The Structure of Social Action, Vol. 2 [Paperback]

Talcott Parsons (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 2 edition (December 1, 1967)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0029242509
• ISBN-13: 978-0029242506
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #757,785 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The enduring legacy of Karl Menger, February 22, 2002

By 

Rafe Champion (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Structure of Social Action, Vol. 2 (Paperback)

First published in 1937, this book is a remarkable scholarly achievement and it richly deserves the status of a classic. It is not an easy read, partly on account of its genuine depth and partly because Parsons was never content with one word where ten or twelve would do.

Parsons offers a voluntarist theory of action described as a synthesis of tendencies in the work of Alfred Marshall, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. This is actually a development of Karl Menger's approach to social and economic theory, and this work represents a parallel or simultaneous discovery with Ludwig Mises (praxeology) and Karl Popper (situational analysis).

Parsons' first task (in the 1930s) was to rehabilitate the role of theory in sociology and human studies. "Returning to this country (USA) I found behaviorism so rampant that anyone who believed in the scientific validity of the interpretation of subjective states of mind was often held to be fatuously naive. Also rampant was what I called 'empiricism', namely the idea that scientific knowledge was a total reflection of the 'reality out there' and even selection was alleged to be illegitimate".

He defended systematic theory against various forms of empiricism which emphasised the accumulation of facts. At the same time he attempted to justify analytical realism against theorists who looked upon theories as merely convenient fictions. Against the empiricists Parsons claimed that there could be no worthwhile fact gathering without some reference to theory, and against the "instrumental" view he maintained that "at least some of the general concepts of science are not fictional but adequately 'grasp' aspects of the objective external world".

So far as substantive theory was concerned, the problem situation which Parsons addressed was the failure of three great systems to provide an adequate general theory of action. A satisfactory theory had to provide a frame of reference to analyse the puzzling co-existence of social order with voluntarism (indeterminism) and it had to provide a frame of reference to analyse the emergence of complex systems whose function could not be reduced to the laws explaining the function of the parts, while explaining the interpenetration which exists between the factors controlling the whole and the factors controlling the parts.

The three systems which had failed were (1) utilitarianism and economic theory which involved a rationalistic, individualistic theory of social behaviour; (2) positivism, which involved the reduction of human behaviour to laws of physics and biology; (3) idealism, theories which interpreted social phenomena as emanations from the realm of cultural values.

Utilitarian theory could not account for ritualistic activities and it gave no explanation of social order or the coordination of individual acts into organised social systems.

Positivism attempts to overcome the utilitarian dilemma by providing a scientific explanation for the coordination of ends. The explanation of action lies in the conditions of the action objectively rather than subjectively considered, meaning the factors of hereditary and environment. However this approach ignored the emergent properties of complex systems, particularly the ethical elements which Parsons believed are a creative factor in human action.

"The orientation of ethics (as opposed to science) is essentially active. Its centre of gravity lies in the creative role of the actor, his ends. Freedom of choice is basic to ethics; whatever determinism is accepted lies in the field of the consequences of having made a given choice".

Idealism presented answers to some of the problems left unsolved by utilitarianism and positivism, introducing the Geist or spirit of the culture to explain human action as an emanation. This solved the problem of order without using physical reduction but it involved reduction of a different kind. As a general theory of action, explanation of human behaviour as a manifestation of the Geist is hardly better than an explanation in terms of physics and biology. What was worse from Parsons' point of view as a systematic theorist was the doctrine that generalisations could not be made about societies or cultures. Every social situation had to be considered in its concrete uniqueness.

Parsons followed Weber in his reaction against two idealist doctrines which Parsons calls objectivism and intuitionism. Both schools agree that general laws cannot be used in the human sciences but they disagree as to the reasons.

Weber went on to build up a sophisticated methodology including three elements which Parsons adopted. These are:

I) general concepts are required in the social sciences as well as in the natural sciences.

2) verstehen, the faculty of sympathetic understanding, is required to cope with the subjective aspects of action.

3) if action is to be understandable there must be an element of rationality in it. There must be some comprehensible relationship between ends and means.

Parsons was not completely satisfied with Weber's methodology because he thought there was even less difference between the natural and social sciences than Weber allowed. Parsons instead proposed to make a distinction between analytical and historical sciences, which cuts across the boundaries usually placed between the natural and social sciences.

"Then for the historical sciences theoretical concepts are means to understanding the concrete historical individual. For the analytical sciences, on the other hand, the reverse is true; concrete historical individuals are means, 'cases' in terms of which the validity of the theoretical system may be tested by 'verification"'. For a similar approach see Popper on explanation in science and historical studies (Open Society, Chapter 24).

Subsequent work by Parsons was flawed by his idea that mathematics was the language of physics, and sociology similarly needed its own language which he attempted to provide by way of the pattern variable scheme. He also became trapped by the notion of "system" and lost the individualistic element that is essential to the action frame of reference and its parallels in praxeology and situational analysis.