toys in the attic:
ideological furnishings for the homeless mind

daurril library: talcott parsons

 

Toward a General Theory of Action - 3:40 PM 7/24/01

 

 

1  PART 1 The General Theory of Action - 4:06 PM 7/24/01

 

2 RICHARD C. SHELDON

 

Some Observations on Theory in Social Science¹

 

                Social science deals with one sector of the activity of human beings.  Basically, activity can be considered to be any expenditure of energy of any part of the organism.  It includes the biochemical processes which go on in the body. But social science does not deal with biochemical processes as such; they are in the domain of physiology.  Social science is concerned with activity as related in some manner to things outside the organism itself -  activity in terms of principles of relationship - and its basic task is to discover such principles and develop them into a coherent body of science.

 

                By "things outside the organism itself" I do not necessarily mean material entities with independent existence.   Such things as beliefs and images of the self and its capacities of course do not exist independently except insofar as they may be written down on paper; but it is true that they are developed in the course of contact with independent entities, usually other people.   A relatively small number of things such as bodily pains may have no apparent external connections, and parts of the body are not outside the organism, but they can be behaved toward as though they were separate entities.  In general, "things outside the organism itself" includes those things which can he behaved toward and which may exist in the past, present, or future, in material or nonmaterial form.  Their designation is an integral part of the principles expressing the relationship between them and the organism which manifests activity; hence we need be concerned with their existence or location only as a part of the theoretical structure which we erect.

 

                Since social science does not deal with activity in all its forms, abstraction is necessary.  The sector of activity which is abstracted for study can be called by any convenient term.  Behavior is one possible term, but it generally connotes observable bodily movements and does not include thoughts, and it often refers to individual styles of movements which may or may not he relevant to the study at hand.  A more neutral term and one which has gained some currency in social-scientific thought is action, the term which has been adopted for this book. Action is activity which is related in some manner, by principles of relationship (or one may prefer the term interrelationship), to things outside the organism.  It is the basic unit with which social science deals.

 

                ¹ I am grateful for discussions and criticisms to Professor Clyde Kluckhohn and Edward C. Tolman and to Drs. Florence Kluckhohn, Gardner Lindzey, and Ivan D. London.   I have incorporated many of their suggestions in this article, hut the final form of the article is my own development, and the responsibility for any possible misuses of their suggestions is of course mine.

 

Some Observations on Theory 31

 

                This basic unit may be broken down into certain components.  Environment refers to all those things "outside" the organism to which action may be related. Situation refers to the organism and the environment in theoretical relationship but without action of the organism having taken place.  Both terms, environment and situation, involve abstraction, but of different types.  In describing environment one must abstract because one cannot describe everything. In describing situation one abstracts because the principles of relationship which are involved select features of the environment and of the organism for study, and the abstraction is done in terms of the theory which designates the principles of relationship.  The features of the environment which are abstracted in the study of situations are objects; the abstraction from the organism is the actor. Although the situation consists of both actors and objects, it is convenient to speak of actors and situations as though the two were to some extent independent concepts: one speaks of actors in situations.  If more precision is necessary for certain purposes, one can use the term object situation as differentiated from the total situation, which includes both objects and actors.  It is actors in situations who act (manifest action); organisms in environments have activity. In other words, that which impinges upon our senses and which our measuring instruments record is the activities of organisms in environments; what we deal with on the scientific level are the actions of actors in situations, which are abstractions in terms of principles of relationship.

 

                The crucial problem of social science is to develop these principles – to develop, in other words, the principles of action.  The major portion of this hook represents an attempt toward a solution of this problem.  The principles of action, the operational ways in which they are connected to sense data, and the logical modes of their relationship to one another form the theoretical structure of social science. Because of the importance of the problem, it is useful to discuss at some length some of the characteristics of such a theoretical structure.

 

                Possibly the most fundamental statement which can he made about the general principles that make up a body of science is that these principles are the free creations of the human intellect, as Poincare' has shown: ² they do not necessarily reflect something inherently "given" in the phenomena observed, nor do they come from the inherent makeup of the human mind. 

 

                ² Henri Poincare', "Science and Hypothesis," The Foundations of Science (New York The Science Press, 1929).

 

32 The General Theory of Action

 

Therefore they are not imposed by the material dealt with.  They are useful in a practical sense, however, only insofar as they can be identified in some manner with sense data, so that they can be used to predict occurrences which can he observed.  Thus, although there is an infinite range of possibilities open in forming principles, experiment can indicate which are most useful for present purposes.  To take a simple example, it is well recognized now that Euclidean geometry is based on a set of postulates which are not self-evident truths but are a set of conventions regarding the use of such terms as line and point. Because operations can be found to connect these terms with sense data, and because Euclidean geometry in connection with these operations produces predictable results for a certain range of phenomena, Euclidean geometry is useful. But assumptions of postulates other than Euclidean ones produce geometries which are consistent and do not lead to contradictions, and for certain purposes these non-Euclidean geometries have proved to be more useful than Euclidean geometry.  One cannot, however, say which geometry is true, for the geometries are products of the intellect and are not imposed by nature.  Likewise statements involved in such general principles as the law of inertia are not descriptions of pure facts which can be observed as such; they are conventions regarding the use of certain terms - definitions of expressions such as uniform motion along a straight line.  We cannot be sure whether we are observing uniform motion or a straight line in any absolute terms, terms imposed by the data themselves.   Instead we develop operations which if they produce certain results are said to indicate that uniform motion along a straight line has taken place.  By doing this we have made an operational definition of a general principle.  The principle itself is the free creation of the human intellect; the operations are necessary to connect it with sense data.  Only after it has been so connected can we subject it to experimental test to see whether or not it is useful.

 

                It can be seen from the above that for a system of propositions to have scientific meaning it must involve at least two sets of definitions.  One set is a series of conventions about how to use certain terms; the other is a series of conventions about how to attach these terms to observable events.  If the second set is not present, propositions involving only the first set of definitions are not susceptible to observational test and might be factually meaningless although they may be logically perfect.  This does not mean that propositions involving only the first set of definitions - the free creations of the human intellect - should not be developed.  Operational uses of such sets  of propositions may be discovered later~~ the history of non-Euclidean geometry shows.  But in order for such propositions to become useful, they should be stated in terms which can he subjected to operational test when the time comes.  Let us consider a common proposition of social science: "Human beings act as if they seek goals," or briefly, "Human beings have goals."  This proposition has a certain observational base: we observe that organisms engage in activity and then cease activity; we say that they have achieved a goal.  Such observation may be called an operational definition of a goal; the idea goal itself is a theoretical construction. But if we let the matter rest at this, the proposition, "Human beings have goals," does not have scientific meaning because the operations used to connect it with observable events are the same operations used to establish the convention about how the term goal is to be used.  The proposition is analogous to one such as "Bodies move when force is applied."  It is a principle which relates the organism to the environment, but it is not useful because it is not stated in terms subject to empirical test . It is merely a statement that goal is one of the concepts that will be used in whatever discussion follows. 

 

Some Observations on Theory 33

 

                In order, therefore, that a proposition be empirically testable it must be stated in such a way that the concepts involved may be attached to empirical data by operations other than those which merely restate the proposition.  Usually this is done by expressing a relationship between two or more concepts, each of which can be defined by independent operations.  Then what is tested is whether this relationship is stated correctly or not.  The concepts and postulates of a theoretical system are by their nature untestable, but if from them logical conclusions are drawn and stated in terms of a relationship, it can he shown whether this stated relationship is correct or wrong, provided the relationship is stated precisely enough.  The logical system which enables conclusions to be drawn and stated in terms of relationships is the third ingredient of a scientific theoretical structure; the first ingredient is the concepts and postulates, the free creations of the mind, and the second is the operational ways in which these concepts are attached to sense data.  Because it is the relationships and not the other ingredients that are tested, this third ingredient is of enormous importance. This is why mathematics is such a powerful tool, because in mathematics one has at hand a magnificently developed system for drawing logical conclusions and because relationships can be stated with great precision by the use of that simple symbol, the equals sign.  I do not propose here to enter the controversy as to whether the social sciences should be mathematized or can he mathematized. 

My purpose is to point out the necessity for very careful examination of the processes by which logical conclusions are drawn in the social sciences and of the terms in which relationships are stated, for it is only with these processes and terms that we can test the usefulness of our concepts.

 

34 The General Theory of Action

 

                In the social sciences relationships are usually stated in terms of the language of the person who describes them.  The implications of this should be carefully examined.  Let us take a purely hypothetical example.  Suppose that in a given society it is observed that infants are brought up to their mothers' breasts but have to spend some time seeking the nipple before they get nourishment.  It is also observed that there is a high amount of creative intellectual effort among the adults of this community: they seek new ideas.  One might relate the one set of these seeking actions to the other. I have no doubt overdrawn this example to get the point across, but the point is this: there is an implicit assumption here that whenever the term seeking, as commonly understood, can be applied to two sets of data, these data are equatable.  Modern linguistics has shown that the implicit categories embedded in language are such that one should subject such a procedure to careful analysis before placing too much reliance in it.³  The use of language in this manner is often felt to be justified because there is a common feeling that "the social sciences have not advanced far enough yet to use more exact methods of the natural sciences."  The result is that investigators often go on developing more and more observational categories without worrying much about how these categories can be related to one another.

 

                But if a consistent body of social scientific theory is to be developed, one must give considerable thought to the relationship of categories.  One of our most prominent theorists of science, Philipp Frank, has this to say about the nature of theory:

 

                The traditional presentation of physical theories frequently consists of a system of statements in which descriptions of observations are mixed with mathematical considerations in such a way that sometimes one cannot distinguish clearly which is which. It is Poincare's great merit to have stressed that one part of every physical theory is a set of arbitrary axioms and logical conclusions drawn from these axioms.  These axioms are relations between signs, which may be words or algebraic symbols; the important point is that the conclusions that we draw from these axioms are not dependent upon the meanings of these symbols.  Hence this part of a theory is purely conventional in the sense of Poincare'. 

It does not say anything about observable facts, but only leads to hypothetical statements of the following type: "If the axioms of this system are true, then the following propositions are also true," or still more exactly speaking: "If there is a group of relations between these symbols, there are also some other relations between the same symbols."  This state of affairs is often described by saying that the system of principles and conclusions describes not a content but a structure.⁴

 

If the system of principles and conclusions that make up a scientific theory describe not a content but a structure, then an adequate theory for the social sciences must take into cognizance the means whereby by structural relationships are established.  A multiplication of observational categories which are related more or less intuitively by the structure of the language of the observer is not sufficient for really rigorous theory; it produces what one may call metaphorical theory.

 

                ³ See, for example, B. L. Whorf, Four Articles on Metalinguistics (Washington: Department of State, Foreign Service Institute), 1949.

                ⁴ Philipp Frank, Modern Science and Its Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949), p.12.

 

Some Observations on Theory 35

 

                It is important to remember that the relationship between the symbols in the theory is contained in the theory itself and not in nature.  Gravity, for example, is a relationship between symbols in Newtonian mechanics, not in nature, and it disappears in relativity mechanics.  The conclusions we draw from it are not dependent upon the meanings of the symbols.   Lack of the realization of this fundamental fact of the construction of theory can lead to difficulties.  Such difficulties are at the bottom of the dissatisfaction that many social scientists feel with the functional approach in social science, which assumes that every action has the function of promoting the maintainance of a system, either a multipersonal, sociocultural system or a stable personality.  "Function" is a principle relating action to object, but it is dependent upon the meaning of the symbols related; the relationship is assumed to be in nature.   We can say that eating is functional because it promotes maintenance of the life of the actor, but it serves no end to say that A is functional because it promotes B. Such a statement has no meaning apart from specific meanings of A and B, which means that it contains nothing that enables us to draw logical conclusions about other relationships, and hence the axioms of the theory are not testable.  The relationships are assumed to be in nature, and the theory has content but not structure. All one can do with such a theory is to fill in the content, and the end result can be statements such as, "Suicide is functional because it promotes peace of mind." ⁵

 

                Let us consider an example from social science in which there is a structure apart from the meanings of the symbols. One of the things anthropologists are concerned with is the degree of behavioral fit to ideal patterns.  Given a tribe with a certain culture, the anthropologist can determine what per cent of the tribe's members do a certain thing which is ideally prescribed; then if the anthropologist is confronted by another settlement or tribe with an identical culture, he can predict what per cent of its members will do the same thing. Stated very briefly, the reasoning process involved is something like this:

                1.  Given A, B, C (usually actions or products of action), we say that X (a cultural pattern) is present.

                2.  Having determined X in a situation P (a tribe), we observe that such and such a percentage of R's (actors) do S (an action or group of actions) - (S is usually connected in some way with A, B, or C, but for the purposes of this example, the connection is irrelevant.)

                3.  We then set up the hypothesis that given X, such and such a percentage of R'5 do S.

                4.  In situation Q (another tribe), we observe A, B, and C.

                5.  Therefore X is present and we predict that in situation Q such and such a percentage of R's will do S.

                6.  This prediction is then subjected to experimental test.

 

                ⁵ The above discussion has been confined to the narrow functional concept that all actions must he functional.  However, if it is considered that some actions may be dysfunctional, or functional in one context but dysfunctional in another, the basic point of the discussion nevertheless remains unchanged.

 

36 The General Theory of Action

 

                Such a line of reasoning is structural; it arrives at the expression of a relationship which by its nature can be shown to be true or false,

and operations can be designed to connect the categories used with sense data.  But although neutral symbols without meaning can be used to show the reasoning process - that is, although the relationships can be stated independently of the meaning of the symbols used - and although the categories used can be called operational, let us not say that the meaning of the symbols is irrelevant or that the formulation is operational to the extent of being merely a sum of defined operations.  Any set of propositions such as the above is rooted in a great deal of observation and intuitional hunch that derives directly from the content of the things observed. Such a simple distinction as that between situation P and situation Q is made because situations P and Q originally had meaning, and the distinction is far from purely operational: although operations can be devised to distinguish the two situations, the fact that the distinction is made or is thought to be possible involves a reasoning process that comes before the operations and is quite distinct from them.  Thus, although the system of principles and conclusions that makes up a theory indeed describes not a content but a structure, the devising of the theory involves far more than mere formal manipulations of symbols with meanings which are purely "operational": it involves immersing oneself first in the facts as known and then getting some good intuitions.

 

                I emphasize this point because I have noticed that it is often thought that the facts follow the theory, on the grounds that all observation is in terms of a conceptual scheme.  While it is true that all observation is in terms of a conceptual scheme and that a fact is a sense datum in terms of a conceptual scheme,⁶  this does not mean that one must have a fully worked out theory in order to do any observation at all. 

The history of science indicates that the most fruitful theories have been those developed to explain known facts: the motions of the planets were fully known before Newton provided laws from which to derive these motions.  From the original theories are then deduced additional facts to be discovered in nature, but the starting point has been the setting up of principles from which already known facts could be derived, and these known facts have usually been quite limited in range.  Theories which encompass many facts start from a few. 

 

An example of this sort of thing is given in the reasoning process outlined above: the culture pattern X. 

Why, it may be asked, does one need this culture pattern? 

Why not merely say, given A, B, and C, such and such a percentage of R's do S? 

Such a statement would be analogous to one such as: given day, night follows. 

The culture pattern relates S to A, B, and C and tells us why S should be expected. 

For the purposes of the reasoning process, I said that the relationship of S to A, B, and C, was irrelevant, but it was irrelevant only because of the intent of the example.  For the purposes of building a theory of action, it is very relevant, for then the same principles evolved to relate A, B, and C also extend to S; and the more S's that can be subsumed under one or a few principles, the more adequate the theory is.  The aim of the theory is generality.  But the theory begins with the relating of A, B, and C - known facts - and then is gradually extended to other facts.

 

                ⁶ See Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1937), p.41.

 

Some Observations on Theory 37

 

                How has the development of general theories - theories which fit a wide range of facts -  proceeded?  I am speaking here of those theories which produce statements that can he shown empirically to be true or false, not of theories which are general systems of knowledge.  Usually they have begun by fitting a small range of facts, and as they were extended to fit more facts, they have been changed and have become more and more complicated and cumbersome.  There may also have been a number of disparate theories which fitted the same or similar facts.  Finally a fundamental revision of the theory has been made which has restored simplicity, and then the process has begun all over again.  Such at least has been the course of development in physics.  I do not by any means maintain that the same kinds of theories which are used in physics must be used in the social sciences, but the spectacular successes of the theories in physics at least suggest that the procedure followed in devising these theories might be fruitful for the social sciences.  If something like this procedure is not followed, the theories of social science are in danger of being too far removed from the observational facts of activity; and while such theories may be useful as means of organizing thoughts, it is difficult to produce from them statements the affirmation and denial of which imply a difference capable of empirical test, which is the only way the theory may be given practical meaning.  In general, the most fruitful all-embracing theories are developed from relatively small beginnings, and although they are free creations of the human intellect, they are rooted in observational fact (some of the theories of mathematics are exceptions, but these theories were developed as logical systems and not as models for events of physical existence).

 

                Let us sum up the argument to this point.  The crucial problem of the social sciences is to develop the principles of action into a theoretical structure or structures.  Such structures, like all theories, consist of certain categories and axioms which are free creations of the human intellect; in the case of social science these are abstractions from organisms and environments and the relational principles which deal with these abstractions.  By means of various operations the free creations can he attached to sense data.  The structural aspect of the theory is produced by means of some system of logical derivations whereby there are stated relationships other than those originally stated in the categories and axioms. These derived relationships are the statements that are put to empirical test, and such derivations must be made if the theory is to have factual meaning.  The categories and axioms are devised through familiarity with the data and with the help of intuition, and through refinement of already existing theories.  Their starting point is the setting up of principles from which we can derive already known facts of rather limited range, and the use of the principles is then extended to encompass new facts, which may be discovered through logical derivation from the theory or may become known through other sources.

 

38 The General Theory of Action

 

                The setting up of a theory or theories of action, or indeed the setting up of any scientific theory, involves the assumption that action is ordered, that there is a certain regularity which permits of systematic study.  Strictly speaking, the statement that there is order in action means this: that there can be set up a set of principles of such a nature that a very large number of actions can be derived from the principles.  In other words, we do not need a different set of principles to explain each individual action, and hence action, or at least large segments of it, can be predicted. In speaking of individual actions, we must recognize the possibility that there may be large numbers of individual actions that are not predictable, just as in physics single subatomic events are not predictable, but that in the aggregate many such actions average out or converge,⁷ which makes the application of general principles possible.  It must be remembered that the order is in the principles and that different kinds of order will emerge with the use of different kinds of principles; as long as this is remembered, it is acceptable to say, for simplicity's sake, that action is ordered.  On a simple level, we know that much action is ordered - we know when neckties will be worn, that the language which is comprehensible today will be comprehensible tomorrow, and so forth. On a more complex level, certain aspects of the ordered features of action have crystallized into foci of study.

 

One such focus has been the actor qua actor, or the actor as distinguished from other actors in similar situations.  Actors exhibit certain regularities of action over a period of time and also exhibit what might appear to be certain inconsistencies.  Insofar as principles can be set up from which these inconsistencies can be derived, the inconsistencies are ordered as much as the regularities.  In social science it has become common to impute to the actor certain drives, needs, habits, traits, attitudes, beliefs, cognitions, etc., by which, in the proper admixture, to account for his actions.  The study of these concepts, their content, their mechanisms, their interrelations in the actor, and their positions in the situation constitutes the discipline of psychology. The relatively ordered system of resultant actions in one actor is called his personality.

One of the main foci of interest in psychology is the degree and manner of such ordering. (Remember that action is an abstract concept, that the activities from which it is abstracted are not just simple bodily movements, and that it always implies a relationship.  This is not a Watsonian behaviorism or an oversimplified stimulus-response psychology, although both of these types of psychology would fit in.) 

 

                ⁷ See Ivan D. London, "Some Consequences for History and Psychology of Langmuir's Concept of Convergence and Divergence of Phenomena," Psych. Review, LIII (May 1946), 17O-1~8.

 

Some Observations on Theory 39

 

                A second focus of the study of order in action has been around groups of actors.  There is order in groups of actors - i.e., there are ordered systems of different personalities - of such a nature that it does not become apparent in the study of single individuals and which develops in various lines as more and more actors become encompassed in a study.  This is the field of sociology and social or cultural anthropology. 

It is futile to try to draw a fine line of distinction between the disciplines of sociology and anthropology, but it may be said that in their common field the principles of order fall into two relatively distinct although interrelated types.

The first type of principles derive from the fact that in a given situation there are a certain number of interacting actors with certain characteristics.  The simplest example of this sort of thing is probably the peck order of chickens. 

The second type of principles of order are those that deal with learned, historically transmitted types or patterns of action which do not derive directly from the actors themselves or from the situations as such.  These patterns are part of the body of cu/lure, which also includes the products of action. Of course, culture ultimately derives from actors in situations, but it is transmitted beyond the original actors and situations, and at a given moment only relatively few of its components will be new.  Leaving out psychological considerations for the moment, in any given situation action is partly determined by situational exigencies - that is, it can be treated by principles of order of the first type - but most of the action is determined to a greater or lesser degree by transmitted culture. 

 

                To say that action is determined by culture is, of course, merely a convenient way of speaking. Culture is a theoretical model, and the abstractions and principles from which it is made up are free creations of the mind.  Some of these abstractions and principles deal with matters that are close to the minds of the individual culture bearers, who can tell you, for example, that certain actions are prescribed at certain occasions.  This aspect of culture is usually called explicit culture or some similar term. Other aspects of culture, the implicit cu/lure, are so generalized that in many cases the culture bearers are unable to formulate them - these are the "ways of life," tacit premises about how things are.  All aspects of culture, however, are abstractions from activity, and the abstractions are put together by ordering principles.  These principles refer chiefly to patterned action, the patterns of which are transmissible, and hence one can deal with culture itself alone, without having to refer in each instance to the actions of specific actors in specific situations.  As the structure of cultural theory becomes more highly developed, one is able to treat more and more adequately the makeup of the patterns and the interrelations of patterns among themselves. 

 

It is at present possible, for example, to make statements about the probability of the coexistence of certain types of kinship terminology and residence and about the developmental direction that such complexes can take.⁵ Similar theoretical formulations are needed on the level of implicit culture.  But whatever the nature of the formulation, we must remember that culture is a set of such formulations, a theoretical model, a system of categories and principles set up in such a fashion as to give order to action; or, more loosely speaking, we may say that culture is a system, or structure, of ordered action.

 

40 The General Theory of Action

 

                When dealing with groups of actors, a somewhat different, although related, approach puts more emphasis on particular actors in particular situations.  Situations are grouped, according to regularities of action in them, into institutions; an institution is thus a concept which states that many separate situations have features in common, in terms of principles of abstraction or order, and in which, in the same terms, actors exhibit the same or closely similar actions.  These similar actions are said to be institutionalized if the actors expect them to occur and there are cultural sanctions opposing nonconformity with expectations. In the formal description of institutions the position of the actor is described by saying that he occupies a status.  When he acts in this status he is said to be acting out a role.  Thus institutions are in another sense systems of roles. Institutions, or systems of roles, are grouped into larger systems called social systems. There are other meanings of social system in current usage, but the above is the one adopted in the theory which forms the major portion of this book.

 

                We turn now to a brief examination of this theory from the point of view of the considerations contained in the preceding paragraphs.  The theory, which is presented in Part II, "Values, Motives, and Systems of Action," is an attempt to provide a general basis on which subordinate theories of personality, culture, and social system can be worked out, all using the same or similar categories and concepts, thus providing opportunity for cross-disciplinary fertilization and cooperation and, in the end, for a more or less unified body of social scientific theory.  In the theory of Part II the concepts personality and social system are used much as they have been presented in the preceding paragraphs, but the concept of culture is given a somewhat different meaning from what has been stated above.  Most action which the anthropologist would call cultural is put in the social system (and to some extent into personality) as institutionalized norms, role behaviors, and so forth.  For the category of culture proper is left only systems of ideas and beliefs, systems of expressional symbols (for example, art forms), and systems of value-orientations.  And in the working out of the theory by far the major attention is paid to value-orientations, because much of the theory is concerned with the selection by actors of objects and gratifications in terms of normative prescriptions, in which "should" and "ought" statements - values - play a large role.  This procedure produces a dichotomy in the use of the concept of culture.  That part of what, in ordinary anthropological usage, is generally called culture which is put into the social system and into personality is considered to be an element in the orientation of action; the part of culture that remains as a system in itself is considered to be an object of

orientation.

 

                ⁸ G. P. Murdock, Social StTUCtUTC (New York: Macmillan, 1949).

 

Some Observations on Theory 41

 

                What are the implications of this procedure?  The implications are stated above in the General Statement: "Apart from embodiment in the orientation systems of concrete actors, culture though existing as a body of artifacts and as systems of symbols is not in itself organized as a system of action.  Therefore culture as a system is on a different plane from personalities and social systems."  Culture as a system is thus considered to be a body of artifacts and symbols, not a set of theoretical principles for ordering action as such.  Action is considered to be confined to specific actors in specific situations.  It would be foolish to worry about whether a certain item of action should be put into a category labeled "culture" or "social structure," but one may legitimately inquire whether something may not be lost by confining the application of theoretical principles to specific actors in specific situations, particularly when one is dealing with implicit culture.  In the past there has been demonstrated the utility of dealing with basic action configurations in terms that are not specifically situational; in fact, aspects of action patterns in specific situations can only be derived from the more general configurations.  Such a category as Benedict's "Dionysian," for example, is not action in a specific situation, nor is it a system of ideas, expressional symbols, or values considered as objects toward which action can be oriented, although it colors all of these things.  It is an ordering principle, a free creation of the intellect.  It is a principle which orders action just as the principles involved in the conceptions of personality and social system order action.

 

                Culture, personality, and social system - all three - are theoretical models, systems of free concepts and principles.  All are abstractions from activity and relate activity to things outside the organism.  If this fact is accepted, one can by definition restrict culture to objects and put the ordering principles of culture all in personality and social system if one wants to; but one does this by definition and not because of the inherent nature of action or of the concepts personality, social system, and culture.  In its opposition of "action" systems (personality and social systems) to culture, which "is not organized as a system of action," the proposal for a theory of action contained in Part II of this book seems to be making a classification along the lines of what is conceived to be the inherent nature of the concepts.  And by doing so it rules out some of the demonstrated benefits of the use of the concept of culture and also rules out future developments of this concept along lines which have been shown to have been fruitful.  Of course, if such a ruling out is done from purely logical considerations, one should not object to it for a priori reasons but must await empirical demonstrations that it constitutes an advance in our conceptual treatment of action. Such a demonstration is always possible, and in any event a demonstration of usefulness is the final criterion no matter how the theory is arrived at.  But if the ruling out is done from what appears to be a misconstrual of the theory at hand, and if it appears that the ruling out restricts the usefulness of conceptual advances already made, then a reexaminahon of the theory is in order.

 

42 The General Theory of Action

 

                As the title of this book indicates, the theory of action which will be presented in the following pages does not purport to be a final, fully worked out theory.  In large measure it is a statement of the categories, or variables,which are to make up a complete general theory for the social sciences.  In the General Statement which introduces the book it is stated that "the present statement . . . is a formulation of certain fundamental categories which will have to enter into the formulation of this general theory."  These categories are designed so as to codify and provide a common language for existing knowledge in all branches of social science and to facilitate common effort in increasing knowledge.  Such categories are needed and are highly useful.  But I believe that one should make with considerable caution statements that such and such a set of categories have to be used.  Considering the nature of theory in general, one can never be sure that one's categories are the best possible for handling the data at hand; and as I have pointed out, the experience of science has shown that a set of data does not impose theoretical categories which have to be used.  This is a matter of fundamental importance and is not hairsplitting.  Mechanistic physics got into a cul-de-sac in the later nineteenth century by assuming that observations had to be presented in terms of what Frank has called "a certain preferred analogy" ⁹ - the laws of Newtonian mechanics - and it was not until it had been shown that there was nothing in nature which imposed such a theoretical framework that physics was able to progress into fields which had hitherto been thought to be inaccessible.  In social science it should always be recognized that no matter how fruitful a theory or approach has been, it may be possible to make a great advance by completely revising the categories of that theory.  A fruitful approach should be followed through as thoroughly as possible, but it should not be taken as gospel.

 

                The basic assumption of Professor Parsons and Shils's proposal for a theory of action (see Part II) is that the actor strives to achieve goals.  In his goal-seeking the actor is oriented to objects, and the orientation is assumed to be in three modes: cognitive, cathectic, and evaluative.  These modes are the basic principles which relate actors to objects and are thus the basic principles by which activity is conceptualized as action.  Objects of orientation are assumed to be relevant in the situation because they afford alternative possibilities and impose limitations on the ways of gratifying the needs and achieving the goals of the actor.  Orientation of action toward these objects hence entails selection.  Actors, objects, and modes of orientation (principles relating actors to objects) being the basic conceptual material of personality, culture, and social systems, it should be possible to provide a unified basis for the development of these latter three categories in terms of the basic conceptual material.   A very complicated classification and cross-classification of modes, objects, and alternative possibilities of selection among them is developed which crosscuts and intermingles with the concepts of personality, culture, and social system and allows the categorization of a tremendous number of kinds of action.  The theory is indeed an all-embracing one, and the potentialities for developing a unified social science theory are high, provided one can give factual meaning to the categories in terms of operations and provided one can derive from these categories relationships subject to empirical test.

 

                ⁹ Philipp Frank, Einstein, His Life and Times (New York: Knopf, 1947), p.47.

 

Some Observations on Theory 43

 

                It is on these two "provideds" that the theory will stand or fall, and for the present we must await their full testing.  The theory of action as it now stands does not purport, as I have said, to be developed to the state of being a complete general theory for the social sciences.  It is a system of categories, which belong - speaking in terms of abstract theory - to the type of concepts which have been called here free creations of the intellect (this does not mean, of course, that the categories have been created out of thin air; they are based on years of empirical work by social scientists).  The other two major ingredients of a general theory are not specifically contained in the theory of action as presented in Part II:

the operations whereby the categories are to be connected to sense data, and the principles independent of the original assumptions whereby relationships subject to empirical test can be derived.  The theory of action in its present form is propounded to be used for "describing the state of the system at a given moment" (see General Statement) rather than for "dynamic" analysis - describing changes in the system through time.  But a description of the system at a given moment here means classifying action according to the categories of the theory, and such a classification remains in the realm of the untestable assumptions of the theory.  Testable relationships can be derived from categories regardless of whether the system is considered to be changing or not, and it is the derivation of these relationships which is the immediate problem; dynamism refers merely to a certain type of derived relationships. 

The theory of action is not used in this general derivational manner in its present state of development.  It can be used to say, "Given the present state of the system, certain variables must be present in certain situations," but such a statement is a definition of what the state of the system is assumed to be and of what the variables are, not an independent derivational statement.  If it is recognized that such a statement is not imposed by the nature of the data treated but is a freely created theoretical supposition, then the way is cleared for developing the necessary theoretical and operational procedures for deriving from it relational statements susceptible to empirical test.  When this is done, we shall have a complete theory.

 

44 The General Theory of Action

 

                In the body of social science as it now exists there is much to aid in the development of this complete theory.  In particular, there are many operations already developed to connect hypothesis with sense data.  If these operations can be co6rdinated with a set of general categories such as are contained in the present theory of action, much will be gained in generalizing the present departmentalized categories of social science.  It is not the purpose of this chapter to outline specific ways in which this should be done. The history of science indicates that such a procedure should be closely coordinated with experiment and applied first to the explanation of relatively restricted areas of already known facts, and each step in the procedure could in itself be the subject of a complete article.  My purpose here has been merely to indicate the kind of statements and assumptions which the experience of science has shown to be nontestable and what it has shown to be testable, and how inherently nontestable but necessary assumptions are utilized in developing fruitful theories.  If the various components of a theory are recognized for what they are, one can stay out of blind alleys and one can most efficiently direct his energies toward developing ways for predicting action, which is the final goal.  The theory of action presented in Part II is not complete as it stands, nor is it supposed to be complete, but if its development produces results, it provides promise, because of its wide range, of being an important step toward that goal.