Biography parson talcott

The structure of social action: A study in social theory with special reference to a group of recent European writers. New York: McGraw-Hill.

To counteract the social theory then dominant in the United States, when social Darwinism reigned supreme in understanding social life, the book stands in opposition to utilitarianism as well as behaviorism and positivism.

The methodological concern is that the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness” (Whitehead) must be avoided when acknowledging that facts need a conceptual framework (Henderson). The works of four European thinkers—Alfred Marshall, Vilfredo Pareto, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber—serve as the material basis on which he argues for a two-pronged structure of social action, in which sociology has explanations that neither econo