Analysis of Munch's (1981) Parsons and Theory of Action Part One

General theory of action of Parsons shares with critical philosophy of Kant its basic structure and method, its epistemological assumptions, and its object theory since the core of Parsons' theory is that "concrete action is to be explained as a result of the inner laws and the characteristic interrelations of analytically disctinct sybsystems of action" (Munch 1981: 709) so that Parsons's response to the problem of social order lying in interpenetration derives from Kantian transcendental philosophy. Parsons takes normative orientation to be fundamental to conceptualization of action that he understands as an "effort to conform with norms" (Parsons [1937] 1968: 76-77) conceived of in relational terms that map it onto space of regularities. The relation between individual action and environments that affect it as "transcendental normative conditions" (Parsons 1987: 370-371) is formulated by Parsons in clear cognizance of Kant's constitutive impact on both Durkheim's and Weber's theorization of social structure. In the field of applied sociology, Parsons' work, beginning with analysis of Weber's and Sombart's concept of capitalism (Parsons 1928, 1929), extending to economic theories of Marshall (Parsons 1931, 1932) and Pareto (Parsons 1936, [1933] 1968), culminating in discussion of social action within classic sociology (Parsons [1937] 1968), and leading to elaboration of action theory (Parsons 1978a), demands discussion as classical contribution to social theory in its own right.

Although Parsons' sociology has been associated with conservatism (Dahrendorf 1955, 1958; Gouldner 1971; Mills 1959), complicated model building, and theoretical reifications the adequacy of his theory has barely been tested to explore the range and limits of its application. Nevertheless, the groundwork for constructive interpretation (Munch 1976a, 1976b, 1978a, 1978b) and conceptual contributions (Loubser et al. 1976) to Parsons' action theory has been laid. Though the importance of Parsons' work has been ranked very high (Faris 1953; High 1939, 1950), the abstruse style of his writing has led to his theories attracting few followers not least because its complexity has continued to increase over time, which does not diminish his contribution to sociology that similar to philosophy may need to pay systematic attention to its theoretical foundations (Munch 1981: 710-711). Neither general arguments nor global judgments make possible to assess the explanatory power of Parsons' theory that draws its fruitfulness from the "joining of opposites - of general theory development with empirical-practical analysis" (Munch 1981: 711) that continually systematizes its formulation of relations between theoretical logic and social practice.

Parsons has demonstrated that when applied to diverse particular cases his theoretical framework had effect of bringing "considerable clarity, consistency, and continuity" (Parsons 1970: 868) to mutual clarification of both formal definitions of theoretical problems and empirical insight deriving from research proceeding not unlike legal adjudication. The theoretical effort of Parsons has primary importance for mutual reinforcement of explanatory power of both theoretical research and practical problem solving that can supply theoretical constructions with content and empirical intitutions with frames of conceptual reference (Munch 1981: 712). The interpenetration of theoretical concepts and intuitive experience finds it earliest explication in works of Kant that had profound importance for development of Parsons' theories of action and social systems. Via repeated engagement with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason ([1781] 1956b) Parsons's high level of understanding of it was instrumental in structuring his engagement of sociological discourse through the lense of Kantian thinking (Parsons 1970: 876). Since Parsons' theorization of action and social systems follows conceptual track of development of its structure and method that is parallel to the critical philosophy of Kant, the deficiency in historical contextualization that Parsons' work exhibits can be rectified by utilizing Kantian philosophical perspective for the sake of various concretizations of the theoretical framework of Parsons' sociology (Munch 1981: 713).

Previous attempts at assessing correspondences between theories of Parsons and Kant (Bershady 1973) have committed the error of conceiving of Parsons' action theory in narrowly functionalist, evolutionist, and historicist terms whereas Parsons work stresses "interpenetration between categories of the understanding and sense data, between the categorical imperative and hypothetical imperative, between the teleological principle and concrete judgments" (Munch 1981: 713). Parsons integrates into his theory of action the classical contributions of Durkheim, Weber, and Freud that form the underlying conceptual structure that informs without undergoing major change its expansion in his subsequent writing career. Throughout his theoretical development Parsons has stressed the importance of Kant's transcendental arguments (Parsons 1978c). Taking his point of departure from Kant's duality of theoretical categories and empirical knowledge exemplified in practical ethics or aethetic judgment Parsons expands this duality across other fields of science to formulate theoretical structure as "an a priori set of conditions without which the phenomena in question could not be conceived" (Parsons 1978c: 355-356) systematically.

In contrast to Kant, Hume's ([1748] 1902, [1739-40] 1973) empiricism and skepticism reduces knowledge to sense perceptions that bear no intrinsic connection to causal laws formulated by science that finds its support for its claims of necessary correspondence between its generalizations and regularities of experience in belief only. For Kant the possibility of scientific knowledge has as its transcendental condition the interaction between theory and experience that reciprocally verify intellection by empirical data and perception by universal categories without reducing one to Descartes' rationalism or the other to Hume's empricism (Munch 1981: 715). The hallmark of the interpenetration of abstract knowledge and emprirical data is the rational experiment of the Western science developed from the Italian renaissance and English scientistic movement when between 15th and 17th centuries diverse forms of social practice were brought together for the first time (Weber [1920] 1972, [1922] 1973). Central to the critical philosophy of Kant is the transcendental argument that only established connection between a priori categories of judgment and the sensory experience grants universal validity (Kant [1799] 1968: 22, 61-68). Kant's Critique of Practical Reason ([1797] 1967) rejects utilitarian moral theories on the basis of impossibility to derive objective necessity of moral law from individual calculations of utility thereby concluding that judgment founded upon general rules though producing on avearge correct practical decisions cannot make claims for universal validity necessary for formulation of practical laws (Kant 1956a: 37).

Binding moral laws only derive for Kant from the "linking of abstract categories and empirical ethical problems" (Munch 1981: 717) since practical validity cannot approximate universal validity for the reason of its falsifiability on particular grounds so that recourse to theoretical categories is indispensable should universally valid and order-producing laws be established (Kant 1956a: 30). The philosophical foundations of Kantian categorical imperative allows it to organize particular rules according to their universal validity that through interpenetration of logical abstraction and practical utility leads to universal moral order impossible without preventing by their mutual reconciliation conceptual systems from irrelevance and particular rules from incommensurability (Munch 1981: 717). Social development does not inevitably end in such an interpenetration, as Weber ([1920] 1972: 1: 435-438, 2: 143-146) has demonstrated, since whereas concept of natural law has consistently evolved in the West, both in China and in India abstract moral theory and practical regulation were kept in isolation from one another (Munch 1981: 717). Kant's philosophy providing presuppositions of modern scientific and moral judgment allows for reassessment of Parsons' treatment of Durkheim, Weber and Freud in order to shed light on his theory building as systematization of sociology.

Drawing upon Kant's transcendental conditions of judgment, Parsons ([1937) 1968) has been developing his theory of action with the aim of establishing its universal validity, the concern he shared with Durkheim, Weber, Marshall, and Pareto, as he recognized that social ordering directly links to the level of human action that is as much recognized to conform to the criteria of transcendental judgment as do the conceptual formulations of social theories should adequate theory of action be arrived at (Parsons 1978c: 370-371). Enlarging upon works of Pareto, Marshall, Weber, and Durkheim, since his earliest attempts at sociological theory Parsons sought to reconcile the general theory of action with the particular social systems in their interrelationship that is not unlike Kant's development of critical philosophy. Hobbes ([1651] 1966) anchors social order in shared patterns of behavior that forming a system of rational expectations prevent the war of all against all that individual calculations of utility can neither rule out or minimize its possible negative effects in situations where prisoner's dilemma applies unless some distribution of rights is universalized (Munch 1981: 719). For Parsons ([1937] 1968: 89-94) utilitarian action not only does not prevent but is also conducive to socially irrational and destructive consequences that normative distribution of rights and duties prevents by putting the principle of adherence to norms above utility calculation should normative order become a reality.

In Hobbes' ([1651] 1966) view, consistent utilitarianism has as its own limit the rational realization by actors that should lasting security be achieved only sovereign rule can guarantee common order to which their individual power should be transferred that Parsons ([1937] 1968: 93) contests on the grounds that rationality is limited to individual rather then collective level that their immediate situation makes incalculable in utilitatian terms. As long as normative limitations to the utility calculations do not obtain, the normative order is impossible to establish through the force of agreement alone, for the reason of which Hobbesian conception of sovereignty makes its authority unconditional as guarantor of legal accountability (Munch 1981: 720). That utilitarian calculations cannot provide basis for social order demonstrate Hobbes ([1951] 1966) when he opposes the state of nature when trust is absent and social order arrived at through external sanctions, Coleman (1971, 1974a, 1974b) when social exchange fails to produce social order other than via collective resources, and Vanberg (1978) when centralized power to make binding decisions collapses norms into decisions supported by force. Even though according to utilitarian models the individual motivation to accept a social order based on centralized decision-making can come from an ability to impose sanctions, the limitless field of purely utilitarian calculations undermines the possibility of a stable order where changes in the distribution of power resources can undermine an institutionalized hierarchy of power unless a normative limit to utilitarian calculation is posed to prevent an "unlimited struggle for power" (Parsons [1937] 1968: 94).

Arguing that utilitarianism does not offer explanation of social order, Parsons follows Kantian critique of skepticism in postulating that even incomplete realization of social order requires explanation of its existence especially once utilitarian solutions to the problem of order (Ellis 1971; Vanberg 1975, 1978; Schutte 1977) prove to give inadequate account of its conditions of possibility (Munch 1981: 721-722). Neither utilitarian nor normative, Parsons' solution to the problem of order is voluntarist that makes possible to represent society as not "a completely causally determined factual order" (Munch 1981: 722) but one where voluntary consent requires rational justification of norms that interpenetrate with means-ends rationality (Parsons [1937] 1968: 82). The interpenetration means, just as it does for Kant, the existence of a normative boundary to calculation of utility so that together they form the necessary structure that makes rational action possible. In parallel to Kant's treatment of universal validity, logical consistency, and causal laws as following from structured perception, cognitive boundedness, concept formation, and logical conclusions, Parsons examines action as consisting of ends, available means, given conditions, and selection principles (Parsons [1937] 1968: 77-82) that he considers as systemically generative of social order or lack thereof (Munch 1981: 724).

As condition of possibility of social order only categorical principles of action can serve since by combining normative with conditional grounds for action they offer basic dimensions for analytical description of how action takes place (Parsons [1937] 1968: 76-77) as do space and time for Kant's discussion of classical mechanics (Munch 1981: 724). As a matter of Kantian categorical rule, action based on normative principle of action can only lead to social order when exclusion of use of force and fraud is unconditional, when peaceful means of exchange is not enforced by external sanctions, and when motives for action remain constant whether one is in position of power and authority or not. To explain how social order is possible, Parsons maintains that it is necessary to step outside of utilitarian framework of explanation since action based on categorical principle does not follow from common norms, social exchange, or centralized authority (Coleman 1971; Ellis 1971; Vanberg 1978) but from a situation where "categorical obligation toward common norms" (Munch 1981: 725) is constitutive of a social system. Neither means-ends rationality nor obligation to categorical norms can alone produce existing social order but only their historical interpenetration that depends on specific conditions promoting or impeding it that adequate theoretical framework has to reconstruct. Thereby Parsons has provided theoretical articulation of how social change can be explained via reconstruction of interpenetration among institutions that compose social order.

The epistemological, sociological and psychological foundations for Parsons' theorization are provided by Whitehead, Durkheim, Weber, and Freud. Both Kant's and Whitehead's ([1925] 1967) epistemology enable sociology to formulate analytical realism (Bershady 1973, 1977; Parsons 1977b) consisting in foregrounding the role that theoretical frames play in definition, interpretation, and classification of empircal phenomena (Parsons [1937] 1968: 30) that participate in "interprenetration of empirical observation and a theoretical frame of reference" (Munch 1981: 727) that reciprocally differentiates reality, examines causal relations, and develops abstractions. Since the interplay between abstraction from particulars and particularization of abstractions is at the foundation of Parsons' theory, the latter remains unaccessible unless this backrground is brought to bear on elucidation of the "function of analytical schematization" (Munch 1981: 728). While Parsons has borrowed from Whitehead formal aspects of his theory, from Durkheim, Weber, and Freud he adopted substantively sociological, idealist, and biological aspects of conceptualization of action respectively that neither represent nor lead to reductivism.

As opposed to utilitarianism of Spencer, Durkheim ([1983] 1964) asserts the importance of categorically binding rules that in forming preconditon for social exchange should not be subject to utility calculation were societies to avoid moral crises associated with erosion of normative authority. For Durkheim normative order depends not only on obligation but also on desire to accept norms which essentially poses interpenetration between society and personality. Making observance of norms dependent on a group belonging, Durkheim (1973a, 1973b; Parsons 1967, [1937] 1968: 324-408) excessively particularized the connection between personality and society which breaks down either whenever social ties become overly weak (Durkheim [1897] 1972) or whenever institutionalization of norms is insufficient (Durkheim [1983] 1964: 1-31). Durkheim also has demonstrated that norm internalization and personality development do not exclude or take place at the expense of each other since division of labor and autonomy from primary group reinforce each other to the point where comperensive normative order and individualization presuppose one another corresponding to Parsons' interpenetration of social institutions and personality (Munch 1981: 729).

In his comparative study of religion, Weber ([1920] 1972) also refers to interpenetration to explain social change and historical development that for religious ethics and the world produces such four types of their interrelation as accommodation, isolation, reconciliation, and mutual penetration (Munch 1981: 730; Parsons 1963). Worldly accommodation is prevalent in societies where groups promoting categorical norms are not separate from pratical life and social hierarchies, as are Chinese literati (Weber [1920] 1972: 1: 276- 536), which leads to dominance of utilitarian rationality. Reconciliation is characteristic of societies separated into internally organized social spheres, such as castes (Weber [1920] 1972: v. 2), with only weak symbolic integration that makes general normative order impossible. Isolation results from separation of categorical norms as subject of intellectual discourse from conduct of everyday life, as is characteristic of Buddhism (Weber [1920] 1972: v. 2), leading to impossibility of generalized normative rules that could exercise regulatory function across society. Mutual penetration brings institutionally independent spheres under normative control that limits utilitarian calculation with ethical regulation as does Protestant capitalism (Weber [1920] 1972: 1: 17-237).

The formation of medieval city gave strong impulse to the process of interpenetration among religion, economy, and politics (Weber [1922] 1976: 1: 17-236) by bringing the respective communities into proximity that with increased interaction gradually lead to polarizing tensions that after Reformation alternatively strengthened either absolutism of dominant worldly interests or Puritanism of universal ethical conduct (Munch 1981: 731). The normative order characteristic of modernity with its co-existence of universalism and individualism, of rationalism and activism, and of its natural law and commercial law has institutional interpenetration as its major generative structure of which Weber discerned the origins in the West and Parsons systematized into theory of action (Munch 1981: 732).

Freud has contributed the psychological perspective to the theory of interpenetration of society and personality that Parsons saw as important as sociological perspective of Durkheim (Parsons 1953: 15). While Freud's analysis of personality differentiates it into an id, ego, and superego that respectively represent the libidinal drives, external reality, and cultural norms (Freud 1972), emphasizing their interpenetration Parsons points out that they are equally affected by their interrelationship with each other and their social environment (Munch 1981: 732). In the process of socialization Freud identifies forms of object cathexis transfer and differentiation of libidinal objects that are at the basis of progressive internalization of cultural norms and of growing individual autonomy that Parsons summarizes as mutually reinforcing interpenetration (Parsons 1956a, 1956b, 1964a, 1964b; Parsons and Bales 1956).

Parsons lays the foundations of a theory of interpenetration by constructively integrating Durkheim, Weber, and Freud into a theory of action that over the course of its refinement has exhibited widely reaching analytical accounts of relations of interpenetration of subsystems that while possessing their own institutional autonomy allow both for their reconstruction as ideal types and for exploration of "nature and extent of their interpenetration" (Munch 1981: 734) that only in their interaction allow for new levels of the interrelated systemic development, of the containement of tensions among social systems, and of the reproduction of institutional unity and identity (Luhmann 1977a, 1977b, 1978a, 1978b). The theoretical integration of classical sociological perspectives accomplished by Parsons remains peerless since while his efforts are directed at creation of a general theory (Munch 1980s), other attempts at theoretical generalizations mostly reduce Weber to historicist conflict theory (Bendix 1971), reinterpret Durkheim and Weber in realist and utilitarian terms (Pope 1973; Pope, Cohen, and Hazelrigg 1975; Warner 1978), produce idealist reading of Weber's sociology (Tenbruck 1975), and restrict Weber to dialectics between ideas and interests (Schluchter 1976, 1978, 1979).

Different systems do not have to exhibit complete autonomy of their rules and laws to claim independence since they usually rest on different social groups, promote disctinct social practices, and enter into relations of practical interpenetration while remaining analytically separable as would ethics and business. To grasp the dialectics of systemic interpenetration an attention has to be paid to the phenomenon of the zone of intersection between institutionalized spheres where interpenetration between them should not be equated with incorporation of one sphere into another, institutional incompatibility, and expansion of one system at the expense of another (Munch 1981: 735). The dialectics whereby the power and scope of each system in enhanced in the process of interpenetration should not be interpeted in crude functionalist terms of economic determinism (van den Berghe 1963) but rather as a direction of emancipatory development towards growing autonomy and interdependence (Nelson 1969). Over the successive stages of his theoretical development Parsons has refined his approach to analytical differentiation of social systems (Parsons 1951; Parsons and Shils 1951), to differentiation of systemic development and to theorization of the micro-macro link (Parsons, Bales, and Shils 1953), and to systemically specifying the relations of control and interchange among society (Parsons and Smelser 1956; Parsons 1969a, 1969a, 1969c), action (Parsons and Platt 1973; Parsons 1977c), and personality (Parsons 1978c). Matching in its importance the critical philosophy of Kant, the body of theory formulated by Parsons invites the examination of substantive and methodological implications his theory has both for an adequate understanding of classical social theory and for the development of contemporary sociology (Munch 1980a; Munch 1981: 735).