Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Introduction
- I What is theory?
- II The classical attempt at synthesis: Talcott Parsons
- III Parsons on the road to normativist functionalism
- IV Parsons and the elaboration of normativist functionalism
- V Neo-utilitarianism
- VI Interpretive approaches (1): symbolic interactionism
- VII Interpretive approaches (2): ethnomethodology
- VIII Conflict sociology and conflict theory
- IX Habermas and critical theory
- X Habermas' ‘theory of communicative action’
- XI Niklas Luhmann's radicalization of functionalism
- XII Anthony Giddens' theory of structuration and the new British sociology of power
- XIII The renewal of Parsonianism and modernization theory
- XIV Structuralism and poststructuralism
- XV Between structuralism and theory of practice: The cultural sociology of Pierre Bourdieu
- XVI French anti-structuralists (Cornelius Castoriadis, Alain Touraine and Paul Ricoeur)
- XVII Feminist social theories
- XVIII A crisis of modernity? New diagnoses (Ulrich Beck, Zygmunt Bauman, Robert Bellah, and the debate between liberals and communitarians)
- XIX Neo-pragmatism
- XX How things stand
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
III - Parsons on the road to normativist functionalism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Introduction
- I What is theory?
- II The classical attempt at synthesis: Talcott Parsons
- III Parsons on the road to normativist functionalism
- IV Parsons and the elaboration of normativist functionalism
- V Neo-utilitarianism
- VI Interpretive approaches (1): symbolic interactionism
- VII Interpretive approaches (2): ethnomethodology
- VIII Conflict sociology and conflict theory
- IX Habermas and critical theory
- X Habermas' ‘theory of communicative action’
- XI Niklas Luhmann's radicalization of functionalism
- XII Anthony Giddens' theory of structuration and the new British sociology of power
- XIII The renewal of Parsonianism and modernization theory
- XIV Structuralism and poststructuralism
- XV Between structuralism and theory of practice: The cultural sociology of Pierre Bourdieu
- XVI French anti-structuralists (Cornelius Castoriadis, Alain Touraine and Paul Ricoeur)
- XVII Feminist social theories
- XVIII A crisis of modernity? New diagnoses (Ulrich Beck, Zygmunt Bauman, Robert Bellah, and the debate between liberals and communitarians)
- XIX Neo-pragmatism
- XX How things stand
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
Summary
The Structure of Social Action, which appeared in 1937, attracted a great deal of criticism precisely because Parsons had such great ambitions for it (see Charles Camic, ‘Structure aft er 50 Years: The Anatomy of a Charter’ and Hans Joas, The Creativity of Action, pp. 18ff. for comprehensive overviews). Some of the criticisms were made immediately after the book appeared, but many only after it had become very well known. As we pointed out in the previous lecture, Structure was received rather slowly at first. Over the course of time, however, coming to terms with Parsons became increasingly central to others' attempts to explain and contextualize their own equally ambitious theories, and inevitably criticisms became ever more systematic and comprehensive. In what follows, we shall present to you those criticisms that were of the greatest significance to the development of theory; in the second part of the lecture, we examine whether and to what extent Parsons answered or perhaps even anticipated these criticisms, as he attempted to refine his theoretical edifice.
If we look first at the debate on the so-called convergence thesis, it is apparent that it addressed a number of key problems; we examine these here. We can understand the sometimes passionate way in which scholars have grappled with this thesis only if we grasp that we are not dealing with a purely historiographical problem summed up by the question ‘Whose interpretation of the classical figures is (at least somewhat) better?’ Parsons claimed to have produced a synthesis of the work of these leading figures.
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- Information
- Social TheoryTwenty Introductory Lectures, pp. 43 - 67Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009