Talcott Parsons famous quotes

04-17-2025

Sociology should... be thought of as a science of action-of the ultimate common value element in its relations to the other elements of action.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Science #Elements #Common
Science is intimately integrated with the whole social structure and cultural tradition. They mutually support one other-only in certain types of society can science flourish, and conversely without a continuous and healthy development and application of science such a society cannot function properly.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Support #Healthy #Culture
Theory not only formulates what we know but also tells us what we want to know, that is, the questions to which an answer is needed.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Answers #Want #Theory
Spencers god was Evolution, sometimes also called Progress.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Progress #Evolution #Sometimes
But the scientific importance of a change in knowledge of fact consists precisely in j its having consequences for a system of theory.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Facts #Theory #Importance
The importance of certain problems concerning the facts will be inherent in the structure of the system.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Facts #Problem #Certain
The part an actor played on stage was once written on a separate roll of paper.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Actors #Paper #Stage
A theoretical system does not merely state facts which have been observed and that logically deducible relations to other facts which have also been observed.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Facts #Doe #States
But the fact a person denies that he is theorising is no reason for taking him at his word and failing to investigate what implicit theory is involved in his statements.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Facts #Failing #Reason
If capitalism begins as the practical idealism of the aspiring bourgeoisie, it ends ... as an orgy of materialism.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Bourgeoisie #Materialism #Ends
A gloss is a total system of perception and language.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Perception #Language #Gloss
Empirical interest will be in the facts so far as they are relevant to the solution of these problems.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Facts #Problem #Relevant
If observed facts of undoubted accuracy will not fit any of the alternatives it leaves open, the system itself is in need of reconstruction.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Alternatives #Facts #Needs
A scientifically unimportant discovery is one which, however true and however interesting for other reasons, has no consequences for a system of theory with which scientists in that field are concerned.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Discovery #Interesting #Fields
The implications of these considerations justify the statement that all empirically verifiable knowledge even the commonsense knowledge of everyday life - involves implicitly, if not explicitly, systematic theory in this sense.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Everyday #Systematic #Consideration
The hypothesis may be put forward, to be tested by the s subsequent investigation, that this development has been in large part a matter of the reciprocal interaction of new factual insights and knowledge on the one hand with changes in the theoretical system on the other.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Hands #Development #May
Special emphasis should be laid on this intimate interrelation of general statements about empirical fact with the logical elements and structure of theoretical systems.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Special #Elements #Facts
It is probably safe to say that all the changes of factual knowledge which have led to the relativity theory, resulting in a very great theoretical development, are completely trivial from any point of view except their relevance to the structure of a theoretical system.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Views #Development #Safe
It is that of increasing knowledge of empirical fact, intimately combined with changing interpretations of this body of fact - hence changing general statements about it - and, not least, a changing a structure of the theoretical system.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Facts #Body #Interpretation
The functions of the family in a highly differentiated society are not to be interpreted as functions directly on behalf of the society, but on behalf of personality.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Personality #Function #Behalf
If there are four equations and only three variables, and no one of the equations is derivable from the others by algebraic manipulation then there is another variable missing.
-- Talcott Parsons

#Missing #Four #Manipulation

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