action theory & the human condition

 

preface

 

                The present volume is the promised sequel to Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory, published by The Free Press in the summer of 1977.   As a sequel it is, relative to the promises made in its predecessor, only a few months late, which seems to me to be a creditable performance, especially since a substantial part of the extra time was taken by the author for last minute revisions, especially of Chapter 15, which is here published for the first time. 

 

                As compared with its predecessor this volume, though the bulk of it also consists of previously published essays, has a different emphasis.  The preceding collection, it may be said, in a relative sense looked more toward the past.  This is true above all of Part I of it, which dealt especially with matters significant to my intellectual career and its development.  In a somewhat different sense, it was true of Part II, which presented four papers that may be said to have been particularly significant in consolidating my theoretical position as an analyst of the social system, and very tentatively looking toward further systematization of the analysis of the general system of action (Chapter 10). 

 

                Though the difference is relative, the present volume looks more to the future ~ not, of course, primarily from the personal point of view of the author, who has already exhausted most of his career time span, but along the lines of theoretical development that I hope I will be remembered as having done something to initiate and stimulate. 

 

                Concern with the idea of evolution permeates both volumes, and this applies not only to the evolution of theory but also of action systems in an empirical sense. Readers of both will, however, note that the present volume is first concerned substantially more with the general system of action as compared with the stress, in the case of its predecessor, on the social system. Thus all of the sections into which the essays of this volume are divided concern boundaries of the general system of action.  This is relatively obvious for the groups dealing with health, in its relation to the organic world, and religion, in relation to what we call the "telic" world.  However, it is also true of the treatment of higher education in its relations to cognitive culture and to science generally, including the physical and biological sciences and, of course, certain aspects of philosophy. 

 

                Indeed, the analysis of this book may be said to head up to its concluding chapter, "A Paradigm of the Human Condition," which, as noted, is here published for the first time.  I think its genesis is adequately explained in the introductory materials.  Here it is sufficient to say that the logic of the line of theoretical development that I have been following throughout my intellectual career has for some time been pointing to the necessity of going, in systematic terms, beyond even the general system of action, to attempt to work out something at a still more general level - namely, that which is here called the human condition. 

 

                The boundary of the general system of action that is most prominently involved is the one vls-a-vis the organic system, a theme which figured prominently in the last collection of essays.  We should not, however, neglect the importance of much further exploration of the boundary relations between the system of action and the physical world, starting perhaps from the recently developing subdiscipline of the sociology of science.  And, not least, just possibly there are new opportunities for intellectual progress in understanding the critically important boundary problems between the action system and the "telic grounding," as we have chosen to call it, of action in the human condition. 

 

                This particular way of "looking toward the future" is, among the possibilities available, highly selective. Nonetheless, this avenue has caught not only my own imagination, but also that of a small group of collaborators.  It may not prove to be the least important of the possibilities with which the complex intellectual culture of our time has come to be concerned.  This is, however, in no way meant to disparage other lines of concentration on the intellectual future, notably the more technical developments internal to the established disciplines.  For persons defined as sociologists, this clearly includes not only the further development of empirical knowledge in our field, but also the more technical theoretical development, specifically of the theory of the social system.  My venturing beyond that area-in a sense of level of generalization-by no means implies that I feel that all the problems within it have been solved.  Quite the contrary!  I do feel, however, that putting such problems in a more general framework can contribute importantly to making progress in their solution.  Perhaps the final section of Chapter 15, dealing with the articulation of human biology with kinship structure at the social level, can serve as an example of this potential. 

 

                I should like to take this occasion to express my appreciation to The Free Press for being willing to include in the present volume an updated version of the bibliography of my personal publications.  After an interval of nearly a decade, this should prove useful to various interested people.  Then this is the occasion to express very special thanks to Ms. Mounira Charrad.   As my research assistant through the period of preparing both the present volume and its predecessor for the press, she has contributed much faithful, detailed, and imaginative work, without which neither book could have been successfully completed. 

 

Talcott Parsons

October 1977