The Changing Foundations of the Parsonian Action Scheme

Abstract

How are the basic categories of Parsons' theory obtained? In pursuit of an answer, this paper traces the decline of voluntarism with the passage of time in the Parsonian action scheme. The voluntarism, of the prewar scheme, including its derivative polemic against behaviorism as a variant of positivism, appears now to have been replaced by programmatic behaviorism. But the postwar texts are persistently equivocal at every point where they can be compared to the voluntarism of the prewar scheme; these points involve the subjective reference and the normative orientation of action. The differences between the preand post-war schemes lead to differences in substantive hypotheses, particularly on the nature of norms and normative control. The paper finally considers whether norms and values need to be the kind of independent variables that they are (though for different reasons) in both versions of the action scheme.