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Resumo

This article focuses on the Amherst term papers and the early essays of Talcott Parsons, the essays he wrote before he published The Structure of Social Action. In these essays, Parsons attempts to define the theoretical interests of sociology in contrast to those of orthodox economics and positivism. It is argued in this article that the Amherst term papers are of little interest as they do not introduce original ideas, and all the relevant argumentation that is developed in these essays is unsophisticated and fragmentary. In contrast, the essays of the period from 1928 to 1937 present original epistemological analysis and theoretical cohesion. This article also compares the Amherst term papers with 5 of 21 early essays to discover theoretical and epistemological continuities. The comparison shows that there is minimum relevance of the Amherst term papers to the early essays and accentuates certain ideas that can be considered as common to the said essays.

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