6. Talcott Parsons: A Critical Loyalty to Max Weber

Author(s):  
Guy Rocher
Keyword(s):  
1980 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lassman

AbstractTalcott Parsons and Max Weber, despite the complexities and uncertainties of the latter’s work, represent two competing approaches to the nature of sociological theory. Despite his reliance upon many aspects of the work of Weber, Parsons’ critical remarks on the problems of value-relevance and value-neutrality can be interpreted in this light. The methodological views of both theorists are tied to differing views of the development of western society and of the role of the Social Sciences. Both are haunted by the spectre of relativism.


1991 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 340-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Ellis

“Hegemony” has become a fashionable catchword in a number of intellectual circles. One encounters it among historians, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, even (or, perhaps, especially) literary critics. Many a frustrated radical finds it a useful explanation for the quiescence of the masses. Marxist scholars frequently see it as a liberating departure from Marx's economic reductionism. More mainstream social scientists often detect little harm in it, since the notion that people are not ruled by force alone, but also by ideas, seems highly congruent with what they have learned from Max Weber and Talcott Parsons.


Em Tese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-126
Author(s):  
Thomas Schwinn ◽  
Bruna dos Santos Bolda ◽  
Márcia Inês Schaefer

Na teoria sociológica não há consenso sobre como associar as teorias da ação (como a abordagem clássica de Max Weber) e dos sistemas (como as abordagens de Talcott Parsons e de Niklas Luhmann). Ao reconhecer que há uma distinção entre ambos os níveis (o nível “de cima” do sistema e o nível “de baixo” da ação), algumas teorias intentam, ambiguamente, misturá-los. Algo que leva a modelos inconsistentes. De um lado, há a teoria de Parsons que integra o funcionalismo do sistema à teoria da ação. Parsons vira a estrutura conceitual de Max Weber ao contrário, de modo a subsumir a ação no sistema. De outro, há a teoria de Luhmann que insere os atores no interior dos sistemas autopoiéticos. Os agentes passam a desempenhar relação de ambiente com os sistemas sociais de modo que não são suas ações os elementos que constituem os sistemas, mas sim os eventos comunicativos. Tendo em vista que a teoria da ação e a teoria dos sistemas são duas sociologias com pressupostos analíticos distintos, elas não podem ser associadas em um único modelo.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 192-198
Author(s):  
Danjuma Sheidu Asaka ◽  
Olabode Awarun

Although Analytical Sociology is not often used in the mainstream Sociology, its history is however, traceable to the classical works of scholars such as Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Alexis de Tocqueville as well as contemporary sociological thinkers like Talcott Parsons and Robert Merton, among others. This paper provides a contemporary argument for the application of mechanistic explanation in the overall understanding of Analytical Sociology using relevant and practical examples. In the course of this, attention has been paid to the concept of explanation and its various types in a sociological discourse. This paper therefore argues that social reality can significantly be understood only when explanations are systematic and detailed in content and context. The conclusion is that analytical sociology has the capacity to explain the actions of social actors within the social environment beyond some social doubts, even though, not all situations, can be sufficiently explained with the strategy.


Author(s):  
Dominique Schnapper

The French are not familiar with British sociology. As a first indicator, British sociology is hardly ever translated into French. In Britain, Anthony Giddens is the most cited and the most widely read British sociologist, along with Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Talcott Parsons. British sociology is not well known and is rather uninfluential in France. On the one hand, its so-called ‘classical’ form, used by the 1950 generation, appears to many to be too rigorous and too marked by ‘positivism’. This type of sociology is therefore the object of criticism both on the continent and among young British sociologists. What is striking when reading British sociology is that British research has often been more rigorous than French research because it is based on fieldwork of an anthropological nature, an approach which French scholars have often been reticent about. Moreover, British researchers are more scathing, when it comes to criticism of their own nation, than their French counterparts.


2013 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-293
Author(s):  
Peter Brickey LeQuire ◽  
Daniel Silver

AbstractBetween 1940 and 1944, sociologist Talcott Parsons and political scientist Eric Voegelin engaged in a vigorous correspondence, discussing the origins of totalitarianism and modern anti-Semitism, the legacy of Max Weber, patterns of secularization set in motion by the Protestant Reformation, the methodology and goals of social science, and more. This article introduces and explicates the surprisingly amicable and intellectually rich exchange between these two seemingly different thinkers. Although the letters hold obvious historical interest, their variegated topics are also closely thematically related, revealing an inner logic that we interpret as a theoretical search for “critical naïveté”. This logic, we argue, is relevant to contemporary discussions about the social, political, and scientific legacies of world-transcendent spiritual traditions.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document