualized sociological imagination leans towards an ideological world-view with political ambitions but lacks the necessary theoretical differentiation for an adequate evaluation of Parsons' general theory of action and the conceptualization of the social system in particular. Given Mills' premises, it appeared to him as if Parsons could not deal with social conflict, social change, domination and power relationships, which laid the foundations of a narrative quite distinct from the "real" Parsons. The conceptual deficiencies of Mills' sociological imagination lead into theoretical antinomies and the practical inability to resolve political issues outside of forceful intervention as suggested in the theoretical tradition of Thomas Hobbes. Independent of a political positioning, Parsons' sophistications in his understanding of power as one of several generalized symbolic media of interaction beyond the Hobbesian utilitarian model are necessary to come to terms with the increased complexity of modern society, both in theoretical and in political terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents reflections the intellectual exchange between sociologists Talcott Parsons and Alfred Schutz from 1940 to 1941. According to Schutz, the question Parsons never asks is what really does happen in the mind of the actor from his subjective point of view. His analysis only answer the question of how a theoretical scheme can be established which is capable of explaining what may happen or what may be considered as happening in the mind of the actor. Parsons has some methodological opinions, but that his concern is with the theories one produces by employing a method, rather than the method itself. Responding to the response of Parsons, Schutz affirms that he had already agreed with the greater part of Parson's basic thought, which he took to be Parson's generalized system of scientific theory. One might say then that Parsons wanted his general sociological theory something produced in science, discussed, while Schutz wanted to discuss how such a theory is produced, considering such to be a part of the general theory of sociology, that a general sociological theory is a part of a general theory of sociology. Methodology is where philosophers and human scientists can meet.

This articles presents the topics discussed in the June 1998 issue concerning sociology. All of the articles here are historical, but not merely so. All look beyond the bare chronicling of events to the larger and wider impact of those events on the sociological enterprise. Gary Jaworski examines receptions to Simmel's work at two universities in order to illumine the open-ended, constructed and contested nature of the sociological tradition. William Buxton presents one little known, and done previously unpublished, work by Parsons on Georg Simmel in an effort to expand dialogue on the significance of Simmel in Parson's thought. Bernard Barber takes up a similar theme by focusing on how Parsons' thinking about social systems gradually evolved. The editor's contribution, finally, points to the influence of developments in psychology on the famous experiment in Social Relations at Harvard. The emphasis in all articles is the unfolding of ideas and the consequence of interpretative decisions, including roads not taken. In view of Talcott Parson's worldwide reputation and influence, his lost manuscript on Simmel may attract considerable scholarly attention. Indeed, Professors Don Levine, Kiyomitsu Yui, Charles Camic and Hans Joas and others have been planning a series of papers on this manuscript that may appear at a special issue of Theory, Culture and Society or elsewhere.

The article presents a text of a memorandum sent by Talcott Parsons to Henry H. Fowler in 1944 regarding a study on the Japanese economy. The most significant suggestion that Parsons thinks he can make appropos of the plans for study of the control of the Japanese economy is that very special attention should be devoted to the prewar status of small and medium-sized business in Japan and of the prospects for stimulating its postwar development. His reason for special interest in this sector of the economy is not in its economic significance as such, but in its potential significance for the social structure and orientation of the country. It is a very striking feature of Japanese society that in modern times at least there has been no strong locally independent middle class which could form a stabilizing factor in the society. Japanese feudalism was highly centralized lacking a small and moderate-scale gentry with strong roots in the land of their local communities. The Samurai were directly dependent on the Daimyo and controlled from his court, and this circumstance largely explains the fact that it was possible to shift so abruptly from feudalism to a westernized capitalistic economy. There was no Japanese equivalent for the Chinese town-dwelling, land-owning gentry who were the real backbone of the traditional Chinese class structure.

This article compares three great works on higher education, all written in the 1960s and 1970s. Special attention goes to how the authors assessed the impact of federal research funding on the identity of professors and their commitment to teaching. The article reveals a spectrum of perspectives, ranging from Parsons and Platt's justification of the new research complex to Robert Nisbet's denunciation of the decline of solidarity among professors and students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses Talcott Parsons scientific world-view and how his theory gave expression to his more-than-merely theoretical reliance upon insights he gleaned from Whitehead and Weber. He developed 'social systems theory' not only with a structural-functional and evolutionary understanding of social action but also saw science, in these terms as well. The article seeks to trace his theory's reliance upon the system concept which gave his work a persistent focus throughout his scholarly career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a contribution to the ongoing efforts to interpret the significant contribution to American sociology of Talcott Parsons (1902-1979). The author corrects an implication of his previous article in this journal by drawing attention to the profound impact of evolutionary cosmology upon Parsons' theoretical presuppositions. This ensured an inner and continuing complexity in his theory of the 'social system' from what we can identify as its earliest conceptual beginnings when Parsons was an under-graduate student at Amherst College. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at clarifying the philosophical (=phenomenological) implication of Talcott Parsons's analytical realism. Generally, his theory is understood as being confrontational to phenomenology; however, in his first book, The Structure of Social Action, Parsons positively referred to Husserl's Logical Investigations. They shared a sense of crisis: Husserl thought that there was no certain basis in modern science, and Parsons had the feeling that there was no common theory to establish sociology as a science. Thus, both of them criticized the factual sciences of positivism (positivistic empiricism) and showed a strong orientation to the general theory. For this, they depended on conceptual realism (Platonic realism). According to Husserl, scientific knowledge will be arbitrary if the Ideal is not there as the norm of fact. He believed that in truth all people always see Ideas. Similarly, Parsons thought that in truth all people always act toward the Ideal, because the Ideal element is necessarily found through the logical framework of sociology, i.e., the action frame of reference. Hence, he maintained that the Ideal element that gives a normative orientation to actions is real, though analytical, insofar as the social order is established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores various engagements of system theory with Germany and Japan, looking in particular at the theories of Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann. Talcott Parsons based his sociological theory on the idea of a system of the values of a given society. Niklas Luhmann's extended version was based on the idea of self-reproduction (or 'autopoiesis') of social systems within all modernized societies. Two studies have recently re-examined system theory on basis of its engagement with Japan: Günther Distelrath has subjected Parsonian theory on Japanese modernity to a structural revisioning in Die japanische Produktionsweise (1996); and Peter Fuchs has reconciled what he calls the 'dividualism' of the Japanese psyche with the Luhmannian theory of functional differentiation in Kommunikation - Japanisch (1995). Distelrath critiques the Parsonian school of thought for giving Japan the status of a backward 'follower' of the West. Fuchs, in contrast, endorses the universalist premise of Luhmann's concept of society and makes Japanese 'dividualism' the paradigm of effective modernization. Following on from Fuchs, I argue that system theory has the potential to overcome cultural limitations and become a global sociology. Its theoretical agenda in the twenty-first century includes the refinement of its concepts of the psychical system, the revision of its notion of the public and the mass media, as well as a systematic contribution to environmental protection and ecological communication in a functionally differentiated world society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bone of contention that divides Alfred Schutz and Talcott Parsons in their 1940–1941 debate is that Schutz acknowledges an ontological break between the commonsense and scientific worlds whereas Parsons only considers it “a matter of refinement.” Schutz’s ontological distancing that disconnects the “world of consociates” where social reality is directly experienced in face-to-face contacts, and the “world of contemporaries” where the Other is experienced in terms of “types” has been crucial to social scientists. Implicated in the break is that all intellectual attempts to understand experiences of Others must be based on the “models” constructed in the “world of contemporaries” (or “predecessors”); hence, epistemologically, to grasp the subjective point of view with a here-and-now understanding is an outright impossibility. Based on a Schutzian perspective, the author suggests that the sociologist must objectivize the Thou-orientations involved in his/her analysis in order that s/he can possibility grasp the subjective point of view in objective terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various problems encountered by medical sociologists in dealing with medical sociology. The sociology practitioners were having difficulty on its branch of discipline and the confusing use of terms like medicalization and professional dominance. It also commented on the conflicting views of sociologists regarding medicine which include the belief that medicine is about social control, health and resources management by Talcott Parsons. It suggested that the new form of medicalization is a response to the shifts in the nature of social order.

In this article, the author takes a look at some aspects of sociologist Talcott Parsons's comparative and evolutionary analysis focusing on the analysis of dynamics of social change, evolution, and of comparative institutions, and above all on the analysis of modernity, of the modern social order, a subject central to his evolutionary analysis--from the point of view of "Multiple Modernities." Such an analysis will also enable one to examine critically some of Parsons's contributions to the problem of the relation between culture and social structure; or of the place of cultural components in the structure of social action. These contributions developed on several levels. The first and most general and crucially important such level was the emphasis that culture does not constitute a distinct "entity" but rather a central analytical component dimension of any action and social interaction. The second level was the analysis of the relations between the cultural and structural dimensions of social action in terms of the major pattern variables espoused above all in the book "Towards a General Theory of Action"--as well as later in "Social System."

This article presents information related to sociologist Talcott Parsons. It is no doubt very well known that Talcott Parsons was of New England ancestry. It may be less well known how pure this ancestry was. His father, Edward Smith Parsons (1863-1943), had a strong interest in genealogy and did quite a bit of work (evidently some of it with the help of other family members) tracing his ancestry and that of his wife, Mary Augusta Ingersoll Parsons (1863-1944). He verified that every line of the ancestry of both could be traced back into seventeenth-century New England. Several ancestors apparently came to Massachusetts Bay Colony in its earliest years, and it appears that one came on the Mayflower. Edward wrote out handwritten copies of the genealogy for his children. The one he gave to his son is now in the author's possession, but some years ago the copy was given to the Harvard University Archives, so that some people may have seen it. The earliest direct male ancestor who was traced is John Parsons, who is a couple of generations younger than those who came to New England in the 1630s. It is not known where or exactly when he was born. But it seems very likely that he was the first of the family to settle in York, Maine, on the coast six miles from the river dividing Maine from New Hampshire.

This article is about Bernard Barber's theory of the social system. The formulation of this theory given by Barber in his "late in career" essays brings to the fore a theoretical development that goes back, at least, to Barber's undergraduate education in the 1930s, and has been implicit in his published writings ever since, including seminal works in that subspecialty of sociology for which he is well-known, the sociology of science. In formulating this theory, Barber has had to give special and extended consideration to how his own thinking on the social system compares and contrasts with that of Talcott Parsons. Barber does write social system theory in a style that is more transparent than Parsons' prose, and it can be argued that this is an integral component of Barber's social system theory. But Barber's social system theory also needs to be considered as social system theory in it's own right. The article encounters various problems that Barber has encountered in his attempts to state his own theory. One can indeed derive certain valuable insights not only about social system theory, but also about the processes of theory construction and the way in which scientific work is a collective enterprise requiring careful rethinking of basic assumptions.

The article discusses the theory of Bernard Barber on social system. The formulation of this theory given by Barber in his late in career essays bring to the fore a theoretical development that goes back, at least, to Barber's undergraduate education in the 1930s, and has been implicit in his published writings ever since, including seminal works in that subspecialty of sociology for which he is well-known, the sociology of science. In formulating this theory, Barber has had to give special and extended consideration to how his own thinking on the social system compares and contrasts with that of Talcott Parsons. It might be possible to read Barber's theory writing since the 1980s as simply an attempt to restate Parson's prose, and we might even wish to argue that this is an integral component of Barber's social system theory. Barber's version of functionalist theory is a sophisticated and loyal formulation by a student of Parsons who has, over time, developed his own independent evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the social system theory of his former mentor. The fact is that Barber did not give up structural-functionalism even if the immanent developments to social system theory prefigured by Parsons' own utterance did not take place.

This article traces the involvement of Talcott Parsons in research and teaching about Asian nations, especially China and Japan, in the period of World War II. The data indicate that, in contrast to his Eurocentric image, Parsons worked to develop a global perspective in studies on comparative institutions. This approach, inspired by the sociology of Max Weber, also addressed the practical needs of policy makers in connection with the war effort. Within Parsons's intellectual biography, it stands between the "voluntaristic" framework of his early treatise, The Structure of Social Action (1937) and the later non-historical formalism of The Social System (1951) for which he is perhaps most famous. An understanding of this relatively unknown phase of Parsons's work is therefore indispensable for an adequate appreciation of his career as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of sociology is marked by periods of theoretical pluralism and hegemony. Their interplay has resulted in the slow and uneven development of the discipline. Today, however, bodies of theory and practice have become so diverse that many scholars worry that sociology is in a state of disintegration. The theoretical career of Talcott Parsons provides a microcosm in which to explore similar processes. Building on the success of The Structure of Social Action, Parsons led a movement that transformed Harvard's Department of Sociology into the Department of Social Relations. There he attempted a grander, but failed synthesis in Toward A General Theory of Action. His case provides a situation in which to explore features of disciplinary integration and fragmentation, The comparison stimulates one to fashion an informed sense of whether sociology is now facing its latest crisis or may be in the process of decomposition as a corpus of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on the intellectual exchange between sociologists Talcott Parsons and Alfred Schutz from 1940 to 1941. The contribution of Parsons to sociological theory is also discussed. Parsons describes himself as an incurable theorist. With his arrival on the academic scene, he was in some respects out of the main stream of U.S. sociology. He was chiefly interested in theory rather than the empirical research which for the most part characterized U.S. sociology. He was constantly concerned with the basic categories which can explain all social phenomena. According to him, one of the weakest parts of sociological theory has been that of systematic analysis of the structural components of large-scale and complex societies in terms of their relations to each other. Despite his insistence upon incorporating the subjective point of view into a theory of social action, Schutz finds that he does not adhere to the principle in all of its implications. Schutz claims that Parsons overlooks the different senses of this use. In unit analysis, the subjective point of view refers to the concrete actor and acts, where the questions are. His critique can be summarized by saying that on the positive side Parsons is correct in insisting that the subjective point of view is the only acceptable one for a theory of social action.

This article discusses the issue of human subjectivity in sociological explanation in relation to the intellectual exchange between Alfred Schutz and Talcott Parsons from 1940 to 1941. It should be noted that Schutz was largely sympathetic with the attempt of Parsons to construct a theory of rational social action which avoided the limitations of both utilitarianism and positivism and which combined the insights of Pareto, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Schutz had great admiration for what he took to be a scholarly masterpiece. His lengthy comments were intended as constructive. Initially, Parsons expresses two basic reservations. First, that where Schutz appears more interested in philosophical questions concerning epistemology and methodology, his own concern is with constructing a generalized system of scientific theory and therefore with what he terms theoretical systematization. Second, Schutz is evidently more concerned with such abstract philosophical issues for their own sake than with matters pertaining to empirical evidence and validity. He then goes on to note specific instances of each of these points in Schutz's writings. Accordingly, the only reliable criterion of knowledge for Parsons concerning social action and interaction is verifiability by scientific procedure.

This article discusses the concepts of voluntarism and structural-functionalism in the early work of sociologist Talcott Parsons. A popular interpretation of his thinking is that it contains two opposed components, a voluntaristic theory of action and a structural-functional systems theory. Others interpret him as changing his theoretical position from a theory of action to structural-functionalism. His concept of voluntarism has traditionally been interpreted by reference to the common sense meaning of voluntary action, a voluntaristic theory was one which emphasized the purposive, reasoning, and self-conscious qualities of the action of concrete individuals. According to him, action must always bethought of as involving a state of tension between two different orders of elements, the normative and the conditional. As process, action is the process of alteration of the conditional elements in the direction of conformity with norms. Elimination of the normative aspect altogether eliminates the concept of action itself and leads to the radical positivistic position. Elimination of conditions, of the tension from that side, equally eliminates action and results in idealistic emanationism.

This article discusses the contributions sociologist Talcott Parsons to the phenomenological tradition in sociology. From his early work in "The Structure of Social Action" in 1937 forward, he drew upon a phenomenological perspective in developing his action theory. The voluntaristic theory of action, his earliest systematic thinking, combined the individual's orientation to normative ideals with what he later termed the concept of internalized compliance. This process of compliance was elaborated through his subsequent applications of both Freudian theory and economic models of rationality to explain individual behavior. While distinct from phenomenological descriptions of motive, these rationalist paradigms included the actor's state of mind and subjective orientations as variables. His continued concern and misgivings about a phenomenological perspective in sociology are revealed by the 1974 retrospective comment. He contended that direct recording and analysis of empirical reality was impossible. All facts obtain their status through interpretation and are subject to further verification on the theoretical level. Hence, empirical knowledge is the basic resource for systematic theorizing.

The purpose of the author in this article is to stir up interest, to clarify and elaborate Talcott Parsons' Second Project, that is, his work on the concept of substance of the social system. Particularly, this article will dwell on the three subject matters: the sources, the development, and the limitations of Parsons' work on his Second Project. Parsons first mentioned the term social systems in his book The Social System (1951) but there exists unpublished materials where Parsons might have used the term social systems but did not. The first set of materials is the voluminous notes that the author took on the lectures in Parsons' two-semester undergraduate/graduate course, Sociology 6, Comparative Social Institutions in the academic year 1937-1938. The second set of materials consists of the notes the author took in the spring 1939 term, in Parsons' course in social theory. Given his strong conviction regarding the theoretical importance of the system concept, his turn in the 1939 theory course from the unit-act concept to the actor-situation concept and, finally, his realization that the actor's situation involved a social system, it is not surprising that Parsons eventually developed the social system approach fully and made it central to his work for the rest of his life.

This article outlines the history of the journal "The American Sociologist (TAS)." While the first few years of publication passed without incident, when Ray Mack became editor in 1968 he was threatened with a libel suit and a demand was made to the Council that he be replaced. Harold Pfautz became editor in 1970 and promised to emphasize research funding and relations to government as well as professional ethics. In 1972, five short years after its reemergence, the journal was put into a throwaway newspaper format. And if that was not enough, the executive director threatened to terminate the journal if it did not begin to devote itself to teaching. The second phase of TAS began in 1965 and lasted until 1982, but in hinds sight it appeared doomed from its inception. Talcott Parsons' initial editorial included the apparently expansive view that the welfare of the Association and the profession depend on the opportunity for all important points of view to receive adequate expression and to become known throughout the profession.

This article discusses Max Weber's Methodology, Lowell L. Bennion's (1933) published doctoral dissertation from the University of Strasbourg, France. This book is important because it is the first systematic English language treatment of Weber's work. It also suggests an early link between Weberian and Durkheimian scholarship and foreshadows later debates regarding Talcott Parsons' interpretation of Weber. Additionally the book provides a unique contribution by applying Weber's "Calvinism-Capitalism" thesis to the development of Mormonism. We explore the academic context in which the book was written and its reception by American sociologists at the time. After summarizing the text, we examine its perspective on the issues later raised about Parsons' account of Weber. We conclude by looking at Lowell Bennion as a sociologist and a devout Mormon, and the unique connection that he forged between his religion and Max Weber's ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Charles Tilly on historical research, and one by Uta Gerhardt about her career and the biography of Talcott Parsons.