Abstract
The second main version of a theory of collective subjectivity is found in the work of Talcott Parsons. However, it did not come about in his first formulations, and Parsons never freed himself completely from the constraints of the heritage of the liberal thought he acknowledged as his world-view. Nevertheless, he advanced some very interesting ideas, connected to his notion of social system, which consisted in an important departure from some key elements of Enlightenment principles. But, lest the expectation of a break away from that movement’s centred subject occur to the reader, it must be stated that Parsons did actually accept this as a core feature of his notion of collective actor.
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References
J. C. Alexander, The Modern Reconstruction of Classical Thought: Talcott Parsons (vol. 4 of Theoretical Logic in Sociology) (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), especially pp. 151–2.
The exception in this case, although rather partial, is Richard Münch, Theory of Action (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, [1982] 1987) pp. 30ff.
Ibid., pp. 28–44, 730. For Whitehead’s view, see his Science and the Modern World, especially pp. 64, 203. For the differences between their conceptualisations, consult Bernhard Miebach, Strukturalistische Handlungstheorie (Opladen: Westdeutcher Verlag, 1984) pp. 51–2, 66.
This aspect of Parsons’s thought has occasioned discussions about his possible ‘Kantianism’ – which would be linked also to a theory of ‘interpenetration’, to be touched upon below – and the a priori character of his concepts, a dispute also fostered by his own later self-definition – in, for instance, T. Parsons, ‘A Retrospective View’, in Richard Grathoff (ed.), Correspondence of Alfred Schutz and Talcott Parsons (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, [1940–1] 1978) p. 117. In favour of this interpretation,
see Harold J. Bershady, Ideology and Social Knowledge (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1973) pp. 63, 72; R. Münch, op. cit., pp. 46, 63; and J. C. Alexander, The Modern Reconstruction of Classical Thought: Talcott Parsons, p. 175; against it, see J. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 2, pp. 200, 228; and B. Miebach, op. cit., p. 12. This Kantian influence appears real enough as regards the relation between interests and norms, although it progressively gave way to a more Freudian perspective; with respect to epistemology, the idea of a priori categories in Parsons just does not make any sense, pace his later self-misunderstanding.
A. Schutz, ‘Parsons’ Theory of Social Action’, in R. Grathoff (ed.), Opt cit., pp. 24–5, 64, 74. Moreover, the postulation that action can be analytically broken down only by the actor is not a tenable one, contrary to what Schutz believed (pp. 37–43). We need to recognise, however, the process of abstraction that this operation inevitably represents, in any of the above listed cases, so that the atomism of the Enlightenment theory of perception is brushed aside together with social individualism – a point that eluded Parsons’ discussion. The idea that action is per se already a ‘system’ (or, better put, an organic whole) and thus a concept that presupposes that of ‘element’ is commendable. See N. Luhmann, ‘The Future of a Theory’, in The Differentiation of Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). He, however, derives from this the unjustifiable thesis that the notion of subject should be entirely discarded; this does not prevent him from pointing to something such as ‘collective action’, which is reminiscent of Parsons’ ‘collective actors’. See Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, pp. 270ff.
Parsons, The Social System (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, [1951] 1979) pp. 3ff.
Stephen Savage, The Theories of Talcott Parsons (London: Macmillan, 1981) pp. 191–2. He comments on the harmful repercussions of this step when the ‘polity’ (see below) was deemed the ‘collective mind of society’.
T. Parsons, ‘The Superego and the Theory of Social Systems’ (1952), in T. Parsons, E. A. Shils and Robert F. Bales, Working Papers in the Theory of Action (Illinois: Free Press, 1953). The decentring of the subject (multiple selves and interactive formation), both in the individual and the collective level, was, however, hinted at in Idem, ‘Cooley and the Problem of Internalization’, in Albert Reiss, Jr. (ed.), Cooley and SociologicalAnalysis (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1968) pp. 59–62, 65.
It is not by chance that we can even observe Parsons’ students imagining that they remain faithful to the master, whilst simultaneously disposing of the concept of collective actor because of a commitment to methodological individualism. The outcome is a deformed reading of Parsons, encapsulated in the expression ‘institutional individualism’, which, originally devised to interpret a specific phase of the social evolution of the west, is misused to supposedly describe the main thrust of his theory. See Francois Bourricaud, The Sociology ofTalcott Parsons (Chicago: Chicago University Press [1976] 1977). The source of confusion lies in Parsons’ own work.
Parsons, ‘Some General Problems of Sociological Theory’ (1970), in Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory, p. 236.
François Chazel, La Théorie analytiquede la société dans l’oeuvrede Talcott Parsons (Paris: Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and Mouton & Co., 1979) pp. 89–91.
T. Parsons, ‘An Outline of the Social System’, in T. Parsons et al., Theories of Society (New York: Free Press, 1961) pp. 30–7.
Even his main follower today has, thus, to acknowledge the ‘sociological idealism’ coupled with Parsons’ attempt at a multidimensional social theory. See J. C. Alexander, The Modern Reconstruction ofClassical Thought: Talcott Parsons, pp. 152, 212, 219, 273. The phases of the AGIL scheme, originally drawn in terms of the movement of a system, tended henceforth to be treated basically in static terms. Consult also T. Parsons, ‘Social Systems’ (1968), in Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory.
T. Parsons, R. F. Bales and E. A. Shils, ‘Phase Movement in Relation to Motivation, Symbol Formation and Role Structure’, pp. 164, 215. On the other hand, the concept of ‘adaptation’, though subordinated to his growing ‘sociological idealism’, became pivotal to the explanation of change in evolutionary terms, See T. Parsons, Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966) pp. 20ff.
Parsons and Neil Smelser, Economy and Society (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956) pp. 14–15.
Parsons, The System of Modern Societies (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1971) p. 8.
Parsons, ‘A Sociological Approach to the Theory of Organizations’, in Structure and Process in Modern Societies (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1960); ‘The American Family: its Relation to Personality and to the Social Structure’ (1956), in T. Parsons et al., Family, Socialization and Interaction Process (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968).
Parsons, ‘The School Class as a Social System: Some of its Functions’, in Social Structure and Personality (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1964).
Parsons, ‘On Building Social Systems Theory: a Personal History’ (1971), in Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory, pp. 27–8.
Parsons, ‘Cause and Effect in Sociology’, in Daniel Lerner (ed.), Cause and Effect (New York: Free Press, 1965) pp. 66–7.
and also several of the papers in J. C. Alexander (ed.), Neofunctionalism (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1985),
plus K. C. Alexander and Paul Colomy (eds), Differentiation Theory and Social Change (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).
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© 1995 José Maurício Domingues
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Dọmingues, J.M. (1995). Parsons: Social Systems and Collective Actors. In: Sociological Theory and Collective Subjectivity. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230376342_5
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