H Staubmann

JA Schumpeter

JH Turner

M Weber

N Luhmann

NJ Smelser

R Stichweh

R Swedberg

R Vanderstraeten

RC Baum

S Hein

T Parsons

Vanderstraeten, Raf

Ghent University Academic Bibliography

1Continuity and Change in Parsons’2Understanding of Rationality3Raf Vanderstraeten4The chapter that Talcott Parsons prepared for the Parsons-Schumpeter Seminar on5Rationality in the Social Sciences consists of not more than five and a half pages. It6also gives the impression of being a hastily drafted, somewhat incoherent text,7which mainly reiterates arguments presented in the chapters on Vilfredo Pareto in8The Structure of Social Action (Parsons 1937, 1968a). In the period around 1940,9when the Seminar on Rationality took place at Harvard University, Parsons seemed10to have lost much of his original interest in discussing, revisiting, and11complementing economic approaches to the nature of rationality and the rational12pursuit of self-interest.13In the autobiographical essay “On Building Social System Theory: A Personal14History,” Parsons shed some light on his own intellectual trajectory and academic15career—including the period after the completion of The Structure of Social Action.16In the late 1920s, he had entered Harvard University through the Economics17Department. But in the course of the following decade, he transferred, both intel-18lectually and institutionally, from economics to sociology. Relatively late, in 1939,19he received tenure in Harvard’s Department of Sociology. “In spite of the friend-20liness of [the economists] Taussig, Gay, and Schumpeter, I am quite sure I could not21have counted on a future in economics at Harvard. But basically I did not want to do22so. . . Though I wanted to keep my contact with economic theory, and in fact have23done so in various ways, I saw clearly that I did not want to be primarily an24economist, any more than Weber turned out to be” (Parsons 1970, 1977: 32).25Parsons, however, also explicitly referred to the Seminar on Rationality in the26Social Sciences:27“There was one interesting episode which might, at a relatively late time, have turned me at28last farther in the direction of economics. After my formal transfer to sociology,R. Vanderstraeten (*)Center for Social Theory, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgiume-mail: Raf.Vanderstraeten@UGent.be© Springer International Publishing AG 2018H. Staubmann, V. Lidz (eds.), Rationality in the Social Sciences,DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-62377-1_1529 Schumpeter organized a small discussion group with younger people, mostly graduate30 students, on problems of the nature of rationality. After a few meetings he proposed to me31 that the group should aim at producing a volume, of which he and I should be at least32 coeditors, if not coauthors. Though not specifically rejecting the proposal, at least imme-33 diately, I remembered having reacted rather coolly, and in fact I let it die. I am not wholly34 clear about my motives, but I think they had to do with the feeling that I needed a relatively35 complete formal break with economics.” (1970, 1977: 32–33)36 Despite his career change, Parsons’ decision to “let it die” is a remarkable one.37 Parsons was some 20 years younger than Schumpeter. While he was in the late38 1930s in an early stage of his career, Schumpeter was a well-established economist39 and an ex-minister of finance, who had also expressed his willingness to support40 Parsons’ career within the Harvard setting. Parsons described Schumpeter’s pro-41 posal as “flattering . . . for a young and still insecure scholar” (1970, 1977: 35).142 Moreover, problems of rationality remained central to Parsons’ sociological theory43 throughout most of his career. Some commentators have even argued that Parsons’44 sociological project can be defined as an ongoing reflection on the meaning and45 limits of rationality (see Stichweh 1980; Hein 2009). It therefore seems relevant to46 pay attention to transitions in Parsons’ understanding of rationality. Next to Par-47 sons’ formal transfer from the Economics to the Sociology Department at Harvard,48 such transitions might also have affected his collaboration with Schumpeter.49 I will now proceed to highlight some lines of continuity and change in Parsons’50 understanding of rationality in order to shed light on his decision to “let it die.” I51 will, more particularly, point to a basic transition in Parsons’ understanding of52 rationality in society—from an individualized, actor-oriented conception of ratio-53 nality to one which deals with rationality as value pattern at the level of social54 systems. The first indications of this transition can already be observed in work on55 the professions, on which Parsons embarked shortly after the publication of The56 Structure of Social Action (e.g., Parsons AU11939, 1954). But The American University57 (Parsons and Platt 1973), which is the last monograph that Parsons saw into print,58 also contains elaborate discussions of the problem of rationality. Perhaps Parsons’59 chapter on cognitive rationality in that monograph might be read as his full chapter60 for the Seminar on Rationality, which took place more than three decades earlier.61 On the following pages, I argue that the tensions which accompanied the62 transitions in Parsons’ understanding of rationality account for Parsons’ ambivalent63 attitude toward the publication project with Schumpeter and others in the period64 around 1940. By focusing on the shifting architecture of his theoretical account of65 rationality and modern society, I intend to discuss this transition—or this process of1Schumpeter had been one of the supportive reviewers of the manuscript of The Structure of SocialAction for the Committee on Research in the Social Sciences (which had financed Parsons’research). At the same time, however, Schumpeter was in this report one of the first to commenton Parsons’ cumbersome prose: “The author has in fact so deeply penetrated into the Germanthicket as to lose in some place the faculty of writing clearly in English about it, and some turns ofphrase become more fully understandable only if translated into German” (cited by Swedberg inSchumpeter 1991: 97). For more background information on the relation between Schumpeter andParsons, see also Allen (1991: 98) and Swedberg (2015).R. Vanderstraeten66“continuity and change,” as Parsons typically liked to put it—in somewhat more67detail. Although facing the risk of oversimplification, I hope to show some lines of68transition in the large body of scholarly work that Parsons produced in the course of69about half a century.70The Structure of Action71In his early writings, Parsons advocated using an “analytical realism” to build a72coherent theoretical or conceptual framework for sociology. In The Structure of73Social Action, he stated that this theoretical framework had to consist of a74limited number of important concepts that “adequately ‘grasp’ aspects of the75objective external world. . . These concepts do correspond, not to concrete76phenomena, but to elements in them which are analytically separable from77other elements” (1937, 1968a: 730). Much like Max Weber, Parsons argued78that theory had to involve the development of concepts that grasp the systemic79features of the universe without being overwhelmed by empirical details. Social80theory, more particularly, had to reflect significant features in the organization81of social phenomena. For Parsons, the “voluntaristic theory of action,” presented82in a number of early essays and in The Structure of Social Action, constituted an83important step in this direction.84Critically building on the writings of classical economists, such as Marshall and85Pareto, Parsons took the “problem of the rationality of action” as starting point for86his reflections on the nature of modern capitalism. In The Structure of Social Action,87he maintained that there was “obviously a very solid common-sense foundation for88attributing a large importance to rationality in action. We are all engaged in89multifarious practical activities where a great deal depends on the ‘right’ selection90of appropriate means to our ends, and where the selection, within the limits of91knowledge current at the time and place, is based on a sound empirical92knowledge. . . [T]here can be no question of the pervasiveness of the rational case93in all systems of human action” (1937, 1968a: 57).94Parsons not only linked rationality with the use of empirically sound knowledge.95He also connected the concept of rationality with what economists called the96process of want satisfaction. The model of the individual homo economicus, who97strived to satisfy his wants to obtain his goals in the most efficient way, constituted98the paradigmatic example of rationality: “the process of want satisfaction is itself99the most general and obvious meaning of rationality of action” (1937, 1968a: 133).100In many ways, the analyses Parsons presented in his early work departed from such101an economic, utilitarian conception of rationality at the individual level (“Crusoe102economics”). So also did Parsons’ emphasis on the “unit act” and its basic constit-103uents in The Structure of Social Action. The point of departure of Parsons’Continuity and Change in Parsons’ Understanding of Rationality104 “analytical realism” was a critique of the writings of classical economists. He did105 not reject the basic assumptions of this approach but aimed to modify and comple-106 ment them.2107 In a discussion of Pareto’s logical norm of rational action, for example, Parsons108 put emphasis on the “theoretical significance” of Pareto’s approach. Pareto had109 been able to “define rigorously one of the principal types of norm governing the110 means-end relationship” (1937, 1968a: 191). At the same time, however, he also put111 stress on the limitations of Pareto’s approach. He proposed a “slightly different use”112 of the norm. In this light, he defined the aim and program of The Structure of Social113 Action in the following terms: “The most important questions for further inquiry114 will be, what is the rest of the structure of acts and systems of action of which a115 norm of this character can form a part and at what point does the ‘logical’ norm fit116 into this structure?” (1937, 1968a: 191). Stated somewhat differently, Parsons’ aim117 was to situate the concept of rationality in action within a broader framework,118 within which the nonrational conditions and components of action could also be119 taken into account.120 To arrive at this framework, Parsons proposed several modifications to the121 existing conception of rationality. Already in his early essays, in which the relation122 between economics and sociology was an explicit topic of discussion, he stated that123 rationality, defined in terms of economizing or exploiting means in order to achieve124 ends, is not “a descriptive generalization . . . [but] a norm of rational action” (1934:125 520, orig. emphasis). Economic “laws” were very different from “Newtonian or126 Einsteinian formulae.” The empirical relevance of rationality “rests on the circum-127 stance that men do in fact try (nor merely ‘tend’) . . . to ‘exploit’ the conditions of128 their lives rationally in order to satisfy their wants. This idea of a norm which men129 can be conceived as striving to attain by effort is something entirely foreign to the130 ‘positive’ physical sciences” (1934: 520, orig. emphases). For Parsons, a sociolog-131 ically adequate theory of action thus had to be based on a “voluntaristic” founda-132 tion. “Effort,” as he put it in The Structure of Social Action, “is a name for the133 relating factor between the normative and the conditional elements of action. It is134 necessitated by the fact that norms do not realize themselves automatically but only135 through action, so far as they are realized at all” (1937, 1968a: 719).136 Parsons tried to develop this “voluntaristic” theory of action in two different137 directions. On the one hand, he aimed to include the nonrational components or138 conditions of action. A theory of action not only had to account for rational action,139 for the rational pursuit of self-interest. He also looked for ways to distinguish this2In an article on utilitarianism, written for the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences,Parsons later also wrote: “The primary focus of utilitarianism was on the process of actiondesigned to satisfy given wants of individuals—that is, on goal-attainment, or want-satisfaction,whichever way it was put. The process was understood to be one of choosing means that wouldeffectively gain the end. Since this conception was inherently ‘teleological’, . . . it required somenormative reference beyond the more desirability of being satisfied. This was the origin of thefamous concept of rationality in the restricted sense of choosing those means and concretebehaviors that are ‘best adapted’ to attainment of the end” (1968b: 229).R. Vanderstraeten

Continuity and change in Parsons’ understanding of rationality

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