The Social System

Talcott Parsons, Parsons Talcott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415060554
• eBook ISBN: 9781134927746
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book brings together, in systematic and generalized form, the main outlines of a conceptual scheme for the analysis of the structure and processes of social systems. It carries out Pareto's intention by using the "structural-functional" level of analysis.

INDEX

IN THE Preface and at various points throughout this book it has been noted that many of the background concepts important to the book are more fully discussed in the monograph of Parsons and Shils' Values, Motives and Systems of Action in Toward a General Theory of Action (Parsons and Shils, editors, Harvard University Press, 1951). For the convenience of the reader who wishes to follow up some of the problems involved in the definition and use of these concepts this note is inserted.

In the nature of the present work, only limited attention could be given to many of the psychological concepts most relevant to it. Fuller discussion of these will be found above all in Chapter II of the monograph, “Personality as a System of Action,” and in briefer form, in the “General Statement,” Part I, Chapter I of the volume. The strategic concept need-disposition will be found defined and analyzed in both these places, and its relation to other motivational concepts like “drive” discussed. In the same chapter the reader will find a considerably fuller discussion of the mechanisms of personality, with an attempt at their systematic classification, than has been possible here. Further, the concept optimization of gratification is defined and elucidated in that chapter.

Also, the very central concepts or interaction, the “parad...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• ROUTLEDGE SOCIOLOGY CLASSICS
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Preface to the New Edition
• Bibliography of Talcott Parsons
• I. The Action Frame of Reference and the General Theory of Action Systems: Culture, Personality and the Place of Social Systems
• II. The Major Points of Reference and Structural Components of the Social System
• III. The Structure of the Social System, I: The Organization of the Components into Sub-Systems
• IV. The Structure of the Social System, II: Invariant Points of Reference for the Structural Differentiation and Variation of Societies
• V. The Structure of the Social System, III: Empirical Differentiation and Variation in the Structure of Societies
• VI. The Learning of Social Role-Expectations and the Mechanisms of Socialization of Motivation
• VII. Deviant Behavior and the Mechanisms of Social Control
• VIII. Belief Systems and the Social System: The Problem of the “Role of Ideas”
• IX. Expressive Symbols and the Social System: The Communication of Affect
• X. Social Structure and Dynamic Process: The Case of Modern Medical Practice
• XI. The Processes of Change of Social Systems
• XII. Conclusion: The Place of Sociological Theory Among the Analytical Sciences of Action
• Index