Talcott PArsons vs. Max Weber: Social Action and Social System
Sociology 233: Theoretic Developments in Sociology IITerm Paper: Talcott Parsons vs. Max Weber: Social Action and Social System Among Talcott Parsons contributions to sociology and functionalism are his theory of action and Parsons's system levels. His theory of action includes how societies are structured and fit together. In this theory of action he includes four systems: the cultural system, the social system, the personality system, and the behavioral organism as a system. Max Weber also has his interpretation of individual actions in the social environment along with their interactions in that environment. Weber addresses these topics from a conflict theorist perspective, although his more micro-sociological approach may seem as if it were from the symbolic interactions perspective. Talcott Parsons addresses these topics from a functionalist perspective. It is important to provide a thoughtful and critical comparison on how the topic of social action and social system are interpreted by these two theorists in order to better understand the topics. Talcott Parsons' Theory of Action will provide the clearest interpretation o
Or, in another connexion, production may be oriented to the future wants of other people. The personality system focuses on individual needs, motives and attitudes, including 'motivation to gratification. To summarize the act briefly, the actor is motivated to reach a goal, which is self-gratifying. ' Parsons' discovered that action systems face four major problems: adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and latent pattern maintenance - tension management. The actor will voluntarily enter a situation which will include elements that he can limit him or which he can exploit to achieve the goal. It is also possible for the behavioral organism system to be related to the social system in the idea that the interaction process is biologically achieved through the central nervous system and possibly motor act!ivity. He based these variables on Toennies' Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft. a social system consists in a plurality of individual actors interacting with each other in a situation which has at least a physical or environmental aspect, actors who are motivated in terms of a tendency to the "optimization of gratification" and whose relation to their situations, including each other, is defined and mediated in terms of a system of culturally structured and shared symbols. ' The social system is interrelated to the cultural system in that the way an actor interacts with other actors is determined by the values internalized in the cultural system. Rationality isn't considered when Parsons outlines his theory of action. " The important comparison we can draw from Weber and Parsons' take on social action is that for one it is a conscious action and not for the other. Imitation, charisma and traditionalism are 'borderline' social actions for Weber because they are often unconscious and seldom fully self-conscious.
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