Talk:Talcott Parsons

message: This article appears to have been hastily constructed and is in severe need of rewriting—or at the very least, an editor with a keen eye for detail.
: Indeed. It looks as if someone has just dumped an entire undergraduate essay of theirs into this article. I've made some minor adjustments to the chronology of thing, tried to form a proper brief opening paragraph etc (it was about 1000 words long), but Parsons is not a theorist I specialise in. WHITE KNIGHT (preferably with a phd in social theory) URGENTLY REQUIRED!! --Tomsega (talk) 15:20, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's strangely almost a really decent article, except that it's incredibly long and unstructured, and the use of English in the biography section, in particular, is hardly academic!!
It is not an undergrad essay.  It is a hagiography of Parsons stanboy  written by a retired prof of sociology who got his Phd between the 50s and 70s and is bitter that Parsons, although clearly the central figure in Post War US sociology from 50s to 70s is completely and totally ignored by the field today.  Even in the lsit of people he influenced, there significance is not in applying or extending his theories, but for something else, often in disagreement with him.  What empirical work came from AGIL that still stands up and g3ets referred to???   Parsons was a complete dead end. 
The anti-Nazi stuff is there because he was in fact too close to that wing of the German Intelligentsia that stayed in Germany but didn't get suppressed by the Nazis. If you stayed and didn't get oppressed then the Nazis didn't view you as a threat.  IF the Nazis didn't oppose you, you must have been VERY VERY conservative and right-wing.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:BD0:75CE:B7F4:1A76:291B (talk) 06:02, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hastily constructed 

message: One of my mentors alleges that Parsons' translations of Weber were flawed.  As I am not fluent in German I cannot confirm or deny these charges?  If there is merit to said accusations, however, they should be noted in the article.  What does it say about Parsons and structural-functionalism if Parsons misinterpreted Weber (either intentionally or out of ignorance) and then went on to publish some of his key works according to his own falty translations.  Again, however, I am not making such accusations but merely relaying them to fellow inquirers.  Can someone who either (1) has read multiple translated versions of Weber, or (2) is fluent in German, comment on the validity of the Parsons translation? M. Frederick 08:09, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm only reading this now, one and a half year on, but it's certainly interesting enough to warrant a response. The problem is that your statement is terribly unspecific. I think nobody is prepared to go through hundreds of pages to hunt down mistakes. We would need more hints as to what exactly is supposed to be "flawed" and what misinterpretations these flaws have resulted in. And even if it turns out your mentor is right, noting this in the article would violate WP:NOR unless your mentor has published his concerns in any citeable form. --Thorsten1 (talk) 13:14, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

text: I've merely linked Iron cage and Protestant Ethic in the translations section, and these details are provided on those pages.  I felt this was simplest but may not be unreasonable to repeat some of the story on this page...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:37E0:5FF0:7CE6:81FD:7175:7E22 (talk) 13:14, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parsons' Translation of Weber 

message: I'm really not sure why this page would attract vandalism, but it certainly has.  See the following passage of the article, which I'm not sure what to do with (breakdancing and hip-hop rapping - apparently an insult for the vandal...?):
"Parsons contributed to the field of breakdancing and hip-hop rapping. He divided evolution into four subprocesses: 1) differentiation, which creates functional subsystems of the main system, as discussed above; 2) adaptation, where those systems evolve into more efficient versions; 3) inclusion of elements previously excluded from the given systems; and 4) generalization of values, increasing the legitimization of the ever-more complex system."
I've reverted to the version immediately before this strangely random vandalism.
Fixifex 18:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 11/8/2007

message: I removed the following list of publications about the work of Parsons. Such a list has little added value here. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 23:01, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further reading section removed 

message: What was the source for the middle names? His family is unaware of any middle names, and the family genealogy does not list any middle names. (I'm his grandson, and his daughter is in the room as I type).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dauwhe (talk • contribs) 23:47, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Middle Names 

message: * Alexander, J.C. 1982. Theoretical Logic in Sociology. Vol. I. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
* Alexander, J.C. 1984. “The Parsons revival in German sociology”, Pp. 394-412 in R. Collins (ed.). Sociological Theory 1984. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
* Brownstein, L. 1982. "Talcott Parsons' General Action Scheme: An Introduction to Fundamental Principles". Boston: Schenkman Press.79.74.39.14 (talk) 15:08, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further readings 

message: @Maria. Dreadfully unaesthetic is just a matter of taste, and is not a good reason. We can't just eliminate all expressionistic art. The missing source information is another thing, we do should look into. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 17:24, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I am quite aware that it is merely a matter of (my) taste, Mdd, but nowhere did I say that it should be removed from the article for that reason.  WP:IDON'TLIKEIT is never a good argument.  I agreed with Thorsten1's sentiment that it's ugly, but I do not feel the image should be used because of suspected copyright infringement.  Follow?  María (habla conmigo) 17:48, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I also agree this image is quite ugly, but it certainly also has it's charm. Especially if you see the two, drawing and picture, together, you can see the artists clearly created a more "depressed" Parsons figure. There can only be a copyright infringement, if you have an image which the same expression, which is far from clear. But... at the moment both the artists and the background data of the drawing is unclear... and that is to bad. The only positive point is, that we will soon be allowed to use the fair use image, Jiuguang Wang uploaded. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 18:40, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I restored the source information... which probably only got lost, because it was moved incorrectly. The artist is Japanese and has made a series of similar portrets, see here. So this point is off the table..!? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 20:39, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright infringement 

message: It's a little odd that here Parsons' primary accomplishment is stated as developing action theory, yet the article on that subject, including a long list of "Scholars of action theory," fails to include him.  Lacking the relevant expertise myself, can someone explain the discrepancy? Sestibel (talk) 07:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Meanwhile, Structural functionalism, a paradigm attributed to Parsons in that article, is not even mentioned here! Sestibel (talk) 07:52, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've created (or rather spliced) an opening paragraph which (1) mentions he was a functionalist, and (2) acknowledges the fact 'social action' leads to a philosophy page which has no real bearing on Parsons own use of the term by NOT TAGGING those words!! --Tomsega (talk) 15:41, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Action theory

message: The description reads: 
:"Photograph taken in April 1964 by Jeremy J. Shapiro at the Max Weber-Soziologentag. Horkheimer is front left, Adorno front right, and Habermas is in the background, right, running his hand through his hair." 
It would be interesting to know who the remaining depicted persons are. 
Among the other participants of the conference on Max Weber in Heidelberg April 1964 of who I've read were Herbert Marcuse, Ernst Topitsch, Raymond Aron, Talcott Parsons, Reinhard Bendix and Benjamin Nelson (Sociologist.
My guess is that Talcott Parsons is the man on the left, covered halfway by Horkheimer, while Reinhard Bendix is the man talking with Habermas with his back to the camera, covered halfway by Adorno. 
Does anyone know more? --Schwalker (talk) 16:58, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:File:AdornoHorkheimerHabermasbyJeremyJShapiro2.png]]  

message: This article is very long - at 159KB, it's well over the recommended maximum length for an article, making it difficult to read and edit. Are there any sections that could be split off into separate articles, per Summary style? Robofish (talk) 12:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we need to pull a huge amount out of the summary of his thinking... there's currently so much that it goes through decade by decade. It's ironic that this article suffers from the same problem that Parsons suffered from, being excessively long and dense. I'm fairly biased against Parsons so I'll leave it to someone else to decide what should be cut... I'm going to go read some C. Wright Mills instead :D 203.217.150.68 (talk) 01:18, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

text: Undoubtedly too long -- it is, in fact, (looking at a dump from a month ago) the longest article about a person on wikipedia Mynameisntbob1 (talk) 17:05, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article size issues 

message: This article gives the sense that nobody has ever critiqued any of Parsons' work?  Does anyone know of any critiques?  Should a section on criticism be added?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.41.102.207 (talk) 15:34, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Critiques of Parsons' theories 

message: Parsons' action theory can be characterized as an attempt to maintain the scientific rigour of positivism, while acknowledging the necessity of the "subjective dimension" of human action incorporated in hermeneutic types of sociological theories. It is cardinal in Parsons' general theoretical and methodological view that human action must be understood in conjunction with the motivational component of the human act. In this way social science must consider the question of ends, purpose and ideals in its analysis of human action
I mean, am i the only one thinks this is awfull ? also, theintor sucks; no way it is at the right level for a general encyclopedia  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.195.10.169 (talk) 23:55, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: parody of academic prose

message: I describe the contribution of The Structure of Social Action to the meaning of instrumental action in Instrumental and value-rational action.  I welcome comments.TBR-qed (talk) 15:23, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parsons on instrumental action 

message: I came to this article for a quick refresher about what I should remember about Taclott Parsons from undergrad and I wasn't able to quickly glean that from the lead or the rest of the article, so I feel like something key is missing or that the wording needs to be adjusted, but I can't put my finger on it. Right now, the first paragraph says: "" If we were making notecards of prominent sociologists to study for the Soc 101 final, what would the other side of Talcott Parsons' notecard have said? It wouldn't have been that he was on the Harvard faculty. Maybe it would have said "Structural functionalism", but I'm doubting myself because of the way that's currently addressed in the lead, both the wording and its placement towards the end: "" IMO the first paragraph should say something like:
:"Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 – May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist known for XYZ. He served on the faculty of Harvard University from 1927 to 1973."
But I'm not confident I remember what XYZ is. Any ideas? —PermStrump(talk) 20:38, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Something's missing, a little je ne sais quoi... 

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thread_title:  External links modified