Cosensus and Conflict Theorists
Cosensus and Conflict Theorists
Cosensus and Conflict Theorists
Structuralism is a top-down, deterministic perspective that examines the way in which society as a whole
fits together. Functionalism and Marxism are both structuralist perspectives: as such, they both perceive
human activity as the result of social structure.
In social action theory, Weber believes that bureaucratic organisations are the dominant institutions in
society. Weber believes that bureaucracies (institutions) consist of individuals carrying out rational social
actions designed to achieve the goals of bureaucracies. Weber views the whole development of modern
societies in terms of a move towards rational social action. Thus, modern societies are undergoing the
process of rationalization.
Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) was an American sociologist who served on the faculty of Harvard
Universityfrom 1927 to 1973.
Social Order. Much like Durkheim, Parsons was concerned with the problem of social order, "how, if
individuals were really separate entities pursuing their self-interest, there could be any order at all: How
could there be anything but disorder?"
Theory. The sociology of Parsons was primarily theoretical, with little empirical content. Rather, Parsons
wrote several long theoretical treatises, integrating concepts and theories from the classical sociologists with
his own ideas and interpretation. Unlike Marx, Weber, or Durkheim, Parsons does not lay out a
methodology for the study of sociology or the social sciences. Instead, he attempted to build large
theoretical framworks which dealt with concepts from all the social sciences.
Robert K. Marton (1910-2003) was an American sociologist. He spent most of his career teaching
atColumbia University, where he attained the rank of University Professor.
Merton's structural-functional idea of deviance and anomie. Merton's theory on deviance stems from his
1938 analysis of the relationship between culture, structure and anomie. Merton defines culture as an
"organized set of normative values governing behavior which is common to members of a designated
society or group".
Louis Pierre Althusser (1918 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher.
His contribution to theoretical debate within Marxism generally is marked by three texts: For Marx, Lenin
Philosophy and Reading Capital. The first two are collections of essays, the third is an examination
of Capital presented in a seminar at Ecole Normale Superieure in 1965.
and
b. Action
For Mead, mind arises out of the social act of communication. Mead's concept of the social act is relevant, not
only to his theory of mind, but to all facets of his social philosophy. His theory of "mind, self, and society" is, in
effect, a philosophy of the act from the standpoint of a social process involving the interaction of many
individuals, just as his theory of knowledge and value is a philosophy of the act from the standpoint of the
experiencing individual in interaction with an environment.
There are two models of the act in Mead's general philosophy: (1) the model of the act-as-such, i.e., organic
activity in general (which is elaborated in The Philosophy of the Act), and (2) the model ofthe social act, i.e.,
social activity, which is a special case of organic activity and which is of particular (although not exclusive)
relevance in the interpretation of human experience. The relation between the "social process of behavior" and
the "social environment" is "analogous" to the relation between the "individual organism" and the "physicalbiological environment" (Mind, Self and Society 130).
There are, of course, experiences which are somewhat vague and difficult of location, but the bodily
experiences are for us organized about a self. The foot and hand belong to the self. We can see our feet,
especially if we look at them from the wrong end of an opera glass, as strange things which we have difficulty
in recognizing as our own. The parts of the body are quite distinguishable from the self. We can lose parts of the
body without any serious invasion of the self. The mere ability to experience different parts of the body is not
different from the experience of a table. The table presents a different feel from what the hand does when one
hand feels another, but it is an experience of something with which we come definitely into contact. The body
does not experience itself as a whole, in the sense in which the self in some way enters into the experience of
the self (Mind, Self and Society 136).
Herbert George Blumer (1900 1987) was an American sociologist whose main scholarly interests were
symbolic interactionism and methods of social research.
Believing that individuals create social reality through collective and individual action, he was an avid
interpreter and proponent of George Herbert Meads social psychology, which he labelled 'symbolic
interactionism'. Blumer elaborated and developed this line of thought in a series of articles, many of which were
brought together in the book Symbolic Interactionism. An ongoing theme throughout his work, he argued that
the creation of social reality is a continuous process. Blumer was also a vociferous critic
of positivistic methodological ideas in sociology.