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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.

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 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]

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 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.

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]

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.