Parsons' The Structure of Social Action and Contemporary Debates

A cura di: Gabriele Pollini, Giuseppe Sciortino

Parsons' The Structure of Social Action and Contemporary Debates

Printed Edition

23.50

Pages: 240

ISBN: 9788846432100

Edition: 1a edizione 2001

Publisher code: 1520.361

Availability: Discreta

The publication in 1937 of The Structure of Social Action is generally considered to be a crucial event in the sociological theory of the century just concluded. The work has been an indispensable point of reference for numerous theoretical issues addressed by sociology: from the role of the "classics" in sociological debate to the sociology's relations with economics, from the critique of utilitarianism to the status of symbolic and normative elements in the orientation of action, from the epistemological status of the subjective categories to the theory of social integration.

More than sixty years after publication of The Structure of Social Action , and at the beginning of the new century, it is therefore appropriate to conduct a critical re-reading of the contents of the work and of its principal lines of argument in the light of subsequent developments in the theory of action and of contemporary theoretical debates. Far from being purely celebratory in its approach, the aim of this book is to examine the contemporary relevance of The Structure to the development of sociological theory, and to assess the extent to which the conceptual resources made available by the book continue to motivate and sustain contemporary theoretical analysis.

Index:

Gabriele Pollini, Giuseppe Sciortino , Preface

Jeffrey C. Alexander , Parsons as a Republican Critic of Industrial Society: A New Understanding of the Early Writings

Gabriele Pollini , The Currency and Validity of Parsons' Interpretation of Vilfredo Pareto's Theory of Social Action

(The intellectual context in which Parsons developed his interpretation of Pareto; The principal features of Parsons' interpretation of Pareto: logical and non-logical action; The structure of non-logical action: residues and derivations; The theory of social utility; The question of voluntarism)

Giuseppe Sciortino , The Structure of Social Àction's "Missing" Chapter on Simmel: An Introduction

(Much ado for nothing? A brief history of "SSA's missing chapter"; The chapter on Simmel and Tönnies within SSA's project; Parsons, social forms and subsequent developments of the theory of action; Appendix. Talcott Parsons' letter to Jeffrey C. Alexander)

Talcott Parsons , Georg Simmel and Ferdinand Tönnies: Social Relationships and the Elements of Action

Pierpaolo Donati , Parsons' Lesson on Freedom and Order in Social Action: Why and How It Must Re Made Relational

(What is the structure of social action? Parsons' work and the argument of this essay; Parsons' grandiose project; What Parsons' theory has taught us and why it failed; Starting again from the problems that Parsons left behind; Why may we say that action is social? The structure of social action from a relational perspective)

Mark Gould , The Generalized Media of Communication and the Logic of Cultural Intelligibility: Macro and Micro Analyses in Luhmann, Habermas and Parsons

(A theoretical context; Empiricism and the failure to construct a viable microsociology; Societal universals, structural models, usage, and individual actions; Culturally mediated interaction; Socially mediated interaction; Power: the integration of micro and macro perspectives)

Davide La Valle , Parsons and Social Exchange

(Parsons and the method of economic theory; "The Structure of Social Action": Parsons' critique of utilitarianism; The concept of institutionalization in "Toward" and "The Social System"; The "Marshall Lectures" and "Economy and Society": the new solution to the problem of the relationships between economies and sociology; The theory of generalized and symbolic media of interchange; The exchange model and functional analysis)

Nicolò Addario , Why a Theory of Society Cannot Re Founded on a Theory of Action: On the Legacy of Parsons' Scientific Programme Sixty Years after "The Structure"

Maurizio Ghisleni , The History of Sociology between Continuity and Discontinuity: Parsons and the Consensus-Conflict Dualism

(The history of sociology in reverse; Sociology, science and historiography; Classics and interpretation: in search of a notion of discontinuity; Unilinear history, or returning to the problem of order and the great divide; Functionalism and structural-functionalism, consensus and conflict theory; Beyond historical linearity)

Jens Kaalhauge Nielsen , Are There Cultural Limits to Inclusion? An Analysis of the Relation between Culture and Social Evolution in Talcott Parsons' Theory

(The religious framework of Parsons' intellectual ideas; His father's creed; The logic of Parsons' theodicy; On the concept of secularization; Some critical considerations; The fate of culture in the modem world; Is there a place for a communitarian view of culture in Parsons' theory of social evolution?).

Serie: Sociologia

Subjects: Sociological Theory and History of Sociological Thought

Level: Scholarly Research

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