Abstract
This is in effect Schutz’s unsuccessful attempt to communicate with the arguably the leading sociologist in the USA. He is sympathetic but not uncritical of Parson’s work, but Parsons is unsympathetic with Schutz’s project of a Wissenschaftslehre. Yet Schutz says things here about, e.g., economics, that he does not say elsewhere.
Cambridge, MA, October 30, 1940COMP: Please set “Cambridge, MA, October 30, 1940” as in MS.
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Notes
- 1.
Cf. Alfred Schutz, “The Problem of Rationality in the Social World. A Lecture Delivered at the Faculty Club, Harvard University on April 13, 1940” [reprinted in Alfred Schutz CP IV]. RG
- 2.
Cf. Alfred Schutz, “William James’s Concept of the Stream of Thought Phenomenologically Interpreted,” reprinted CP III. RG
- 3.
(New York: McGraw Hill, 1937) (Hereafter: “SSA.”)
- 4.
SSA, p. 41 (emphasis added by Schutz).
- 5.
The problem of the time element in action will not be developed in this study. See Mead, G.H., The Philosophy of the Act (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938), and The Philosophy of the Present (La Salle: Open Court, 1932). I have developed my own point of view in extended analyses in my book, Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt.
- 6.
SSA, p. 58 (italics mine). For our critical examination of Parsons’ theory the role attributed to scientific knowledge within the frame of reference of the unit act will be of the greatest importance. Obviously Parsons is influenced by Pareto’s theory of logical and non-logical actions. Pareto, too, defined logical actions as “those operations which are logically united to their end, not only from the point of view of the subject who performs the operations, but also for those who have a more extended knowledge.” Vilfredo Pareto, The Mind and Society, vol. 1 (New York: Harcourt, 1935), §150.
- 7.
SSA. p. 453. See Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics, 8th ed. (London: Macmillan, 1925), 781.
- 8.
SSA, p. 467. Parsons calls Durkheim’s thesis that society is a reality sui generis the “sociologistic theorem.” (SSA, 248)
- 9.
SSA, p. 81. Such “non-subjective terms” are for Parsons “environment,” “heredity,” etc. See SSA 82 f.
- 10.
It is important that for Pareto, too, “logical” is nothing other than scientifically correct knowledge of facts and relations, the term “scientific” always being understood in the sense of empirically verified knowledge.
- 11.
William James, Principles of Psychology, vol. 2 (New York: Holt, 1890), 330.
- 12.
Many experiences in daily life could be cited as proof of this statement. The businessman is not interested in the verifiability by economic theory of his decisions, provided he is given a reasonable chance of profit. The patient is not interested primarily in the scientifically correct treatment ordered by the physician, provided the treatment gives him a chance of health. There is a structural difference not only in the level of concreteness and abstractness, on which theoretical and practical attitudes work, but also and above all in the system of relevances and interests, which necessarily differ for the actor interested only in truth.
- 13.
Here, precisely, lies the great importance of the time element in the theory of action.
- 14.
SSA 635. “Motivationsverstehen,” in Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Tubingen: Mohr, 1956), Chap. 1: Soziologische Grundbegriffe, Sec. 1.5.
- 15.
Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. I have borrowed some English terms from the excellent study that A. Stonier and Karl Bode published about my theory.
- 16.
Under this hypothesis it would be a great problem to show why—speaking always from the subjective point of view—such ultimate values are temporarily admitted, temporarily rejected by the actor.
- 17.
This does not mean that the social sciences and especially sociology would not be interested in this topic and could leave the whole problem of relevance to philosophers and psychologists for further research. On the contrary, the explanation of the emergence of consistent systems of in-order-to and because motives within the social world is one of the most urgent tasks for the social sciences and especially for a general sociology worthy of the name.
- 18.
Harvey Pinney reproaches Parsons in his fine study “The Theory of Social Action” (Ethics, January 1940, 184–92) with the fact that the concept “actor,” except for its inclusion among the elements of the unit act, disappears from the other analyses in Parsons book and that therefore Parsons’ “theory of act” deals with an “action without an actor.” I cannot see that this reproach is justified. The actor, as conceived by Parsons, is an analytical element and therefore an abstraction performed by the scientific observer of the social world. As such he continues to reappear in the further analyses, if not under the name of an actor, then under the name of an ideal-type, constructed by the observer. Because Parsons accepted the tenet of Znaniecki that every social phenomenon can be described (among other categories) under the frame of reference either of action or of personality, he did not need to go farther into an analysis of the actor within a study restricting itself to action analysis. On the other hand, it must be regretted that Parsons’ concept of the unit act uncritically merges subjective and objective elements—a great shortcoming of the logical uniformity of his theories.
- 19.
The foregoing remarks are only partially true for the so-called behavioristic position of the great philosopher and sociologist G.H. Mead. See Mind, Self and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934), esp. pp. 2 ff. An analysis of Mead’s most important theory must be reserved for another occasion.
- 20.
To be as precise as possible: on the level of what we have just called “objective schemes” the dichotomy of subjective and objective points of view does not even become visible. It emerges only with the basic assumption that the social world may be referred to activities of individual human beings and to the meaning those individuals bestow on their social lifeworld. But it is precisely this basic assumption, which alone makes the problem of subjectivity in the social sciences accessible, that holds for modern sociology in general, and especially for Parsons and the four men whose works he discussed.
- 21.
Of course the interpretation of natural things as products of the agency of another intelligence (though not a human one) is always an overt possibility. The life of the tree is then the result of the activities of a demon or of a dryad, etc.
- 22.
An attempt was made by the present writer in his book: Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt.
- 23.
“Soziales Handeln … welches seinem von dem oder den Handelnden gemeinten Sinn nach auf das Verhalten anderer bezogen wird und daran in seinem Ablauf orientiert ist.” Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, p. 1; and Parsons, SSA 641.
- 24.
Parsons did not study in his Structure of Social Action the modifications that his basic concept of the unit act necessarily undergoes if applied to social interrelationships, i.e., to social acts mutually oriented to one another. Quite rightly he rejects atomistic methods in the social sciences. But, on the other hand, he has not overcome the most dangerous form of atomism, namely, that of building up a system of social action by isolated acts of isolated individuals without entering further into the problem of social acts and society as such.
- 25.
I have sketched some of the principles ruling the formation of ideal types in a lecture delivered in the Faculty Club of Harvard University under the title “The Problem of Rationality in the Social World.” [Reprinted in CP II.]
- 26.
Vol. IV (1937), pp. 406–429.
- 27.
To my knowledge no further notes or letters were exchanged between Talcott Parsons and Alfred Schutz. Both kept to their decision to keep their dispute a private affair. RG
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Embree, L. (2011). The Theory of Social Action: Text and Letters with Talcott Parsons. In: Embree, L. (eds) Collected Papers V. Phenomenology and the Social Sciences. Phaenomenologica, vol 205. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1515-8_2
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