Talcott Parsons: Despair and Modernity

by Best,Shaun

• ISBN13: 9780754624820
• ISBN10: 075462482X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-06-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Talcott Parsons is probably the most important and influential US sociologist of the twentieth century. This collection brings together, for the first time, the leading essays covering the work of Parsons, introduced and contextualized by a detailed essay written by the editor.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
Series Preface	xi
Introduction	xiii
PART I PARSONS AND HIS THEORETICAL CONTEXT
1 Whitney Pope, Jere Cohen and Lawrence E. Hazelrigg (1975), 'On the Divergence of Weber and Durkheim: A Critique of Parsons' Convergence Thesis', American Sociological Review, 40, pp. 417-27.	3	(12)
2 Charles Camic (1987), 'The Making of a Method: A Historical Reinterpretation of the Early Parsons', American Sociological Review, 52, pp. 421-39.	15	(22)
PART II BETWEEN 'OBJECTIVISM' AND 'SUBJECTIVISM'
3 George C. Homans (1964), 'Bringing Men Back In', American Sociological Review, 29, pp. 809-18.	37	(10)
4 Alfred Schutz (1978) [1940], 'Parsons' Theory of Social Action', in R. Grathoff (ed.), The Theory of Social Action: The Correspondence of Alfred Schutz and Talcott Parsons, Indiana: Indiana University Press, pp. 8-48,134-38.	47	(48)
PART III NORMS AND ACTION
5 R. Stephen Warner (1978), 'Towards a Redefinition of Action Theory: Paying the Cognitive Element its Due', American Journal of Sociology, 83, pp. 1317-49.	95	(34)
6 Dennis H. Wrong (1961), 'The Oversocialized Conception of Man in Modern Sociology', American Sociological Review, 26, pp. 183-93.	129	(14)
PART IV CONFLICT AND POWER
7 Ralf Dahrendorf (1958), 'Out of Utopia: Toward a Reorientation of Sociological Analysis', American Journal of Sociology, 64, pp. 115-27.	143	(14)
8 Anthony Giddens (1968), '"Power" in the Recent Writings of Talcott Parsons', Sociology, 2, pp. 257-72.	157	(18)
PART V SYSTEM AND ACTION
9 Don Martindale (1971), 'Talcott Parsons' Theoretical Metamorphosis from Social Behaviorism to Macrofunctionalism', in Herman Turk, Richard L. Simpson (eds), Institutions and Exchange: The Sociologies of Talcott Parsons and George Caspar Homans, New York: Bobbs-Merrill, pp. 165-74.	175	(10)
10 Thomas Burger (1977), 'Talcott Parsons, the Problem of Order in Society, and the Program of an Analytical Sociology', American Journal of Sociology, 83, pp. 320-39.	185	(20)
11 Hans P.M. Adriaansens (1979), 'The Conceptual Dilemma: Towards a Better Understanding of the Development in Parsonian Action-Theory', British Journal of Sociology, 30, pp. 5-24.	205	(22)
PART VI SYSTEM AND FUNCTION
12 Robert K. Merton (1968), 'Manifest and Latent Functions', in Social Theory and Social Structure, New York: Free Press, pp. 73-138.	227	(66)
13 Miriam M. Johnson (1993), 'Functionalism and Feminism: Is Estrangement Necessary?', in Paula England (ed.), Theory on Gender/Feminism on Theory, New York: Aldine De Gruyter, pp. 115-30.	293	(18)
PART VII SYSTEM AND CONTRADICTION
14 Alvin W. Gouldner (1959), 'Reciprocity and Autonomy in Functional Theory', in L.Z. Gross (ed.), Symposium on Sociological Theory, Evanston: Harper Row, pp. 241-70.	311	(30)
15 David Lockwood (1964), 'Social Integration and System Integration', In George K. Zollschan and W. Hirsch (eds). Explorations in Social Change, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 244-57.	341	(14)
16 Juergen Habermas (1981). 'Talcott Parsons: Problems of Theory Construction:'. Sociological Inquiry, 51, pp. 173-96.	355	(26)
PART VIII NEOFUNCTIONALISM: PARSONS REVISITED AND REVISIONED
17 Jeffrey C. Alexander (1988), 'The New Theoretical Movement', in N.J. Snieser (ed.), Handbook of Sociology, Los Angeles: Sage. pp. 77-101.	381	(26)
18 Richard Munch (1987), 'Parsonian Theory Today: In Search of a New Synthesis', in Anthony Giddens and Jonathan H. Turner (eds), Social Theory Today, Cambridge: Polity, pp. 116-55.	407	(40)
19 Hans Joas (1988), 'The Antinomies of Neofunctionalism: A Critical Essay on Jeffrey Alexander', Inquiry, 31, pp. 471-94.	447	(26)
PART IX AFTERWORD
20 'Falcon Parsons (1970), 'On Building Social System Theory: A Personal History', Daedalus, 99, pp. 826-81.	473	(56)
Name Index	529