Search results

Recounts personal experiences as a graduate student in Harvard U's (Cambridge, MA) Dept of Social Relations during the time of Talcott Parsons to examine how Parsons's systems theory became the dominant international theoretical orientation. The 1948/49 interdisciplinary proseminar in the department & the aims of the basic social science approach there are detailed, & faculty & student backgrounds, faculty-student relations, & intradepartmental conflicts are described. Parsons was in control of his main intellectual project -- framing a theory for a democratic social system. He managed to convert his many students to his belief that his theory of social action was all encompassing, & he then sent them out to disseminate the theory. Even though the number of students exposed increased exponentially, it was also the commanding prestige of Harvard & the efforts of professional organizers in the discipline that spread the theory so widely. 1 Appendix. M. Pflum

Rad započinje razmatranjem odnosa između ekonomske i društvene teorije, pri čemu autor naglašava paralelizam u konceptualizuciji društvene racionalnosti i iracionalnosti. U nastavku, autor razmatra poslijeratni razvoj društvenih znanosti i izrastajuću teorijsku fragmentaciju, koja je uzrokom brojnih nedostataka u tumačenju političkih, ekonomskih i društvenih fenomena. U zaključku, autor izlaže niz analitičkih naputaka za konstrukciju novog ekplanatomog modela u sociologiji. ; The paper analyzes the development of social science perspectives in the twentieth century. It focuses on the relationship between empirical reality and social and economic theory. After discussing the inadequacy of the current sociological enterprise, the author proposes a set of theoretical assumptions for a new explanatory model of political, economic and social realities.

Post-WWI political & economic analysts focused on the irrational dimensions of political & economic processes to solve problems like depression, business cycles, the adverse consequences of a free market economy, & social disintegration as a result of these problems. They assumed that sociology & economics shared common assumptions about social behavior. Keynesianism became the dominant economic theory until the mid-1960s, with Talcott Parsons's structural-functional systems theory the dominant sociological counterpart. More recently, a plethora of lifestyle & moralistically grounded theories on social behavior have been introduced. Research methods today are inadequate to describe & analyze current political, economic, & social realities, eg, the unfulfilled expectations of the welfare state, the worldwide economic costs of the Cold & Vietnam wars, unemployment due to technology, the loss of US economic leadership, & ethnic separatism. These issues point to research conceptualizing a worldwide economic system, fluid power differentials, the interconnection of economic & political stability, & new forms of unemployment & underemployment. Irrationality will continue to exist in political, religious, & other forms, as unfulfilled economic expectations, too-rapid urbanization, & hasty industrialization ensue. Individual needs will continue to be irrational, creating a tension for the rational organization of industry, administration, & other large-scale institutions. M. Pflum

In Thorstein Veblen's ideal university, scientific researchers would be autonomous, & would have the goals of inquiry & the pursuit of truth. Veblen's The Higher Learning in America (1965) attributes the failure of the US to generate this university community of scholars to incorporation of business ethics & practices into university administration. Through his teaching positions in several top US universities in the first half of the century, Veblen noted that businessmen had assumed control of the faculty, policy, & curricula. Veblen abhorred religious support for university education, & he did not recognize the linkage between the Puritan work ethic & the Puritan belief that learning was an indirect means to salvation. Given this Puritan tradition, learning & research at the university would hardly be separable from religious goals, as evidenced by the organizational affinities among churches & universities, & the fact that they are both organized as nonprofit corporations. Thus, university researchers have assumed the businessman's practicality & utilitarianism, & present to society the search for solutions to both this- & other-worldly problems. Numerous examples of the twentieth-century affiliations among business, church, & university are cited. M. Pflum