Reconsidering Blumer's Corrective Against the Excesses of Functionalism

Bibliographic Data

ID2480934
AuthorsDavid Sciulli (University of Delaware, corresponding author)
Year1988
Volume11
Issue1
Pages69-84
Publication date1988-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSymbolic Interaction (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0195-6086 • E-ISSN: 1533-8665
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/si.1988.11.1.69
OpenAlexW2101594417
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited18

Blumer's corrective to Parsons' excesses is presented against a backdrop provided by two reformulations of Parsons' concepts: The problems of social order is recast as the problem of nonauthoritarian social order, and voluntaristic action is distinguished from normative action. Blumer's corrective, then, was to see that distinctively voluntaristic action is ineluctably the product of actors' negotiations of meaning (whereas both purposive-rational and non-rational action can more legitimately be abstracted from this process and treated as more reified by social analyses). Parsons' optimism about social order was unwarranted, as was Blumer's complacency about the problem of arbitrary power. It is suggested in conclusion that Parsons' theory ironically evinces more respect for the individual's integrity than does Blumer's

Epistemology · Negotiation · Normative · Social science · Sociology · Symbolic interactionism · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Critical Realism in Sociology · Philosophy · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory

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