Search

The first four chapters of Max Weber's Economy and Society presented by Talcott Parsons in 1947 as Theory of Social and Economic Organization present a coherent and complete analysis of social, economic and political structures based upon a consistent theory of social action and its understanding. Parsons did not see them this way. His lengthy introduction sought to insert them into his own "action frame of reference", and his rearrangement of the text made it difficult for a reader to understand why it was constructed the way that it is. This essay describes how Parsons came to be principal translator and editor of the text, examines the changes that he made to it, and links his editorial practice to the analytical procedures that he followed in his Structure of Social Action. ☆ This essay is developed from a paper originally presented in June 2005 at a conference on Max Weber's Basic Sociological Concepts at ZiF, Bielefeld University; an earlier version of the present paper was published as "Talcott Parsons als Übersetzer der 'Soziologischen Grundbegriffe' Max Webers". Max Webers 'Grundbegriffe'. Kategorien der kultur- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung. Ed. Klaus Lichtblau. (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2006) 337–366. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to reconsider the Alfred Schutz and Talcott Parsons debate, taking the problem of subjectivity in sociological explanation as the axis of analysis. Schutz argues that Parsons correctly identifies the subjective point of view as the fundamental element of the theory of action, but he does not reach the root of the problem because he confuses subjective and objective categories. For Schutz, a theory of social action must maintain a subjective point of view in order to uphold its basics principals, which refer to the social world of experience and everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the book "The Structure of Social Action," by Talcott Parsons. The paper was prepared, at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association in 1987, a session held to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the book and it drew a large and interested audience. The Structure, would at that time have been taken as a founding event in a relatively consensual, proto-scientific discipline. For even as late as the mid 1960, Structure was still seen as parsons had originally presented it: as a framework of accumulated theoretical knowledge, on the basis of which predictions could be made and compared with what social scientists had subsequently discovered about empirical fact. But there are even more important reasons for the continuing contemporary relevance of Parsons' early work. It is not only that there continue to be important discussions about, and in relation to the book earlier concepts. It is also that people can now understand the influence of Structure in a more reflective and more accurate way.