Talcott Parsons Quotes

• Science is intimately integrated with the whole social structure and cultural tradition. They mutually support one another-only in certain types of society can science flourish, and conversely without a continuous and healthy development and application of science such a society cannot function properly.

  Talcott Parsons

  Topics in Uncategorized

• Thus, in general, in the first instance, the direction of interest in empirical fact will be canalised by the logical structure of the theoretical system.
  Talcott Parsons

  Talcott Parsons

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  Tags in Direction

• Theory not only formulates what we know but also tells us what we want to know, that is, the questions to which an answer is needed.

  Talcott Parsons

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  Tags in Theory

• The system becomes logically closed when each of the logical implications which can be derived from any one proposition within the system finds its statement in another proposition in the same system.

  Talcott Parsons

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  Tags in System, Closed

• The part an actor played on stage was once written on a separate roll of paper.

  Talcott Parsons

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  Tags in Actor, Stage

• The main concern of the study is with the outline of a theoretical system. Its minor variations from writer to writer are not a matter of concern to this analysis.

  Talcott Parsons

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  Tags in Concern, Study

• The importance of certain problems concerning the facts will be inherent in the structure of the system.

  Talcott Parsons

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  Tags in Problems, Facts

• The implications of these considerations justify the statement that all empirically verifiable knowledge even the commonsense knowledge of everyday life – involves implicitly, if not explicitly, systematic theory in this sense.

  Talcott Parsons

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  Tags in Consideration, Justify

• The hypothesis may be put forward, to be tested by the s subsequent investigation, that this development has been in large part a matter of the reciprocal interaction of new factual insights and knowledge on the one hand with changes in the theoretical system on the other.

  Talcott Parsons

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  Tags in Forward

• The functions of the family in a highly differentiated society are not to be interpreted as functions directly on behalf of the society, but on behalf of personality.

  Talcott Parsons

  Topics in Family, Society

• The conception that, instead of this, contemporary society is at or near a turning point is very prominent in the views of a school of social scientists who, though they are still comparatively few, are getting more and more of a hearing.

  Talcott Parsons

  Topics in Society

• That is, a system starts with a group of interrelated propositions which involve reference to empirical observations within the logical framework of the propositions in question.

  Talcott Parsons

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  Tags in Group

• Spencer’s god was Evolution, sometimes also called Progress.

  Talcott Parsons

  Topics in God, Progress

• Special emphasis should be laid on this intimate interrelation of general statements about empirical fact with the logical elements and structure of theoretical systems.

  Talcott Parsons

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  Tags in Emphasis, Intimate

• Of course there may well be particular reasons why Spencer rather than others is dead, as there were also particular reasons why he rather than others made such a stir.

  Talcott Parsons

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  Tags in Course, Particular

• Now obviously the propositions of the system have reference to matters of empirical fact; if they did not, they could have no claim to be called scientific.

  Talcott Parsons

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  Tags in Obviously, System

• It is that of increasing knowledge of empirical fact, intimately combined with changing interpretations of this body of fact – hence changing general statements about it – and, not least, a changing a structure of the theoretical system.

  Talcott Parsons

  Topics in Knowledge

• It is probably safe to say that all the changes of factual knowledge which have led to the relativity theory, resulting in a very great theoretical development, are completely trivial from any point of view except their relevance to the structure of a theoretical system.

  Talcott Parsons

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Safe, Change

• In so far as such a theory is empirically correct it will also tell us what empirical facts it should be possible to observe in a given set of circumstances.

  Talcott Parsons

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  Tags in Theory

• If there are four equations and only three variables, and no one of the equations is derivable from the others by algebraic manipulation then there is another variable missing.

  Talcott Parsons

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Variables

Talcott Parsons (27)

Birth:	13th December, 1902
Death:	8th May, 1979
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Sociologist

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