Formal and Substantive Voluntarism in the Work of Talcott Parsons

A Theoretical and Ideological Reinterpretation

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4926337
AutoresJeffrey C Alexander (0000-0003-3600-8023, autor de correspondencia)
Año1978
Volumen43
Número2
Páginas177
Fecha de publicación1978-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0003-1224 • E-ISSN: 1939-8271
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2094698
OpenAlexW2159120234
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas34
Referencias citadas49

Contemporary discussions of Parsons's thought have faltered because they are insufficiently generalized. Only after his theoretical and epistemological logic has been explored, for example, can his more specific, ideological purpose be correctly understood. Parsons's theoretical ambition has been to resolve long-standing antinomies in social thought. His theory, to the degree it succeeds, formulates two central points: the social basis of individual autonomy and the multidimensional basis of social order. These positions present the heart of Parsons's formal theory. In his analysis of historical development as differentiation-cultural, structural, and psychological-Parsons combines this formal logic with an ideological commitment to the expansion of individual freedom and conscious control. Incorporating elements of liberal, idealist, and materialist arguments, he outlines a theory of substantive voluntarism that is, potentially, neither conservative nor static. Considered as a whole, Parsons's theory contains serious contradictory strains. Nevertheless, his analysis of formal and substantive freedom represents a major contribution to social thought. The charismatic power of a great thinker raises to a heightened pitch the normal level of irrationality produced by paradigm conflict. In defense against such a powerful intellectual center, there emerges alongside the usual thrusts of serious theoretical combat an antagonistic tradition of misinformed, often trivial, sometimes grossly distorted commentary that attempts to present itself, and is partly accepted as, critical truth. At the same time, the attractive power of this center is such that those who follow the thinker prove unable to present an objective critical evaluation of his intellectual contributions. Only with the passage of time, as the center loses its immediate power, can a perspective which is both critical and appreciative be attained and the thinker's permanent contributions to intellectual tradition be properly assessed. We can observe this tortuous path of assimilation in the reception of Marx's work and Weber's, but the process seems particularly striking, and particularly apropos of the subject of this essay, in

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Reinterpretation · Sociology · Voluntarism (philosophy · Work (physics · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Psychology · Social Psychology · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory