Search

In the course of research using Talcott Parsons's papers at the Harvard University Archives, Charles Camic read "Prolegomena to a Theory of Social Institutions" in manuscript form. Given sociologists' continuing interest in Parsons's ideas, Camic suggested that ASR make the paper widely available. We are pleased to do so in this issue. Camic's prologue places "Prolegomena" in the historical context of Parsons's work. Both James Coleman and Jeffrey Alexander have previously written about Parsons and were asked to comment on the implications of "Prolegomena" for our understanding of his theoretical contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that while Hobbes has been very influential in sociological thinking, in particular through the influence of Ferdinand Tönnies and Talcott Parsons, there is an important alternative reading of Hobbes that one might call the ‘real’ Hobbes, which has remained unknown to social theory. Because these classical readings of Hobbes still inform most social theory, sociologists are in effect trapped within them. Through a careful analysis of classic interpretations of Hobbes by Tönnies and Parsons, coupled with a close reading of Hobbes’ actual texts, and his criticisms of Aristotle, this paper will suggest that a different understanding of the ‘people’ who populate Hobbes’ social universe is possible. It will be suggested that this new understanding of Hobbes also makes the contemporary understanding of the history of political philosophy more fruitful for theoretical sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers the work of Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt mainly in the perspective of the author’s specific encounters with his work, in the course of which Eisenstadt’s work is compared with that of Talcott Parsons. There are several aspects of this programme. First, brief attention is given to the biographies of Eisenstadt and Parsons; second, their styles and approaches to sociological analysis are compared and contrasted; third, the subject of their somewhat different approaches to what I will call globality is raised, against the background of Eisenstadt’s great reliance on the later work of Karl Jaspers and the somewhat problematic issue of civilization(s). The discussion of Eisenstadt’s deployment of Jaspers’ insights is explored with particular reference to the former’s Japanese Civilization. Often regarded as the graveyard of comparative sociology, Eisenstadt’s attempt to place Japan in a comparative context is, in a number of respects, the consummation of his life’s work, though he had many years yet to live. The paper concludes with a question concerning whether global consciousness has superseded, or transcended, the contrast between differential modernization and global civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main claim of this paper is to show that any canon of citizenship studies should include Talcott Parsons. Contrary to the received views, Talcott Parsons provides an innovative view of citizenship as a key sociological structure, rooted in his theory of modern society. In doing so, he anticipates contemporary debates on the topic by highlighting the relationship between citizenship and cultural pluralism in modern Western societies. The paper provides both an interpretative account of Parsons’ analysis of citizenship and an assessment of its contemporary relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article consists of a commentary by the author to reciprocate to the writers, Jeffrey Alexander and Giuseppe Sciortino, who took his article published in the 1992 issue of the journal "American Sociological Review," as an occasion to mount a critique of tendencies that they discern throughout his recent writings on the early intellectual career of socio-scientist Talcott Parsons. The author has used this commentary only to address specific objections that they raise, but to step back from these criticisms to examine their connection to Alexander's work more generally. The author's claim is that as a tool for analyzing the development of ideas, the development, that is, of various intellectual products or kinds of social-scientific knowledge, Alexander's work is fundamentally antisociological. Since his own goal has been to work out a sociology of ideas, he necessarily clashes with Parson, in more serious and consequential ways than identified by Alexander and Sciortino.

This article focuses on Prolegomena to a Theory of Social Institutions, an essay by Talcott Parsons first published in the American Sociological Review. Parsons's Prolegomena is an object lesson for those who would read past theoretical work in terms of present-day conceptual categories. Written more than a half century ago, before it became standard sociological practice to differentiate the micro from the macro, a voluntaristic approach from a functionalist approach, a focus on action from an emphasis on social system and social structure, the paper escapes latter-day pigeonholes. Prolegomena shows that the early Parsons upheld a package of ideas that circumvents such polarities by combining what he terms a voluntaristic conception of human action in which the factors of will and effort are central, with a functionalist analysis that views economic, political, educational, and other social institutions as constituting a system that regulates action in relative conformity with the ultimate common values. The goal of the essay is to arrive at social institutions and certain aspects of social structure by beginning with human action, understood subjectively in terms of the means-end schema, and proceeding from there to action systems composed of long and complex [means-end] chains--chains analytically divisible into the conditional factors of heredity and environment, an intermediate sector made up of technological, economic, and political elements, and the sector of ultimate values.

The aim of this article is to contribute to the discussion about the social functions of the market. I am interested in the special kind of social order the social interaction in the market produces, which has been mostly ignored in sociology. In the first part I look for historical reasons for the peripheral role of the market in sociological analysis. My argument in this regard is that this omission of the economic realm becomes more understandable if one takes into consideration not only the prerequisite of entrance into the academic field, namely not to step on the toes of older and more established fields of research, but also the very ambivalent and, in some strands of social thought, even openly hostile attitude to the market. The second part of the paper presents two paradigmatic but problematic cases of a sociological analysis of the economic realm: Émile Durkheim's views and Talcott Parsons' early conception of a society-economy relationship. In the third part I figure out another way to think about the role of the market in society from a standpoint that accepts the centrality of aspects such as values and norms in social life. I do not, however, postulate a societal value consensus at large, but see the economic sphere itself to be the source of those stabilizing mechanisms. As a starting point I use Talcott Parsons' theory of communication media and the concept of social order it implicitly contains. It offers possibilities for finding connections to earlier discussions of the social functions of the market, labelled 'commercial ideology', referring to eighteenth-century social thought. With my discussion I hope to show that interactions in the market have wider ramifications for social order, while the market produces its own distinct kind of order not captured by the dichotomy of value vs. interest-based actions and orders so common in sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I closely examine Talcott Parsons's notion of functional requisites as articulated in his action-system requisite model - the AGIL schema - which includes the application of the generalized symbolic media of interchange. My goal is to conceptually extend Parsons's analysis of how the symbolic media dealt with three sociological factors of crucial significance to action theory in the Weberian tradition: historical analysis, communicative processes and social change. As a structural basis for symbolic representation, I propose, as an alternative to Parsons's conceptualization, social carrier theory. In preliminary form, I demonstrate how, in tandem with Max Weber's notion of elective affinity, social carrier theory can address more precisely than Parsons's media theory the themes of historical analysis, communication and social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immanuel Kant distinguished between religion as cult in which people seek favours from God through prayer and offerings to bring healing and wealth, and religion as moral action that commands human beings to change their lives. Kant further defined religion as a 'reflecting faith' or 'moralizing faith' that compels humans to strive for salvation through faith alone. The Kantian distinction was fundamental to Max Weber's view of the relationship between asceticism and capitalism. Talcott Parsons's early sociology of religion engaged with this theme in Kant and Weber, but in his later work Parsons came to a re-appraisal of Émile Durkheim. In the concept of the expressive revolution, Parsons followed Durkheim in studying individualism as a major transformation of society. There is, however, a contradiction between individualism as either the legacy of Protestant pietism or the product of modern consumerism. Parsons's sociology of religion remains distinctive because he did not subscribe to the secularization thesis, but instead saw American liberalism as the fulfilment of Protestant individualism. The paper concludes with a critical assessment of the differences between the values of the expressive revolution and the legacy of Kantian individualism. Romantic love in modern society is an aspect of the expressive revolution, but it is also a legacy of the emphasis on emotional conversion and attachment to the person of Jesus in pietism. The expressive revolution developed this legacy of emotional expressivity, but combined romantic love with a consumer ethic. Religiosity survives in the context of consumerism as an aspect of what Robert Bellah called the 'civil religion in America'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does one identify a phenomenon as radically new or "unprecedented"? Do, in fact, "unprecedented" phenomena exist at all, as presumably some degree of continuity marks every state of affairs? If however, the idea of continuity is taken too far, are we not at risk of domesticating a radical tendency by conceptually transmuting it into something that is already known? These questions are of pressing importance since September 11th, as commentators warn that America and its allies face radically new enemies in the guise of "rogue" states, movements, and terrorist organizations. Yet sociology has had to grapple with similar issues before. In the 1930s and 1940s, the consolidation of fascist and Nazi movements also taxed sociological understanding and competence to the maximum. This article describes aspects of American sociology's response to that earlier challenge, contrasting it with the approach of Hannah Arendt, who condemned the discipline for systematically failing to appreciate the uniqueness, enormity, and gravity of the events that assailed the epoch. Arendt's critique of sociological methods is followed by a case study--Theodore Abel's investigation into National Socialism--that lends some credence to her misgivings. The work of other sociologists of this period--notably, Talcott Parsons's--is also briefly considered. The concluding section of the paper examines the theoretical problems involved in seeking to conceptualize an "unprecedented" event (movement, institution). [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.

Talcott Parsons's methodological views, particularly as formulated in The Structure of Social Action, have recently become the center of scholarly disagreement, with sociologists portraying his approach as positivist and postpositivist, empiricist and antiempiricist, relativist and nonrelativist. Departing from these interpretations, this paper argues that understanding Parsons's early method requires an understanding of the sociointellectual context of his early writings and the social position he occupied within that context. Parsons's methodological ideas are analyzed in relation to the neoclassicist-institutionalist controversy in early twentieth-century American economics and the methodological views of leading economists and philosophers of science at Harvard during the same period. The position that Parsons occupied at Harvard, moving from the high-status field of economics to the low-status field of sociology, led him to accept the basic methodological argument of neoclassical economists--and to shape from it an equivalent method for sociology. Such an historical analysis produces a systematic and coherent interpretation of Parsons's early methodological work, resolves the major contradictions in the existing scholarship, and reveals the limitations of the Parsonsian method, especially when con wasted to the Weberian approach which it purportedly transcended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parsons might have been the 'incurable theorist' he pronounced himself to be in the dedication to The Social System. What I will show, using The Social System as an example of classic writing, was that theory in the guise of what he called 'theory-centered research' was an eminently empirically minded kind of social thought. I use three scenarios to elucidate this point, one historical, one methodological and one political. All three together, I argue, make The Social System a model of sociology at its best - not least because Weberian conceptual principles allow for scientific scrutiny along with a pro-democracy knowledge interest in Parsons's second magnum opus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a critical summary of social scientist, Charles Camic's research program. It discusses the sociological importance of the topic of predecessor selection, and summarize Camic's historical reconstruction of scientist Talcott Parsons's early development. Camic's own account of how Parsons's selection of his predecessors took place is also analyzed. Camic has developed an ambitious research program around Parsons's life, work, and theoretical heritage. He has produced historical contextualizations of Parsons's theoretical and methodological proposals, editions of previously unpublished materials, systematic anthologies of little-known texts, and, most important, inquiries into the sources of Parsons's maturing theoretical ideas. This study constitutes of a very active reappraisal of Parsons's contribution to sociology and social thought. Camic is not sympathetic with Parsons's ideas, and makes clear, that he believes key dimensions of Parsons's work to be fundamentally wrong. Less inclined to enter openly into the discipline's contemporary politics, Camic is apparently impartial and scholarly.

This article presents response of the authors on reply of Talcott Parsons, on the comment on his book "The Structure of Social Action." The authors say that Parsons leaves the bulk of their analysis unchallenged. Parsons continues to misread Sociologist Max Weber's usage category. Weber's definition did not mention norms nor did Parsons cite passages in Weber including any such reference. Whereas in his book Parsons cited standards of good taste as an example of usage, he now adds a second example, namely, rules of etiquette. Instead of citing supposedly neglected changes in his viewpoint, he devotes much of his commentary to a reaffirmation of his early argument-most importantly, his very strong emphasis on these normative aspects of Weber. Parsons says that he had special reasons to emphasize the importance of the normative. The question is whether this emphasis can accurately be attributed to Weber. A more serious disagreement between Parsons and them concerns the interpretation of Weber's book.

The article presents criticisms of works of the U.S. sociologist Talcott Parsons. The article argues that the conventional criticisms of Parsons are misplaced and that Parsons and his critics share basic assumptions. It concentrate upon two areas where criticism has been most frequently focused, firstly, the relationship between Parsons's early formulation of the action frame of reference and a functionalist methodology and secondly, the concept of the normative and its place in Parsons's theory. The criticisms of Parsons discussed in this article lead to a sociological impasse. It is important to recognise, however, that the form taken by this impasse serves to make the conventional criticisms of Parsons appear plausible, that is, the breakdown of Parsons's theoretical system does take the form of unintegrated theoretical principles, in this sense, then, there are 'two sociologies', but they are not distinct approaches. The attempt to represent them as separate paradigms is an abstraction or reification. The deficiencies of Parsons's theoretical scheme are the characteristic deficiencies of the action frame of reference in sociology.

The article focuses on the book "Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives," by Talcott Parsons. Readers who may hope that this will provide them with a simplified approach to the work of Parsons will be disappointed; his style is as turgid as ever, making this a doubtful member of a series of books for beginners. Nevertheless it is a shorter route to Parsonian ideas than most, and is much more rooted in empirical data than his other books. The societies under examination do not include those of modern Europe, which will be dealt with in a later volume.

The aim of this article is to demonstrate that approaching social science as a ‘patterned activity’ draws attention both to the distinctive nature of social science and to its central subject matter – meaningful (symbolically oriented) behavior and theoretical entities based on it – enabling therefore a constructive perspective on the major debate regarding social science’s organizing principles. A patterned activity is defined as a cluster of behavior oriented to a basic (that is, characteristic or defining) goal or aim accorded value; the goal or aim, by which the norms of the patterned activity are bounded, is the satisfaction of a certain appetite, desire, or need. The concept of a patterned activity is rooted in and developed from elements of Max Weber’s methodological writings. This concept is evaluated against Clifford Geertz’s ‘cultural systems’ approach and Robert K. Merton’s view of the norms of science, and the article then addresses the legacy of Talcott Parsons more generally. Lastly, Émile Durkheim’s and Weber’s respective approaches to social science are assessed so as to illuminate their views regarding its central subject matter and to demonstrate a convergence of their views. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this study we analyze Geoffrey Hodgson’s discussion of Talcott Parsons in which Hodgson presents Parsons as a little petty bourgeois, feebleminded and insecure yet opportunistic to the core. Indeed, Hodgson does his utmost to belittle Parsons’ theoretical creativity and cultivation. Hodgson’s attempt to discredit Parsons is a part of his project to ‘rehabilitate’ the German historical school and the institutionalist tradition. We argue that Hodgson’s interpretation of Parsons’ early career is seriously flawed, characterized by superficial command of the biographical data of Parsons’ life, as well as an amateurish command of his theory. Like Charles Camic’s stigmatizing narrative years before, the essence of Hodgson’s analysis is best characterized as an exercise in ‘social interest’ reification. Especially, Hodgson ignores the impact of Parsons’ childhood socialization and grossly overstates the influence Hamilton and Ayres had on Parsons and especially misrepresents their influence on Parsons’ concept of culture as well as well as creating a caricature of Parsons’ early years at Harvard. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The academic divide between economics and sociology suggested by Talcott Parsons in the 1930s is based on a fundamentally mischievous and incoherent reading of various authors from the tradition of political economy. The interpretations proposed by Parsons are criticized, and it is thereby concluded that this divide has inhibited more than propitiated the intellectual commerce within social sciences, although no doubt enhancing Parsons' academic position. At any rate, it has also assured an academic recognition for sociology, if in a subaltern - situation vis-à-vis economics. Further theoretical reformulations by Parsons are confirmation of previously mentioned incoherence and misunderstandings, without resolving them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guided by a life course perspective, attachment theory, and gender theory. this study aims to examine the impact of death of a father, a mother, or both parents, as well as continuously living with one or both parents dead (in contrast to having two parents alive) on multiple dimensions of psychological well-being (depressive symptoms, happiness, self-esteem, mastery, and psychological wellness), alcohol abuse (binge drinking), and physical health (self-assessed health). Analyses of longitudinal data from 8,865 adults in the National Survey of Families and Households 1987-1993 reveal that a father's death leads to more negative effects for sons than daughters and a mother's death leads to more negative effects for daughters than sons. Problematic effects of parent loss are reflected more in men's physical health reports than women's. This study's results suggest that family researchers and practitioners working with aging families should not underestimate the impact of filial bereavement on adult well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Talcott Parsons pointed out, deviance is always defined and responded to in terms of shared symbolic criteria of legitimacy or illegitimacy. Partial legitimation of the deviant act provides justification to the potential behavioral deviant for expressing deviant inclinations and simultaneously undercuts the willingness of conforming persons to visit negative sanctions upon him. The 1974 streaking phenomenon illustrates this insight. Legitimation is relevant for explaining deviance partly because deviant motivation is omnipresent - in the form of ambivalence - even in outward conformists. If both conforming motivation and deviant motivation contain varying proportions of inclinations to conform to rules and to violate them, behavioral deviants are only slightly different from behavioral conformists in the organization of their personality systems. Thus, personality systems may have only a limited role in the etiology of deviant behavior - even if they play a significant role in the genesis of deviant motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay pursues three topics emanating from the economic sociology of Talcott Parsons. The first section summarizes the essentials of this sociology, tracing its development from his early works on capitalism through the publication of Economy and Society in 1956. Special attention is given to the transition from a focus on causal 'factors' to a focus on the economy and society as social systems. The second section summarizes and analyzes a chapter on class, markets and the economy, written in 1978-9, a short time before his death, and intended for a never-published book on the American societal community. Continuities and discontinuities between his earlier work and his final ideas on the subject are noted. In addition, a number of my own criticisms, also written in 1979, are elaborated. The third section identifies some threads of Parsonian theory - found both in his economic sociology and in his more general writings - that have relevance for the economics and politics of a globalized world. In particular, both the applicability and limitations of Parsons's ideas on the dimension of solidarity in the international system are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weber and his work functioned in two ways: both as a bridge to the new, to the world of capitalist modernity, as well as a road to an acceptable cosmopolitan 'liberal' historical past. It was Weber the cosmopolitan and outsider who could give legitimacy and weight to the intellectual orientations and problems thought to be significant for the community in exile. It was this Weber who could cushion the 'negative shock' of what was often perceived as America's 'intellectual and cultural provincialism' and establish for the emigre scholar and intellectual the historical task of assisting in the development of American intellectual and cultural life. At the same time, the presence of a different Weber in America, already an established interest of several scholars emerging into prominence, such as Talcott Parsons and Edward Shils, created difficulties as well as opportunities for the emigre scholars. Because of such variety the field for the transmission, reception, and influence of Weber's work must be approached as a complicated, multilayered, and contested patchwork of disparate and sometimes partially overlapping social and professional networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the ego/alter ego constellation of social interaction. Every social interaction constitutes a situation with double contingency, which is recognized as such by both sides: both know that both know that one could also act differently. The circularity of the relationship brings about indeterminacy; self-commitment would presuppose that others commit themselves and vice versa. How is this infinity problem solved? How can we account for the possibility of social interaction, and social order? Both Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann have devoted considerable attention to the theorem of double contingency. Here, I analyze their theoretical formulations on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade of his life, Talcott Parsons devoted a large part of his scholarly attention to the sociology of religion and to the history and symbolism of Christianity. This part of Parsons' work has been almost completely neglected — both in the literature on Parsons and in the sociology of religion. In my interpretation, Parsons' late systems-theoretical ‘human condition paradigm’ is separated from his quasi-structuralist analyses of Jewish and Christian myths. The core of these myths is, according to Parsons, the idea of life as a gift. The article analyses the importance of this idea for (1) a sociological understanding of Christianity, (2) some aspects of contemporary moral theorizing, particularly the question how the Judeo-Christian tradition can be appropriated under the condition of highly developed autonomous individuality, and (3) the question of a latent Protestant bias in Parsons' theory of social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social philosophy of meaning and emotions represented in the work of Susanne Langer was recognized by Talcott Parsons, but has yet to be incorporated into main- stream sociological theoritizations. Langer's work is as potentially important to con- temporary microsociology, and the sociology of emotions, as the work of Peirce, Mead, or Schutz. The impediment to appreciating her work resides in contemporary confusions regarding the nature of logic. Sociologists often subscribe to Wittgenstein's denial of the validity of formal logic in constructing theories of human behavior. Langer has been misunderstood because her theoretizations address more than discursive logics and meanings. The thrust Langer's work is that logic and meaning exist on a nondiscursive level of emotions. Though her work is more than SQ years old, we are now in a position to appreciate it because we are now exploring and conceptualizing the notion of social inferencing as existing beyond formal logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is an essay on the theoretical clarification and elaboration of sociologist Talcott Parsons's work. Parson has written a book on social systems titled "Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory." A variety of kinds of evidence, indirect and direct, shows how fundamental Parsons thought the concept of social system was for the construction of a scientific, cumulative sociology. Alter Parsons had laid the theoretical basis for his voluntaristic theory of action in his first book "The Structure of Social Action," in 1937, he composed his second major book, "The Social System," in 1951 to expound the theory that followed from his theory of action and was an essential part of that theory. In his books, Parsons reverted to the concept of social system and made explicit the connection between that concept and action theory. Parsons highlighted the concept of social system in writings covering almost 30 years. Parsons continuously used the concept of social system in an inconsistent and confusing way. Sometimes, on the subject of the abstractness of systems, he used it to refer to a total social system, a society -- what he called in the later phase of his work, a societal community or, in the modem world, a nation. More often, however, he used it to refer to one of the three subsystems of any society or total social system: its social system as distinct from its cultural system and its personality system.

The article discusses the problematic relationship between the theoretical work of the writers, Talcott Parsons and Georg Simmel. Parsons in his book "The Structure of Social Action," which is his finest single work, established the base line vocabulary for modern sociology. The book makes three principal claims: first, prior to the generation of Max Weber, social theorists were divided between those who viewed action as organized solely by the utilitarian pursuit of benefits and those who viewed action as organized solely in terms of affectively grounded normative dispositions, second, the thought Weber converged behind a single theoretical orientation constituted by the view that action is shaped both by utilitarian interests and normative ideals and, third, the reconstruction represents the core line of theoretical development in sociology. One notable consequence of the peculiar selectivity of Parsons' book has been the exclusion of Simmel from the pantheon of sociological classics, following decades in which Simmel figured as a preeminent originative thinker.

The article discusses the issues raised by Donald N. Levine in one of his essays regarding social interaction and structure, which taken together address the relationship between the work of sociologists Talcott Parsons and Georg Simmel. Levine points out that Jeffrey Alexander, like Parsons fails to integrate an interactional perspective. He goes on to suggest that my analysis of the interactional position, which he compares to Simmel, makes possible a more serious consideration of the importance of interaction within general sociological theory. Levine's position is that a lack of appreciation for Simmel and the failure to integrate his perspective is at least partly responsible for the failure to integrate interaction into general theory. His distinction between immanent and objective forms retains the dichotomy between individual and structure as the primary means of differentiating interactional from institutional forms. Although for Simmel immanent forms originate with the individual will, he argues that they are not reducible to the individual because they take on a life of their own as soon as they are created.

The article focuses on ethnomethodological studies and analytic sociology. Inspired by the book "The Structure of Social Action," by Talcott Parsons, ethnomethodology undertook the task of respecifying the production and accountability of immortal, ordinary society. It has done so by searching for and specifying radical phenomena. For ethnomethodology the objective reality of social facts, in that and just how it is every society's locally, endogenously produced, naturally organized, practical achievement, being everywhere, always, and with no possibility of evasion, passing, postponement, or buy outs, is thereby sociology's fundamental phenomenon. Although both formal analytic sociology and ethnomethodology address produced phenomena of order, and although both seek to specify the production and accountability of immortal ordinary society, a summary play on sociologist Émile Durkheim's aphorism reminds people of their differences. Distinctive emphases on the production and accountability of order in and as ordinary activities identify ethnomethodological studies and set them in contrast to classic studies as an incommensurably alternate sociology.

contemporary discussions of Parsons `s thought have faltered because they are insufficiently generalized. Only after his theoretical and epistemological logic has been explored, for example, can his more specific, ideological purpose be correctly understood. Parsons's theoretical ambition has been to resolve long-standing antinomies in social thought. His theory, to the degree it succeeds, formulates two central points: the social basis of individual autonomy and the multidimensional basis of social order. These positions present the heart of Parsons's formal theory. In his analysis of historical development as differentiation cultural, structural, and psychological-Parsons combines this formal logic with an ideological commitment to the expansion of individual freedom and conscious control. Incorporating elements of liberal, idealist, and materialist arguments, he outlines a theory of substantive voluntarism that is, potentially, neither conservative nor static considered as a whole, Parsons's theory contains serious contradictory strains. Nevertheless, his analysis of formal and substantive freedom represents a major contribution to social thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most influential interpretations of Max Weber's sociology has been that provided by Talcott Parsons, especially in The Structure of Social Action. We contend that the Parsonian interpretation is erroneous both in many of its particulars add hi the general cast that it gives to Weber's theoretical product. The crux of Parsons' misrepresentation is his overweening emphasis on the category of the normative. A confusion of "factual regularities" with "normative validity" - despite Weber's numerous warnings against such - led Parsons to an exaggeration of the importance Weber assigns to normative orientations of social action, legitimacy and collectivity integration, and, correspondingly, to a severe understatement of the importance of nonnormative aspects of social action and structures of dominance. In consequence, Parsons expanded what was but a part of Weber's sociology and made it very nearly the whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research contends that when Talcott Parsons developed the substantive argument of The Structure of Social Action, he turned away from the theoretical emptiness of American social science and drew on the ideas of four European social thinkers -- Weber, Durkheim, Pareto, and Marshall. Such research exemplifies the "content-fit model" of predecessor selection, which assumes that intellectual predecessors are chosen on the basis of a fit between their ideas and the project of the thinker who engages them. This model fails to explain Parsons's exclusion of the American institutionalists, most notably his Amherst teachers Walton Hamilton and Clarence Ayres, whose work fit directly with the argument of The Structure of Social Action. Institutionalist work was also characterized, however, by its negative reputation, particularly at Harvard University in the 1920s and 1930s, where Marshall, Pareto, Durkheim, and Weber were thinkers of growing reputational standing. Examination of Parsons's involvement in the local Harvard network indicates that contemporary reputational judgments decisively affected his choice of intellectual predecessors. This analysis also brings to light the organizational and institutional conditions under which a "reputational model" is required to understand the process of predecessor selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology today has many burdens and not the least of these is a persistent and somewhat humiliating question of theoretical excursions of sociologist Talcott Parsons. The issue is not so much intellectual disagreement over contrasting views of man and society. It is rather a case of the "Emperor's clothes." The problem of arriving at a reasoned assessment of Parsons' thought is greatly complicated by a remarkable obscurity of structure and style. Even those accustomed to abstract philosophical discussion find it a considerable chore to decide what is being said on any page, let alone also to assess its intellectual worth. Under these conditions, the book "The Social Theories of Talcott Parsons: A Critical Examination," edited by Max Black, is a welcome contribution. A large part of the book is devoted to a restatement of Parsons' central ideas. In some essays, Parsons is involuntarily guided to analyze mechanisms of social control and socialization by which a social system manages to hold deviance in check and enlist motivations of its participants.

The first business meeting of the American Sociological Society was held at 11:00 A.M. in the Gold Room, The Manhattan Center, on Thursday, December 29, with President Talcott Parsons presiding. Parsons summarized the activities of the Reorganization Committee of 1949 and the formation of the new Reorganization Committee of 1950 together with the grant from the Carnegie Corp. which makes possible the creation of an Executive Office. The minutes of the first three Executive Committee meetings, held in the past two days, were read by the Secretary, and were approved. The President then called upon Carl Taylor to report on proposed changes in the constitution and by-laws and to introduce motions for their acceptance. The first amendment pertaining to Article IV, Section I, was accepted by the Society after brief description by Parsons that such a measure would bring about better continuity in the official personnel of the Society. The second proposed amendment, Article VI, Section 2, had been divided into two parts, a and b, when it was considered by the Executive Committee. Taylor explained that these parts were to be considered separately.

The writings of Talcott Parsons have excited great admiration among many of his fellow academics, and aroused the intense hostility of many others; but even his adversaries admit his remarkable pre-eminence in contemporary sociological theory. On the other hand, his admirers do not deny that his thought is extremely complex and its expression often highly obscure. Parsons, then, has produced a body of work which is important, difficult, and controversial; a body of work which therefore calls for sustained and rigorous analysis. The present essay is an attempt to come to grips with the crucial theoretical problems of the Parsonian system. It focuses on one of the key elements of Parsons' conceptual scheme, the four so-called system-problems, or functional prerequisites of social systems, and the four functional sub-systems associated with these prerequisites.

This article presents views of various social scientists on sociologist Max Weber's theories. The general verdict on Weber has, indeed, been unfavourable. In the opinion of sociologist Talcott Parsons, for instance, Weber failed to complete the process (of the analysis of social action), and the nature of the half way point at which he stopped helps to account for many of the difficulties of his position, in particular, the illogicality of his argument made it impossible for his theories to be assimilated to the pattern of science. But is this all that is to be said? It is possible to agree with another researcher when he concludes that Weber knew what he wanted, but somehow could not break through to it. He saw the promised land, but was not permitted to enter it, he saw not only all the defects of German idealism, but also many of the shortcomings of positivism the turn of the century, and inhibited the development of new lines of argument. He asked the right questions, and his discussion of them was relevant and highly penetrating.

The article discusses sociologist Talcott Parsons' voluntarism. It (voluntarism) is not antithetical to systems analysis, nor, certainly, is it antithetical to normative control. There is a wide range of diverse components in any theory. These components may be viewed as forming a continuum from the most general kinds of commitments to the most specific. Every theory contains general pre-suppositional commitments e.g., theoretic-epistemic, or formal elements, as well as very specific propositional statements which are much more directly derived from empirical observation. Similarly, voluntarism does not depend on whether an actor's choice is preserved, nor does it depend on whether or not an actor is described as a member of a normative system. Every concrete actor has a choice in every concrete situation. Parsons has never denied free will in this limited sense. Parsons certainly does not advocate individualism in the laissez-faire sense of the term, but rather the socially constrained exercise of individual choice.

The article presents historical perspectives in the development of the sociology of religion. As a researcher rightly says, those early days were exhilarating and stimulating. It was a gemeinschaft group of about a dozen that author recalls sitting around a table in one of Harvard's old Emerson Hall classrooms. There was Pitirim Sorokin at one end of the table, banging on it with his fists and calling for research in "Altruism and Brotherly Love," and Talcott Parsons at the other end discoursing on Max Weber. And sometimes the fur flew. For this listener it was purely enjoyable academic "fur." Jeffrey Hadden points out that the SSSR grew up in the 1950's in an academic climate that had a touching faith (since called in question) in role differentiation. The author shared this faith and remember being much annoyed when some members suggested that authors should in their writing and research label their denominational affiliations or lack of them. But times changed. Both academics and denominational personnel began to share common interests in social and ethical problems, notably in the area of Civil Rights.

Says that the research of J.S. Brown and M. Rawlinson would appear to support and expand upon researcher Talcott Parsons' formulation of the institutionalized dimensions of the sick role. The authors conclude that an individual's tendency to retain or relinquish the sick role is intimately associated with the eventual outcome of his chronic illness or disability, and that sex is a factor in retaining or relinquishing the sick role. Search of the literature made it clear that certain qualities were commonly attributed to occupants of the sick status, namely undesirability, dependency, passivity, and weakness. These attributes are similar to the evaluation, potency, and activity dimensions tapped by researcher Charles Osgood's semantic differential. Total current tendency to relinquish the sick role was measured in the Brown and Rawlinson study by self-ratings.