Prelims

ISBN: 978-1-83982-657-3, eISBN: 978-1-83982-654-2

Publication date: 27 August 2020

pdf (1.1 MB) ePub (394 KB)

Citation

(2020), "Prelims", Scott, J. (Ed.) The Emerald Guide to Talcott Parsons (Emerald Guides to Social Thought), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. i-ix. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83982-654-220201001

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Half Title

The Emerald Guide to Talcott Parsons

series-page

The Emerald Guides to Social Thought

Series Editor: John Scott

The Emerald Guides to Social Thought are a series of student-oriented guides to major thinkers on social issues.

Each book is an authoritative primer that takes the reader through the key ideas of a thinker in order to provide a firm foundation for an independent reading of primary texts, for engagement with the secondary literature, and for reading contemporary extensions and elaborations of those ideas. The Guides demonstrate the mind of the theorist at work by tracing the development of that thought through successive texts or by elucidating the various topics to which they have been applied.

Emerald Guides place the work of a thinker in the context of her or his life and times. Substantive and comprehensive chapters on key issues are followed by full guides to sources of information and translation that provide a clear ‘map’ of the thinker’s intellectual development and to major items of commentary, debate, and application of their ideas.

The Guides are uniquely authoritative and accessible and provide the foundations of a scholarly library that allow the reader to develop his or her own ideas regarding influential thinkers and theorists.

Title Page

The Emerald Guide to Talcott Parsons

By

John Scott

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2020

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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in these chapters are not necessarily those of the Author or the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1- 83982-657-3 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1- 83982-654-2 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1- 83982-656-6 (Epub)

List of Figures	ix
1 Talcott Parsons and American Sociology	1
Sociology in America	3
Family Background and Early Life	5
Entering Sociology	8
Parsons in Wartime	12
Building Sociology	15
Developing Sociology	19
2 Parsons, Economics, and Sociology	23
Capitalism in Social Thought	24
Werner Sombart and Max Weber	26
3 The Sociology is About to Begin!	29
Realism and Social Theory	31
The Action Frame of Reference	34
Action Chains and Social Structure	37
Description, Analysis, and Theory	43
Sociology and the Social Sciences	46
4 Outlines of a Sociological Theory	49
Structural-Functional Theory	50
A View of the Social System	55
Occupations, Commerce, and Professions	63
Sex, Domesticity, and Family	65
Status, Prestige, and Stratification	66
5 A Theory of the Social System	71
Culture, Interaction, and Personality	73
A Functional Framework	76
Motivational Processes and Structures of Action	79
Social Action and Social Structure	83
Value Patterns and Structural Parts	85
Deviance and Social Control	92
An Illustration: The Doctor and the Patient	96
Classifying Societies	99
6 Refining the Functional Basis	103
Value Patterns and System Problems	105
A Multidimensional Space of Social Action	111
Socialisation as Internalisation	115
7 A Revised Theory of the Social System	121
Action Systems Revisited	122
The Social System Revisited	127
The Economy and the Polity	133
The Societal Community and the Fiduciary	141
Symbolic Media and System Interchanges	148
8 Evolution, Modernity, and American Society	157
From Tribalism to Feudalism	158
Modernity and the First New Nation	164
The American Value System and American Society	167
9 Action, Society, and the Human Condition	175
Understanding Action	175
Understanding the Human Condition	179
10 Parsons: Looking Forward	183
Appendix 1: Conspectus of Parsons’s Principal Works	187
Appendix 2: Sources and Further Reading	195
Index	203

List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 A Structural-Functional System	61
Fig. 5.1 Structure and the Social System	86
Fig. 5.2 The Pattern Variables	88
Fig. 5.3 A Classification of Societies	99
Fig. 6.1 Functions and Action Orientations in the Social System: Initial View	108
Fig. 6.2 Functions and Action Orientations in the Social System: Final View	110
Fig. 6.3 The Four-Function Paradigm	113
Fig. 6.4 Systems and Subsystems	114
Fig. 7.1 The Social System	131
Fig. 7.2 The Social System: Structure and Function	132
Fig. 7.3 The Cybernetic Hierarchy	148
Fig. 7.4 Generalised Symbolic Media	153
Fig. 9.1 Subsystems of Action	177
Fig. 9.2 The Human Condition	180

Book Chapters

Prelims

1: Talcott Parsons and American Sociology

2: Parsons, Economics, and Sociology

3: The Sociology is About to Begin!

4: Outlines of a Sociological Theory

5: A Theory of the Social System

6: Refining the Functional Basis

7: A Revised Theory of the Social System

8: Evolution, Modernity, and American Society

9: Action, Society, and the Human Condition

10: Parsons: Looking Forward

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Index