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Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 – May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist of the classical tradition, best known for his social action theory and structural functionalism. Parsons is considered one of the most influential figures in sociology in the 20th century. After earning a PhD in economics, he served on the faculty at Harvard University from 1927 to 1973. In 1930, he was among the first professors in its new sociology department. Later, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Department of Social Relations at Harvard.
Based on empirical data, Parsons' social action theory was the first broad, systematic, and generalizable theory of developed in the United States and Europe. Some of Parsons' largest contributions to sociology in the English-speaking world were his translations of Max Weber's work and his analyses of works by Weber, Émile Durkheim, and Vilfredo Pareto. Their work heavily influenced Parsons' view and was the foundation for his social action theory. Parsons viewed voluntaristic action through the lens of the cultural values and social structures that constrain choices and ultimately determine all social actions, as opposed to actions that are determined based on internal psychological processes. Although Parsons is generally considered a structural functionalist, towards the end of his career, in 1975, he published an article that stated that "functional" and "structural functionalist" were inappropriate ways to describe the character of his theory.
From the 1970s on, a new generation of sociologists criticized Parsons' theories as socially conservative and his writings as unnecessarily complex. Sociology courses have placed less emphasis on his theories than at the peak of his popularity (from the 1940s to the 1970s). However, there has been a recent resurgence of interest in his ideas.
Parsons was a strong advocate for the professionalization of sociology and its expansion in American academia. He was elected president of the American Sociological Association in 1949 and served as its secretary from 1960 to 1965.
Parsons' biology professors at Amherst were Otto C. Glaser and Henry Plough. Gently mocked as "Little Talcott, the gilded cherub," Parsons became one of the student leaders at Amherst. Parsons also took courses with Walton Hale Hamilton and the philosopher Clarence Edwin Ayres, both known as "institutional economists". Hamilton, in particular, drew Parsons toward social science. They exposed him to literature by authors such as Thorstein Veblen, John Dewey, and William Graham Sumner. Parsons also took a course with George Brown in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and a course in modern German philosophy with Otto Manthey-Zorn, who was a great interpreter of Kant. Parsons showed from early on, a great interest in the topic of philosophy.
Two term papers that Parsons wrote as a student for Clarence E. Ayres at Amherst have survived. They are referred to as the Amherst Papers and have been of strong interest to Parsons scholars. The first was written on December 19, 1922, "The Theory of Human Behavior in its Individual and Social Aspects."Talcott Parsons, "The Theory of Human Behavior in its Individual and Social Aspects." The American Sociologist Vol.27.no.4. Winter 1996. pp.13–23. The second was written on March 27, 1923, "A Behavioristic Conception of the Nature of Morals".Talcott Parsons, "A Behavioristic Concept of the Nature of Morals". The American Sociologist Vol.27.no.4. Winter 1996. pp. 24–37. The papers reveal Parsons' early interest in social evolution.Jens Kaalhauge Nielsen, "Beyond the Myth of "Radical Breaks" in Talcott Parsons's Theory: An Analysis of the Amherst Papers." The American Sociologist. Winter 1996. Volume 27. no.4. pp. 48–54. The Amherst Papers also reveal that Parsons did not agree with his professors since he wrote in his Amherst papers that technological development and moral progress are two structurally-independent empirical processes.
At LSE he met Helen Bancroft Walker, a young American, and they married on April 30, 1927. The couple had three children: Anne, Charles, and Susan.
The most crucial encounter for Parsons at Heidelberg was with the work of Max Weber about whom he had never heard before. Weber became tremendously important for Parsons because his upbringing with a liberal but strongly-religious father had made the question of the role of culture and religion in the basic processes of world history a persistent puzzle in his mind. Weber was the first scholar who truly provided Parsons with a compelling theoretical "answer" to the question.
Parsons decided to translate Weber's work into English and approached Marianne Weber, Weber's widow. Parsons would eventually translate several of Weber's works.Talcott Parsons, "The Circumstances of My Encounter with Max Weber" in Robert K. Merton & Matilda White Riley (eds.) Sociological Traditions from Generation to Generation. Norwood, NJ.: Ablex, 1980.Uta Gerhardt, "Much More than a Mere Translation Talcott Parsons' Translation into English of Max Weber's Protestantische Ethik und der Geist der Kapitalismus: An Essay in Intellectual History." The Canadian Journal of Sociology. Vol.32. No.1. Winter 2007. pp. 41–62. His time in Heidelberg had him invited by Marianne Weber to "sociological teas", which were study group meetings that she held in the library room of her and Max's old apartment. One scholar that Parsons met at Heidelberg who shared his enthusiasm for Weber was Alexander von Schelting. Parsons later wrote a review article on von Schelting's book on Weber.Talcott Parsons, "Review of Max Webers Wissenschaftslehre, by Alexander von Schelting," American Sociological Review vol.1. 1936: 675–81. Generally, Parsons read extensively in religious literature, especially works focusing on the sociology of religion. One scholar who became especially important for Parsons was Ernst D. Troeltsch. Parsons also read widely on Calvinism. His reading included the work of Emile Doumerque,Emile Doumerque, Jean Calvin: Les hommes et les choses de son temps, 7 volumes. Lausanne, 1899–1927. Eugéne Choisy, and Henri Hauser.
The chance for a shift to sociology came in 1930, when Harvard's Sociology Department was created under Russian scholar Pitirim Sorokin. Parsons became one of the new department's two instructors, along with Carle Zimmerman. Parsons established close ties with biochemist and sociologist Lawrence Joseph Henderson, who took a personal interest in Parsons' career at Harvard. Parsons became part of L. J. Henderson's famous Pareto study group, in which some of the most important intellectuals at Harvard participated, including Crane Brinton, George C. Homans, and Charles P. Curtis. Parsons wrote an article on Pareto's theoryTalcott Parsons, "Pareto's Central Analytical Scheme". In Talcott Parsons, The Early Essays Edited C. Camic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. and later explained that he had adopted the concept of "social system" from reading Pareto. Parsons also made strong connections with two other influential intellectuals with whom he corresponded for years: economist Frank H. Knight and businessman Chester Barnard. The relationship between Parsons and Sorokin turned sour. A pattern of personal tensions was aggravated by Sorokin's deep dislike for American civilization, which he regarded as a sensate culture that was in decline. Sorokin's writings became increasingly anti-scientistic in his later years, widening the gulf between his work and Parsons' and turning the increasingly positivistic American sociology community against him. Sorokin also tended to belittle all sociology tendencies that differed from his own writings, and by 1934 was quite unpopular at Harvard.
Some of Parsons' students in the department of sociology were Robin Williams Jr., Robert K. Merton, Kingsley Davis, Wilbert Moore, Edward C. Devereux, Logan Wilson, Nicholas Demereth, John Riley Jr., and Mathilda White Riley. Later cohorts of students included Harry Johnson, Bernard Barber, Marion Levy and Jesse R. Pitts. Parsons established, at the students' request, an informal study group which met year after year in Adams' house. Toward the end of Parsons' career, German systems theorist Niklas Luhmann also attended his lectures.
In 1932, Parsons bought a farmhouse near the small town of Acworth, but Parsons often, in his writing, referred to it as "the farmhouse in Alstead". The farmhouse was a very humble structure with almost no modern utilities. Still, it became central to Parsons' life, and many of his most important works were written there.
In the academic year of 1939–1940 Parsons and Schumpeter conducted an informal faculty seminar at Harvard, which discussed the concept of rationality. Among the participants were D. V. McGranahan, Abram Bergson, Wassily Leontief, Gottfried Haberler, and Paul Sweezy. Schumpeter contributed the essay "Rationality in Economics", and Parsons submitted the paper "The Role of Rationality in Social Action" for a general discussion.See Robert Loring Allen, Opening Doors: The Life and Work of Joseph Schumpeter Vol 2: America. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1991. p. 98. An edited version of Schumpeter's seminar paper was published in Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft. Vol.140. no.4. December 1984: 577–93.
An economist like Schumpeter, by contrast, would absolutely have none of that. I remember talking to him about the problem and .. I think Schumpeter was right. If economics had gone that way like it would have had to become a primarily empirical discipline, largely descriptive, and without theoretical focus. That's the way the 'institutionalists' went, and of course Wesley Mitchell was affiliated with that movement.Martin U. Martel, Dialogues with Parsons. Transcript, 1975.
In 1942, Parsons worked on arranging a major study of occupied countries with Bartholomew Landheer of the Netherlands Information Office in New York.Talcott Parsons and Bartholomew Landheer, "Memorandum of a Proposed Sociological Study of Social Consequences of Conquest and Occupation in Certain European Countries." Talcott Parsons Collection. Harvard University Archives. Parsons had mobilized Georges Gurvitch, Conrad Arnsberg, Dr. Safranek and Theodore Abel to participate,Uta Gerhardt, Talcott Parsons: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge University Press, 2002. p. 90. but it never materialized for lack of funding. In early 1942, Parsons unsuccessfully approached Hartshorne, who had joined the Psychology Division of the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) in Washington to interest his agency in the research project. In February 1943, Parsons became the deputy director of the Harvard School of Overseas Administration, which educated administrators to "run" the occupied territories in Germany and the Pacific Ocean. The task of finding relevant literature on both Europe and Asia was mindboggling and occupied a fair amount of Parsons' time. One scholar Parsons came to know was Karl August Wittfogel and they discussed Weber. On China, Parsons received fundamental information from Chinese scholar Ai-Li Sung Chin and her husband, Robert Chin. Another Chinese scholar Parsons worked closely with in this period was Hsiao-Tung Fei (or Fei Xiaotong), who had studied at the London School of Economics and was an expert on the social structure of the Chinese village.
Between 1940 and 1944, Parsons and Eric Voegelin exchanged intellectual views through correspondence.William J. Buxton and David Rehorick, "The Place of Max Weber in the Post-Structure Writings of Talcott Parsons" in A. Javier Treviño (ed.) Talcott Parsons Today: His Theory and Legacy in Contemporary Sociology. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.Talcott Parsons and Eric Voegelin, " Correspondence, 1940–1944," European Journal of Sociology, 54, no. 2 (2013), pp. e1-e64. An Italian translation of the correspondence was published as an appendix in Emmanuele Morandi, La società accaduta: tracce di una 'nuova' scienza sociale in Eric Voegelin. Milano: FrancoAngeli, 2000. Parsons had probably met Voegelin in 1938 and 1939, when Voegelin held a temporary instructor appointment at Harvard. The bouncing point for their conversation was Parsons' manuscript on anti-Semitism and other materials that he had sent to Voegelin. Discussion touched on the nature of capitalism, the rise of the West, and the origin of Nazism. The key to the discussion was the implication of Weber's interpretation of Protestant ethics and the impact of Calvinism on modern history. Although the two scholars agreed on many fundamental characteristics about Calvinism, their understanding of its historical impact was quite different. Generally, Voegelin regarded Calvinism as essentially a dangerous totalitarian ideology; Parsons argued that its current features were temporary and that the functional implications of its long-term, emerging value-l system had revolutionary and not only "negative" impact on the general rise of the institutions of modernity.
The two scholars also discussed Parsons' debate with Schütz and especially why Parsons had ended his encounter with Schutz. Parsons found that Schutz, rather than attempting to build social science theory, tended to get consumed in philosophical detours. Parsons wrote to Voegelin: "Possibly one of my troubles in my discussion with Schuetz lies in the fact that by cultural heritage I am a Calvinist. I do not want to be a philosopher – I shy away from the philosophical problems underlying my scientific work. By the same token I don't think he wants to be a scientist as I understand the term until he has settled all the underlying philosophical difficulties. If the physicists of the 17th century had been Schuetzes there might well have been no Isaac Newton."Talcott Parsons to Eric Voegelin, October 19, 1941. Talcott Parsons collection. Harvard University Archive.
In 1942, Stuart C. Dodd published a major work, Dimensions of Society,Stuart C. Dodd, Dimensions of Society: A Quantitative Systematics for the Social Sciences. New York: Macmillan, 1942. which attempted to build a general theory of society on the foundation of a mathematical and quantitative systematization of social sciences. Dodd advanced a particular approach, known as an "S-theory". Parsons discussed Dodd's theoretical outline in a review article the same year.Talcott Parsons, "Review of Dimensions of Society: A Quantitative Systematics for the Social Sciences by Stuart Carter Dodd." American Sociological Review Vol.7. No.5. October 1942. pp. 709–714. Parsons acknowledged Dodd's contribution to be an exceedingly formidable work but argued against its premises as a general paradigm for the social sciences. Parsons generally argued that Dodd's "S-theory", which included the so-called "social distance" scheme of Bogardus, was unable to construct a sufficiently sensitive and systematized theoretical matrix, compared with the "traditional" approach, which has developed around the lines of Weber, Pareto, Émile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud, William Isaac Thomas, and other important agents of an action-system approach with a clearer dialogue with the cultural and motivational dimensions of human interaction.
In April 1944, Parsons participated in a conference, "On Germany after the War", of psychoanalytical oriented psychiatrists and a few social scientists to analyze the causes of Nazism and to discuss the principles for the coming occupation.Uta Gerhardt, Talcott Parsons: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge University Press, 2002. p. 110.
During the conference, Parsons opposed what he found to be Lawrence S. Kubie's reductionism. Kubie was a psychoanalyst, who strongly argued that the German national character was completely "destructive" and that it would be necessary for a special agency of the United Nations to control the German educational system directly. Parsons and many others at the conference were strongly opposed to Kubie's idea. Parsons argued that it would fail and suggested that Kubie was viewing the question of Germans' reorientation "too exclusively in psychiatric terms". Parsons was also against the extremely harsh Morgenthau Plan, published in September 1944. After the conference, Parsons wrote an article, "The Problem of Controlled Institutional Change", against the plan.Talcott Parsons, "The Problem of Controlled Institutional Change: An Essay in Applied Social Science." Psychiatry. Vol.8. 1945. pp. 79–101.
Parsons participated as a part-time adviser to the Foreign Economic Administration Agency between March and October 1945 to discuss postwar reparations and deindustrialization.Uta Gerhardt, "Introduction: Talcott Parsons's Sociology of National Socialism." In Uta Gerhardt, Talcott Parsons on National Socialism. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1993. p. 57.For a further discussion of his influence on the postwar situation and policies on Germany, see Uta Gerhardt, "Talcott Parsons and the Transformation from Totalitarianism to Democracy in the end of World War II." European Sociological Review, Vol.12. 1996. pp. 303–325. For further discussion, see Uta Gerhardt, "Talcott Parsons und die Re-Education-Politik der amerikanischen Besatzungsmacht. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Jg.24. Heft.4. 1998. pp. 121–154.
Parsons was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1945.
Parsons' report was in form of a large memorandum, "Social Science: A Basic National Resource", which became publicly available in July 1948 and remains a powerful historical statement about how he saw the role of modern social sciences.Talcott Parsons, "Social Science: A Basic National Resource". In Samuel Z. Klauser & Victor M. Lidz (eds.) The Nationalization of the Social Sciences. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986.
In Germany in the summer of 1948 Parsons wrote several letters to Kluckhohn to report on his investigations.
Therefore, a new kind of nation was born, the character of which became clear by the time of the American Revolution and in the US constitution,Talcott Parsons, American Society: A Theory of Societal Community. Paradigm Publishers, 2007. See the chapter on American history. and its dynamics were later studied by Alexis de Tocqueville.Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. New York: Schocken Books, 1961. Originally published in 1835–1840. The French Revolution was a failed attempt to copy the American model. Although America has changed in its social composition since 1787, Parsons maintained that it preserves the basic revolutionary Calvinist value pattern. That has been further revealed in the pluralist and highly individualized America, with its thick, network-oriented civil society, which is of crucial importance to its success and these factors have provided it with its historical lead in the process of industrialization.
Parsons maintained that this has continued to place it in the leading position in the world, but as a historical process and not in "the nature of things". Parsons viewed the "highly special feature of the modern Western social world" as "dependent on the peculiar circumstances of its history, and not the necessary universal result of social development as a whole".Talcott Parsons, "Sociological Reflections on the United States in Relation to the European War" (1941). In Uta Gerhardt (ed.), Talcott Parsons on National Socialism. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1993. p. 194.
Some of the students who arrived at the Department of Social Relations in the years after the Second World War were David Aberle, Gardner Lindzey, Harold Garfinkel, David G. Hays, Benton Johnson, Marian Johnson, Kaspar Naegele, James Olds, Albert Cohen, Norman Birnbaum, Robin Murphy Williams, Jackson Toby, Robert N. Bellah, Joseph Kahl, Joseph Berger, Morris Zelditch, Renée Fox, Tom O'Dea, Ezra Vogel, Clifford Geertz, Joseph Elder, Theodore Mills, Mark Field, Edward Laumann, and Francis Sutton.
Renée Fox, who arrived at Harvard in 1949, would become a very close friend of the Parsons family. Joseph Berger, who also arrived at Harvard in 1949 after finishing his BA from Brooklyn College, would become Parsons' research assistant from 1952 to 1953 and would get involved in his research projects with Robert F. Bales.
According to Parsons' own account, it was during his conversations with Elton Mayo that he realized it was necessary for him to take a serious look at the work of Freud. In the fall of 1938, Parsons began to offer a series of non-credit evening courses on Freud. As time passed, Parsons developed a strong interest in psychoanalysis. He volunteered to participate in nontherapeutic training at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, where he began a didactic analysis with Grete Bibring in September 1946. Insight into psychoanalysis is significantly reflected in his later work, especially reflected in The Social System and his general writing on psychological issues and on the theory of socialization. That influence was also to some extent apparent in his empirical analysis of fascism during the war. Wolfgang Köhler's study of the mentality of apes and Kurt Koffka's ideas of Gestalt psychology also received Parsons' attention.
The details of Parsons' thought about the outline of the social system went through a rapid series of changes in the following years, but the basics remained. During the early 1950s, the idea of the AGIL model took place in Parsons's mind gradually. According to Parsons, its key idea was sparked during his work with Bales on motivational processes in small groups.Talcott Parsons, Robert F. Bales & Edward A. Shils (eds.) Working Papers in The Theory of Action. New York: The Free Press, 1953.
Parsons carried the idea into the major work that he co-authored with a student, Neil Smelser, which was published in 1956 as Economy and Society.Talcott Parsons & Neil J. Smelser, Economy and Society. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956. Within this work, the first rudimentary model of the AGIL scheme was presented. It reorganized the basic concepts of the pattern variables in a new way and presented the solution within a system-theoretical approach by using the idea of a cybernetic hierarchy as an organizing principle. The real innovation in the model was the concept of the "latent function" or the pattern maintenance function, which became the crucial key to the whole cybernetic hierarchy.
During its theoretical development, Parsons showed a persistent interest in symbolism. An important statement is Parsons' "The Theory of Symbolism in Relation to Action".Talcott Parsons, "The Theory of Symbolism in Relation to Action" in Talcott Parsons, Robert F. Bales & Edward A. Shils, Working Papers in the Theory of Action. New York: The Free Press, 1953. The article was stimulated by a series of informal discussion group meetings, which Parsons and several other colleagues in the spring of 1951 had conducted with philosopher and semiotician Charles W. Morris.Charles W. Morris, Signs, Language and Behavior. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1946. His interest in symbolism went hand in hand with his interest in Freud's theory and "The Superego and the Theory of Social Systems", written in May 1951 for a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. The paper can be regarded as the main statement of his own interpretation of Freud,Talcott Parsons, "The Superego and the Theory of Social Systems". In Talcott Parsons, Robert F. Bales & Edward A. Shils, Working Papers in the Theory of Action. New York: The Free Press, 1953. but also as a statement of how Parsons tried to use Freud's pattern of symbolization to structure the theory of social system and eventually to codify the cybernetic hierarchy of the AGIL system within the parameter of a system of symbolic differentiation. His discussion of Freud also contains several layers of criticism that reveal that Parsons' use of Freud was selective rather than orthodox. In particular, he claimed that Freud had "introduced an unreal separation between the superego and the ego".
Parsons came into contact with several prominent intellectuals of the time and was particularly impressed by the ideas of social insect biologist Alfred Emerson. Parsons was especially compelled by Emerson's idea that, in the sociocultural world, the functional equivalent of the gene was that of the "symbol". Parsons also participated in two of the meetings of the famous Macy Conferences on systems theory and on issues that are now classified as cognitive science, which took place in New York from 1946 to 1953 and included scientists like John von Neumann. Parsons read widely on systems theory at the time, especially works of Norbert WienerNorbert Wiener, Cybernetics: Or the Control and Communication in Man and the Machine.Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1948. and William Ross Ashby,W.R. Ashby, Design for a Brain. Chapman & Hall, 1952. who were also among the core participants in the conferences. Around the same time, Parsons also benefited from conversations with political scientist Karl Deutsch on systems theory. In one conference, the Fourth Conference of the problems of consciousness in March 1953 at Princeton and sponsored by the Macy Foundation, Parsons would give a presentation on "Conscious and Symbolic Processes" and embark on an intensive group discussion which included exchange with child psychologist Jean Piaget.Harold A. Abramson (ed.) Problems of Consciousness: Transactions of the Fourth Conference, March 29,30 and 31, 1953, Princeton, NJ. New York: Corlies, Macy & Company, Inc, 1954.
Among the other participants were Mary A.B. Brazier, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Nathaniel Kleitman, Margaret Mead and Gregory Zilboorg. Parsons would defend the thesis that consciousness is essentially a social action phenomenon, not primarily a "biological" one. During the conference, Parsons criticized Piaget for not sufficiently separating cultural factors from a physiologistic concept of "energy".
Parsons immediately wrote an affidavit in defense of Stouffer, and he also defended himself against the charges that were in the affidavit: "This allegation is so preposterous that I cannot understand how any reasonable person could come to the conclusion that I was a member of the Communist Party or ever had been."Affidavit of February 23, 1954, from Talcott Parsons: Before the Eastern Industrial Personnel Security Board: Matter of Samuel Stouffer". Talcott Parsons Collection. Harvard University Archives. In a personal letter to Stouffer, Parsons wrote, "I will fight for you against this evil with everything there is in me: I am in it with you to the death." The charges against Parsons resulted in Parsons being unable to participate in a UNESCO conference, and it was not until January 1955 that he was acquitted of the charges.
It contained articles written by Parsons and articles written in collaboration with Robert F. Bales, James Olds, Morris Zelditch Jr., and Philip E. Slater. The work included a theory of personality as well as studies of role differentiation. The strongest intellectual stimulus that Parsons most likely got then was from brain researcher James Olds, one of the founders of neuroscience and whose 1955 book on learning and motivation was strongly influenced from his conversations with Parsons.James Olds, The Growth and Structure of Motives. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1955. Some of the ideas in the book had been submitted by Parsons in an intellectual brainstorming in an informal "work group" which he had organized with Joseph Berger, William Caudill, Frank E. Jones, Kaspar D. Naegele, Theodore M. Mills, Bengt G. Rundblad, and others. Albert J. Reiss from Vanderbilt University had submitted his critical commentary.
In the mid-1950s, Parsons also had extensive discussions with Olds about the motivational structure of psychosomatic problems, and at this time Parsons' concept of psychosomatic problems was strongly influenced by readings and direct conversations with Franz Alexander (a psychoanalyst, originally associated with the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, who was a pioneer of psychosomatic medicine), Grinker and John Spiegel.Letter from Talcott Parsons to James Olds of March 21, 1956. Talcott Parsons collection. Harvard University Archives.
In 1955, François Bourricaud was preparing a reader of some of Parsons' work for a French audience, and Parsons wrote a preface for the book Au lecteur français ( To the French Reader); it also went over Bourricaud's introduction very carefully. In his correspondence with Bourricaud, Parsons insisted that he did not necessarily treat values as the only, let alone "the primary empirical reference point" of the action system since so many other factors were also involved in the actual historical pattern of an action situation.Letter from Talcott Parsons to François Bourricaud, February 7, 1955. Talcott Parsons Collection. Harvard University Archives.
Another scholar whom Parsons met at the Center of Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Palo Alto was Alfred L. Kroeber, the "dean of American anthropologists". Kroeber, who had received his PhD at Columbia and who had worked with the Arapaho Indians, was about 81 when Parsons met him. Parsons had the greatest admiration for Kroeber and called him "my favorite elder statesman".
In Palo Alto, Kroeber suggested to Parsons that they write a joint statement to clarify the distinction between cultural and social systems, then the subject of endless debates. In October 1958, Parsons and Kroeber published their joint statement in a short article, "The Concept of Culture and the Social System", which became highly influential.Alfred L. Kroeber and Talcott Parsons, "The Concept of Culture and the Social System." American Sociological Review, Vol.23. No.5. 1958. pp. 582–583. Parsons and Kroeber declared that it is important both to keep a clear distinction between the two concepts and to avoid a methodology by which either would be reduced to the other.
One essay also included, in metatheoretical terms, a criticism of the theoretical foundations for so-called conflict theory.
At the same time, Parsons' idea of the individual was seen as "oversocialized", "repressive", or subjugated in normative "conformity". In addition, Jürgen HabermasJürgen Habermas, "Talcott Parsons: Problems of Theory Construction". Sociological Inquiry. vol. 51. no. 3–4. 1981. and countless others were of the belief that Parsons' system theory and his action theory were inherently opposed and mutually hostile and that his system theory was especially "mechanical", "positivistic", "anti-individualistic", "anti-voluntaristic", and "de-humanizing" by the sheer nature of its intrinsic theoretical context.
By the same token, his evolutionary theory was regarded as "uni-linear", "mechanical", "biologistic", an ode to world system status quo, or simply an ill-concealed instruction manual for "the capitalist nation-state". The first manifestations of that branch of criticism would be intellectuals like Lewis Coser,Lewis Coser, The Function of Social Conflict. New York: The Free Press, 1956. Ralf Dahrendorf,Ralf Dahrendorf, "Out of Utopia." American Journal of Sociology vol.64. No.2. 1958. pp. 115–124. See also Ralf Dahrendorf, Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society. London: Routledge and Kegan, 1959. (German original, 1957). David Lockwood,David Lockwood,"Some Remarks on the Social System". British Journal of Sociology vol.7. no.2. 1958. pp. 115–124. See also David Lockwood, "Social Integration and System Integration". In G.K. Zollschan & W. Hirsh (ed.) Exploration in Social Change. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964. John Rex,John Rex, Problems in Sociological Theory. London, 1961. C. Wright Mills,C.W. Mills, The Sociological imagination. London: Oxford University Press, 1976. (originally 1959). Tom BottomoreTom Bottomore, "Out of this world." New York Review of Books November 6, 1969. pp. 34–39. and Gouldner.Alvin Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. London: Heineman, 1970.
In a letter to Robert N. Bellah, he wrote, "I am sure you have been greatly intrigued by the involvement of the religious issue in our election."Letter from Talcott Parsons to Robert N. Bellah, November 25, 1960. Talcott Parsons Collection. Harvard University Archives. Parsons, who described himself as a "Stevenson Democrat", was especially enthusiastic that his favored politician, Adlai Stevenson II, had been appointed United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Parsons had supported Stevenson in 1952 and 1956 and was greatly disappointed that Stevenson lost heavily both times.
In works by Gabriel A. Almond and James S. Coleman, Karl W. Deutsch, S. N. Eisenstadt, Seymour Martin Lipset, Samuel P. Huntington, David E. Apter, Lucian Pye, Sidney Verba, and Chalmers Johnson, and others, Parsons' influence is clear. Indeed, it was the intensive influence of Parsons' ideas in political sociology that originally got scholar William Buxton interested in his work.William Buxton, Talcott Parsons and the Capitalist Nation-State. University of Toronto Press, 1985. p. x. In addition, David Easton would claim that in the history of political science, the two scholars who had made any serious attempt to construct a general theory for political science on the issue of political support were Easton and Parsons.David Easton, "Theoretical Approaches to Political Support." Canadian Journal of Political Science, IX, no.3. September 1976. p. 431.
In a letter to Bellah of September 30, 1960, Parsons discussed his reading of Perry Miller's Errand into the Wilderness.Perry Miller, Errand into the Wilderness. Harvard University Press, 1956. Parsons wrote that Miller's discussion of the role of Calvinism "in the early New England theology... is a first rate and fit beautifully with the broad position I have taken."Letter from Talcott Parsons to Robert N. Bellah, September 30, 1960. Talcott Parsons Collection. Harvard University Archives. Miller was a literary Harvard historian whose books such as The New England MindPerry Miller, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1983. established new standards for the writing of American cultural and religious history. Miller remained one of Parsons' most favoured historians throughout his life. Indeed, religion had always a special place in Parsons' heart, but his son, in an interview, maintained that he that his father was probably not really "religious."
Throughout his life, Parsons interacted with a broad range of intellectuals and others who took a deep interest in religious belief systems, doctrines, and institutions. One notable person who interacted with Parsons was Marie Augusta Neal, a nun of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur who sent Parsons a huge number of her manuscripts and invited him to conferences and intellectual events in her Catholic Church. Neal received her PhD from Harvard under Parsons's supervision in 1963, and she would eventually become professor and then chair of sociology at Emmanuel College.
Parsons and White challenged Riesman's idea and argued that there had been no change away from an inner-directed personality structure. The said that Riesman's "other-directness" looked like a caricature of Charles Cooley's looking-glass self,Charles H. Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner's, 1902. pp. 183–184. and they argued that the framework of "institutional individualism" as the basic code-structure of America's normative system had essentially not changed. What had happened, however, was that the industrialized process and its increased pattern of societal differentiation had changed the family's generalized symbolic function in society and had allowed for a greater permissiveness in the way the child related to its parents. Parsons and White argued that was not the prelude to greater "otherdirectness" but a more complicated way by which inner-directed pattern situated itself in the social environment.
The prime model for the generalized symbolic media was money and Parsons was reflecting on the question whether the functional characteristics of money represented an exclusive uniqueness of the economic system or whether it was possible to identify other generalized symbolic media in other subsystems as well. Although each medium had unique characteristics, Parsons claimed that power (for the political system) and social influence (for the societal community) had institutional functions, which essentially was structurally similar to the general systemic function of money. Using Roman Jakobson's idea of "code" and "message", Parsons divided the components of the media into a question of value-principle versus coordination standards for the "code-structure" and the question of factor versus product control within those social process which carried the "message" components. While "utility" could be regarded as the value-principle for the economy (medium: money), "effectiveness" was the value-principle for the political system (by political power) and social solidarity for the societal community (by social influence). Parsons would eventually choose the concept of value-commitment as the generalized symbolic medium for the fiduciary system with integrity as the value principle.Talcott Parsons, "On the Concept of Value-Commitment." Sociological Inquiry 38. No.2. Spring 1968. pp. 135–160. Reprinted in Talcott Parsons, Politics and Social Structure. New York: The Free Press, 1969.
Parsons conducted a persistent correspondence with noted scholar Benjamin Nelson,For a discussion of Nelson, see Donald A. Nielsen, "Rationalization, Transformations of Consciousness and Intercivilizational Encounters: Reflections on Benjamin Nelson's Sociology of Civilizations." International Sociology, Vol. 16. no. 3. September 2001: 406–420. and they shared a common interest in the rise and the destiny of civilizations until Nelson's death in 1977. The two scholars also shared a common enthusiasm for the work of Weber and would generally agree on the main interpretative approach to the study of Weber. Nelson had participated in the Weber Centennial in Heidelberg.
Parsons was opposed to the Vietnam War but was disturbed by what he considered the anti-intellectual tendency in the student rebellion: that serious debate was often substituted by handy slogans from communists Karl Marx, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro.
Parsons borrowed the term "diffuse enduring solidarity" from Schneider, as a major concept for his own considerations on the theoretical construction of the concept of the societal community. In the spring of 1968, Parsons and Schneider had discussed Clifford Geertz's article on religion as a cultural systemClifford Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural System" in Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973. pp. 87–125. Originally published in 1966. on which Parsons wrote a review.Talcott Parsons, "Comment on 'Religion as a Cultural System' by Clifford Geertz". in Donald R. Cutler (ed.), The Religious Situation, 1968. Boston: Beason,1968. Parsons, who was a close friend of Geertz, was puzzled over Geertz's article. In a letter to Schneider, Parsons spoke about "the rather sharp strictures on what he Geertz calls the extremely narrow intellectual tradition with special reference to Weber, but also to Durkheim. My basic point is in this respect, he greatly overstated his case seeming to argue that this intellectual tradition was by now irrelevant."Letter from Talcott Parsons to David Schneider, April 25, 1968. Talcott Parsons collection. Harvard University Archives.
Schneider wrote back to Parsons, "So much, so often, as I read Cliff's stuff I cannot get a clear consistent picture of just what the religious system consist in instead only how it is said to work."Letter from David M. Schneider to Talcott Parsons, April 28, 1968. Talcott Parsons collection. Harvard University Archives.
In a letter of July 1968 to Gene Tanke of the University of California Press, Parsons offered a critical note on the state of psychoanalytical theory and wrote: "The use of psychoanalytical theory in interpretation of social and historical subject matter is somewhat hazardous enterprise, and a good deal of nonsense has been written in the name of such attempts."Letter from Talcott Parsons to Gene Tanke, the University of California Press, July 25, 1968. Talcott Parsons Collection. Harvard University Archives. Around 1969, Parsons was approached by the prestigious Encyclopedia of the History of Idea about writing an entry in the encyclopedia on the topic of the "Sociology of Knowledge". Parsons accepted and wrote one of his most powerful essays, "The Sociology of Knowledge and the History of Ideas",Talcott Parsons, "The Sociology of Knowledge and the History of Ideas". In Helmut Staubmann (ed.) Action Theory: Methodological Studies. LIT Verlag, Wien, 2006. in 1969 or 1970. Parsons discussed how the sociology of knowledge, as a modern intellectual discipline, had emerged from the dynamics of European intellectual history and had reached a kind of cutting point in the philosophy of Kant and further explored by Hegel but reached its first "classical" formulation in the writing of Mannheim,Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1936 1929. whose brilliance Parsons acknowledged but disagreed with his German historicism for its antipositivistic epistemology; that was largely rejected in the more positivistic world of American social science. For various reasons, the editors of the encyclopedia turned down Parsons' essay, which did not fit the general format of their volume. The essay was not published until 2006.Victor Lidz, "Talcott Parsons' "Sociology of Knowledge: Introductory Comments". In Helmut Staubmann (ed.) Action Theory: Methodological Studies. LIT verlag, Wien 2006.
Parsons had several conversations with Daniel Bell on a "post-industrial society", some of which were conducted over lunch at William James Hall. After reading an early version of Bell's magnum opus, The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society, Parsons wrote a letter to Bell, dated November 30, 1971, to offer his criticism. Among his many critical points, Parsons stressed especially that Bell's discussion of technology tended to "separate off culture" and treat the two categories "as what I would call culture minus the cognitive component".
Parsons' interest in the role of ethnicity and religion in the genesis of social solidarity within the local community heavily influenced another of his early 1960s graduate students, Edward Laumann. As a student, Laumann was interested in the role of social network structure in shaping community-level solidarity. Combining Parsons' interest in the role of ethnicity in shaping local community solidarity with W. Lloyd Warner's structural approach to social class, Laumann argued that ethnicity, religion, and perceived social class all play a large role in structuring community social networks.Edward O. Laumann. (1965). "Subjective Social Distance and Urban Occupational Stratification". American Journal of Sociology 71:26–36.Edward O Laumann. (1973). Bonds of Pluralism: The Form and Substance of Urban Social Networks. New York: Wiley Interscience.Edward O. Laumann, Richard Senter. (1976). "Subjective Social Distance, Occupational Stratification, and Forms of Status and Class Consciousness: A Cross-national Replication and Extension". American Journal of Sociology 81:1304–1338. Laumann's work found that community networks are highly partitioned along lines of ethnicity, religion, and occupational social status. It also highlighted the tension individuals experience between their preference to associate with people who are like them (homophily) and their simultaneous desire to affiliate with higher-status others. Later, at the beginning of his career at the University of Chicago, Laumann would argue that how the impulses are resolved by individuals forms the basis of corporate or competitive class consciousness within a given community.Laumann, Edward O. (2006). "A 45-Year Retrospective on Doing Networks". Connections 27:65–90. In addition to demonstrating how community solidarity can be conceptualized as a social network and the role of ethnicity, religion, and class in shaping such networks, Laumann's dissertation became one of the first examples of the use of population-based surveys in the collection of social network data, and thus a precursor to decades of egocentric social network analysis.Freeman, Linton C. The Development of Social Network Analysis. Vancouver: Empirical Press, 2004. Parsons thus played an important role in shaping the early interest of social network analysis in homophily and the use of egocentric network data to assess group- and community-level social network structures.
In a second article, a review of Bendix and Guenther Roth's Scholarship and Partisanship: Essays on Max Weber,Reinhard Bendix and Guenther Roth, Scholarship and Partisanship: Essays on Max Weber. University of California Press, 1970. Parsons continued his line of criticism. Parsons was especially concerned with a statement by Bendix that claimed Weber believed Marx's notion that ideas were "the epiphenomena of the organization of production". Parsons strongly rejected that interpretation: "I should contend that certainly the intellectual 'mature' Weber never was an 'hypothetical' Marxist."Talcott Parsons, "Review of Scholarship and Partisanship: Essays on Max Weber, by Reinhard Bendix and Guenther Roth". Contemporary Sociology, Vol.1.no.3. May 1972. pp. 200–203. Somewhere behind the attitudes of Bendix, Parsons detected a discomfort for the former to move out of an "idiographic" mode of theorizing.
From a theoretical point of view, the book had several functions. It substantiated Parsons' concept of the educational revolution, a crucial component in his theory of the rise of the modern world. What was equally intellectually compelling, however, was Parsons' discussion of "the cognitive complex", aimed at explaining how cognitive rationality and learning operated as an interpenetrative zone on the level of the general action-system in society. In retrospect, the categories of the cognitive complex are a theoretical foundation to understand what has been called the modern knowledge-based society.
Parsons thought that Bellah trivialized the tensions of individual interests and society's interests by reducing them to "capitalism"; Bellah, in his characterization of the negative aspects of American society, was compelled by a charismatic-based optimalism moral absolutism.
In 1978, when James Grier Miller published his famous work Living Systems,James Grier Miller, Living Systems. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978. Parsons was approached by Contemporary Sociology to write a review article on Miller's work. Parsons had already complained in a letter to A. Hunter DupreeLetter from Talcott Parsons to A. Hunter Dupree, January 10, 1979. Talcott Parsons Collection. Harvard University Archives. that American intellectual life suffered from a deep-seated tradition of empiricism and saw Miller's book the latest confirmation of that tradition. In his review, "Concrete Systems and "Abstracted Systems",Talcott Parsons, "Review Essay: Concrete Systems and Abstracted Systems". Contemporary Sociology Vol.8, No.5, 1979. pp. 696–705. he generally praised the herculean task behind Miller's work but criticized Miller for getting caught in the effort of hierarchize concrete systems but underplay the importance of structural categories in theory building. Parsons also complained about Miller's lack of any clear distinction between cultural and non-cultural systems.
In 1977, Washio Kurata, the new dean of the Faculty of Sociology of Kwansei Gakuin University, wrote to Parsons and invited him to visit Japan during the 1978–1979 academic year. In early spring, Parsons accepted the invitation, and on October 20, 1978, Parsons arrived at the Osaka Airport, accompanied by his wife, and was greeted by a large entourage.
Parsons began weekly lectures at Kwansei's sociology department from October 23 to December 15. Parsons gave his first public lecture to a huge mass of undergraduates, "The Development of Contemporary Sociology".
On November 17–18, when the Sengari Seminar House was opened, Parsons was invited as the key speaker at the event and gave two lectures, "On the Crisis of Modern Society"Talcott Parsons, "On the Crisis of Modern Society". Transcript of the public lecture given a Sengari House, Kwansei Gakuin University, November 17, 1978. Copy in Talcott Parsons collection, Harvard University Archives. and "Modern Society and Religion".Talcott Parsons, "Modern Society and Religion". Transcript of the public lecture given a Sengari House, Kwansei Gakuin University, November 18, 1978. Copy in Talcott Parsons collection, Harvard University Archives. Present were Tominaga, Mutsundo Atarashi, Kazuo Muto, and Hideichiro Nakano.
On November 25, lectures at Kobe University were organized by Hiroshi Mannari. Parsons lectured on organization theory to the faculty and the graduate students from the Departments of Economics, Management and Sociology. Also, faculty members from Kyoto and Osaka universities were present. A text was published the next year.Talcott Parsons, "An Approach to the Theory of Organizations" Organizational Science. Vol.13. no.1. April 1979. On November 30 to December 1, Parsons participated in a Tsukuba University Conference in Tokyo; Parsons spoke on "Enter the New Society: The Problem of the Relationship of Work and Leisure in Relation to Economic and Cultural Values".Talcott Parsons, "Enter the New Society: The Problem of the Relationship of Work and Leisure in Relation to Economic and Cultural Values". Transcript of the public lecture given at the Tsukuba Conference, Tsukuba University, December 1, 1978. Copy in Talcott Parsons collection. Harvard University Archives.
On December 5, Parsons gave a lecture at Kyoto University on "A Sociologist Looks at Contemporary U.S. Society".Talcott Parsons, "A Sociologist Looks at Contemporary U.S. Society". Transcript of the lecture given at the Kyoto University, December 5, 1978. Copy in Talcott Parsons collection. Harvard University Archives.
At a special lecture at Osaka on December 12, Parsons spoke, at the suggestion of Tominaga, on "Social System Theory and Organization Theory" to the Japanese Sociological Association.
On December 14, Kwansei Gakuin University granted Parsons an honorary doctor degree. Some of his lectures would be collected into a volume by Kurata and published in 1983. The Parsons flew back to the US in mid-December 1978.
Generally, Parsons maintained that his inspiration regarding analytical realism had been Lawrence Joseph Henderson and Alfred North WhiteheadFor the complex relationship between Parsons' action theory and Whitehead's philosophy, see Thomas J. Fararo, "On the Foundations of the Theory of Action in Whitehead and Parsons" in Jan J. Loubser et al. (ed.) Explorations in General Theory in Social Science. New York: The Free Press, 1976. Chapter 5. although he might have gotten the idea much earlier. It is important for Parsons' "analytical realism" to insist on the reference to an objective reality since he repeatedly highlighted that his concept of "analytical realism" was very different from the "fictionalism" of Hans Vaihiger (Hans Vaihinger):Hans Vaihiger, The Philosophy of "As If". trans. C.K. Cohen. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1952.
Some of the themes in The Structure of Social Action had been presented in a compelling essay two years earlier in "The Place of Ultimate Values in Sociological Theory".Talcott Parsons, "The Place of Ultimate Values in Sociological Theory." In Talcott Parsons, The Early Essays. Edited by Charles Camic. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago, 1991. (The essay was originally published in 1935.)
An intense correspondence and dialogue between Talcott Parsons and Alfred Schutz serves to highlight the meaning of central concepts in The Structure of Social Action.
As Parsons developed his theory, it became increasingly bound to the fields of cybernetics and system theory but also to Emerson's concept of homeostasisAlfred E. Emerson, "Homeostasis and comparison of systems" in Roy R. Grinker (ed.) Toward a Unified Theory of Human Behavior: An Introduction to General Systems Theory.New York: Basic Books, 1956. and Ernst Mayr's concept of "teleonomic processes".Ernst Mayr, "Teleological and teleonomic: A New Analysis." pp. 78–104 in Marx Wartofsky (ed.) Method and Metaphysics: Methodological and Historical Essays in the Natural and Social Sciences. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974 On the metatheoretical level, Parson attempted to balance psychologist phenomenology and idealism on the one hand and pure types of what Parsons called the utilitarian-positivistic complex, on the other hand.
The theory includes a general theory of social evolution and a concrete interpretation of the major drives of world history. In Parsons' theory of history and evolution, the constitutive-cognitive symbolization of the cybernetic hierarchy of action-systemic levels has, in principle, the same function as genetic information in DNA's control of biological evolution, but that factor of metasystemic control does not "determine" any outcome but defines the orientational boundaries of the real pathfinder, which is action itself. Parsons compares the constitutive level of society with Noam Chomsky's concept of "deep structure".
As Parsons wrote, "The deep structures do not as such articulate any sentences which could convey coherent meaning. The surface structures constitute the level at which this occurs. The connecting link between them is a set of rules of transformation, to use Chomsky's own phrase."Talcott Parsons, "Action, Symbol, and Cybernetic Control." In Ino Rossi (ed.) Structural Sociology New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. p. 53. The transformative processes and entities are generally, at least on one level of empirical analysis, performed or actualized by myths and religions,Roland Robertson, "The Central Significance of 'religion' in Social Theory: Parsons as an epical theorist." In Roland Robertson and Bryan S. Turner (ed.) Talcott Parsons: Theorist of Modernity London: Sage Publications, 1991. but philosophies, art systems, or even semiotic consumer behavior can, in principle, perform that function.Victor Lidz, "Religion and Cybernetic Concepts in the Theory of Action." Sociological Analysis. vol.43.no.4.1982. pp. 287–306.
It is only that perspective of the ultimate reference in action that Parsons' dictum (that higher-order cybernetic systems in history will tend to control social forms that are organized on the lower levels of the cybernetic hierarchy) should be understood. For Parsons, the highest levels of the cybernetic hierarchy as far as the general action level is concerned is what Parsons calls the constitutive part of the cultural system (the L of the L). However, within the interactional processes of the system, attention should be paid especially to the cultural-expressivistic axis (the L-G line in the AGIL). By the term constitutive, Parsons generally referred to very highly codified cultural values especially religious elements (but other interpretation of the term "constitutive" is possible).The complete structure of Parsons AGIL system was scattered around in dozens of his works and not presented in any handy form. However, the most elementary key elements was presented in chapter 2 in Talcott Parsons and Gerald M. Platt, The American University Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973. To understand the AGIL system, one needs to understand that it functions (in a sense) on three major levels: the highest level is the paradigm of the human condition, the next mediative level is what he calls the general action-system and the third level is the social system. (All three levels are active in any empirical social object at any time). Another important point is that Parsons, in a sense, operates with two cultural systems: there is the cultural system of the general action level and the so-called fiduciary system as the L-function of the social system. Common sense associates both systems with the idea of "culture." However, Parsons' separation of "culture" into the two distinct levels of conceptual analysis is fundamental.
Cultural systems have an independent status from that of the normative and orientational pattern of the social system; neither system can be reduced to the other. For example, the question of the "cultural capital" of a social system as a sheer historical entity (in its function as a "fiduciary system"), is not identical to the higher cultural values of that system; that is, the cultural system is embodied with a metastructural logic that cannot be reduced to any given social system or cannot be viewed as a materialist (or behavioralist) deduction from the "necessities" of the social system (or from the "necessities" of its economy).Helmuth Staubmann, "Culture as a Subsystem of Action: Talcott Parsons and Cultural Sociology." Presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Atlanta, 2003. Within that context, culture would have an independent power of transition, not only as factors of actual sociocultural units (like Western culture) but also how original cultural bases would tend to "universalize" through interpenetration and spread over large numbers of social systems as with Classical Greece and Ancient Israel, where the original social bases had died but the cultural system survived as an independently "working" cultural pattern, as in the case of Greek philosophy or in the case of Christianity, as a modified derivation from its origins in Israel.Talcott Parsons, Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1966.
However, general theory could also refer to a more fully/operational system whose implications of the conceptual scheme were "spelled out" on lower levels of cognitive structuralization, levels standing closer to a perceived "empirical object". In his speech to the American Sociological Society in 1947, he spoke of five levels:Talcott Parsons, "The Prospects of Sociological Theory". (1948). In Talcott Parsons, Essays in Sociological Theory. New York: The Free Press, 1954.
During his life, he would work on developing all five fields of theoretical concerns but pay special attention to the development on the highest "constitutive" level, as the rest of the building would stand or fall on the solidity of the highest level.For one discussion of his efforts, see Jan J. Loubser, "General Introduction" in Jan Loubser et al. (eds.) Explorations in General Theory in the Social Science: Essays in Honor of Talcott Parsons. New York: The Free Press, 1976.
Despite myths, Parsons never thought that modern societies exist in some kind of perfect harmony with their norms or that most modern societies were necessarily characterized by some high level of consensus or a "happy" institutional integration. Parsons highlighted that is almost logically impossible that there can be any "perfect fit" or perfect consensus in the basic normative structure of complex modern societies because the basic value pattern of modern societies is generally differentiated in such a way that some of the basic normative categories exist in inherent or at least potential conflict with each other. For example, freedom and equality are generally viewed as fundamental and non-negotiable values of modern societies. Each represents a kind of ultimate imperative about what the higher values of humanity. However, as Parsons emphasizes, no simple answer on the priority of freedom or equality or any simple solution on how they possibly can be mediated, if at all. Therefore, all modern societies are faced with the inherent conflict prevailing between the two values, and there is no "eternal solution" as such. There cannot be any perfect match between motivational pattern, normative solutions, and the prevailing value pattern in any modern society. Parsons also maintained that the "dispute" between "left" and "right" has something to do with the fact that they both defend ultimately "justified" human values (or ideals), which alone is indispensable as values but are always in an endless conflictual position to each other.
Parsons always maintained that the integration of the normative pattern in society is generally problematic and that the level of integration that is reached in principle is always far from harmonious and perfect. If some "harmonious pattern" emerges, it is related to specific historical circumstances but is not a general law of the social systems.
The concepts can be abbreviated as AGIL and are called the system's functional imperatives. Parsons' AGIL model is an analytical scheme for the sake of theoretical "production", but it is not any simple "copy" or any direct historical "summary" of empirical reality. Also, the scheme itself does not explain "anything", just as the periodic table explains nothing by itself in the natural sciences. The AGIL scheme is a tool for explanations and is no better than the quality of the theories and explanation by which it is processed.
In the case of the analysis of a social action system, the AGIL paradigm, according to Parsons, yields four interrelated and interpenetrating subsystems: the behavioral systems of its members (A), the personality systems of those members (G), the social system (as such) (I), and the cultural system of that society (L). To analyze a society as a social system (the I subsystem of action), people are posited to enact roles associated with positions. The positions and roles become differentiated to some extent and, in a modern society, are associated with things such as occupational, political, judicial, and educational roles.
Considering the interrelation of these specialized roles as well as functionally differentiated collectivities (like firms and political parties), a society can be analyzed as a complex system of interrelated functional subsystems:
The pure AGIL model for all living systems:
The Social System Level:
The General Action Level:
The cultural level:
The Generalized Symbolic media:
Social System level:
Parsons elaborated upon the idea that each of these systems also developed some specialized symbolic mechanisms of interaction analogous to money in the economy, like influence in the social community. Various processes of "interchange" among the subsystems of the social system were postulated.
Parsons' use of social systems analysis based on the AGIL scheme was established in his work Economy and Society (with N. Smelser, 1956) and prevailed in all his subsequent work. However, the AGIL system existed only in a "rudimentary" form in the beginning and was gradually elaborated and expanded in the decades which followed. A brief introduction to Parsons' AGIL scheme appears in Chapter 2 of The American University. There is, however, no single place in his writing in which the total AGIL system is visually displayed or explained: the complete system has to be reconstructed from multiple places in his writing. The system displayed in "The American University" has only the most basic elements and should not be mistaken for the whole system.
Furthermore, Parsons explored the sub-processes within three stages of evolution:
Parsons viewed Western civilization as the pinnacle of modern societies and the United States as the one that is most dynamically developed.
Parsons' late work focused on a new theoretical synthesis around four functions that he claimed are common to all systems of action, from the behavioral to the cultural, and a set of symbolic media that enables communication across them. His attempt to structure the world of action according to a scheme that focused on order was unacceptable for American sociologists, who were retreating from the grand pretensions of the 1960s to a more empirical, grounded approach.
He observed that people can have personalized and formally detached relationships, based on the roles that they play. The pattern variables are what he called the characteristics that are associated with each kind of interaction.
An interaction can be characterized by one of the identifiers of each contrastive pair:
Recently, interest has increased in Parsons' ideas and especially often-overlooked later works. Attempts to revive his thinking have been made by Parsonsian sociologists and social scientists like Jeffrey Alexander, Bryan Turner, Richard Münch, and Roland Robertson, and Uta Gerhardt has written about Parsons from a biographical and historical perspective. In addition to the United States, the key centers of interest in Parsons today are Germany, Japan, Italy, and the United Kingdom.
Parsons had a seminal influence and early mentorship of many American and international scholars, such as Ralf Dahrendorf, Alain Touraine, Niklas Luhmann, and Habermas. His best-known pupil was Merton. Parsons was a member of the American Philosophical Society.
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