Harold J. Bershady - Ideology and Social Knowledge

Originally published in 1973 by Halsted Press, a division of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

First published 2014 by Transaction Publishers

Published 2017 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2013035085

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bershady, Harold J.
Ideology and social knowledge / Harold J. Bershady.
pages cm
Originally published in 1973 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-4128-5368-2
1. Parsons, Talcott, 1902-1979. 2. Knowledge, Sociology of. I. Title. HM479.P38B47 2014
301--dc23

2013035085

ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-5368-2 (pbk)

ISBN: 9781351513753 (ebk)

Acknowledgements

Introduction to the Transaction Edition

To the memory of my mother and sister

I wish to thank these friends for their encouragement and good counsel in the writing of this book: Henry Cooperstock of the University of Toronto, David Lavin of the City University of New York, Charles Rosenberg of the University of Pennsylvania, and Leslie Sklair of the London School of Economics and Political Science. In particular, I am most indebted to Joseph Elder of the University of Wisconsin who carefully read an early version of this study and whose expert knowledge of Parsons thought prevented me from making many errors of interpretation; and Herminio Martins of St. Anthonys College, Oxford, with whom lengthy discussions of many of the philosophical issues contributed greatly to the clarification of my own thinking.

There have been notable developments in sociological theory since this book was written forty years ago. Some have been deeply influenced by philosophy, especially the work of Jrgen Habermas, Nicholas Luhman, Hans Joas and, not quite as directly, Robert Bellah and Shmuel Eisenstadt. Although many aspects of the studies of these scholars are related or complementary, there has been scant epistemological analysis of their work. The result has been that with the exception of the commanding place Talcott Parsons action theory had forty years ago, sociological theory today resembles something of a patchwork. There are many brilliant insights. New directions have been taken. Greater historical depth has been reached. The cultural foundations of Western civilizations and parts of Eastern ones are better understood. And not least, there are beginning studies of social experiences, such as tacit features in communication, in the reaching of agreements, and in relationships of love. Whether the theories underlying these studies can be related to one another is an open question. Whether they should be related to each other is, to put it diplomatically, also an open question.

However, it is the underlying premise of this book that the explanatory power of a theory is dependent on two featuresthe economy of its assumptions and the range of its implications. There is no current theory that can compare with action theory in these two respects. There are many things that action theory cannot or cannot yet explain. There remain ambiguities within action theory that need clarification. Yet the strength of action theory has been due to its bringing together and relating several different theories into one. But what is the nature of the assumptions of that one theory? On what do these assumptions themselves restare their grounds empirical, logical, heuristic? How solid are these grounds? These are among the questions that animated the study undertaken in this book.

The chief criticisms this book received were two. One is that the economic issues central to Talcott Parsons early work were ignored. The other is that the book is more philosophical than sociological. Both criticisms are correct. The economic issues, namely, the substantive non-economic categories Parsons believed necessary for the analysis of economic activity, were not of concern to this book. The question the book explores is the meaning of the necessity of these non-economic categories. What are the grounds for the claim that they are necessary? Why were these kinds of categories devised rather than others that are not necessary but are sufficient? Do these necessary categories affect the kinds of explanations that can be had of economic activity, and, if they do, in what ways? These are questions of the meaning of knowledge. They are epistemological questions, and are philosophical by definition. But it is an epistemology geared specifically to the social theory that Parsons was constructing. The book attempts to bring out the nature and design of Parsons categorial scheme, to clarify the rationale of this design, and to suggest aspects of the explanatory structure that would be consistent with these categories. The books objective is to gain greater self-awareness of certain theoretical features of an important segment of the discipline.1

Theories that address other aspects of social life than the ones Parsons was working on, phenomenological and interpretive theories in particular, have not yet received careful epistemological analysis. Some analysis of phenomenological knowledge was begun by Alfred Schutz.2 More analysis of Schutzs work and of phenomenological studies produced by other scholars is needed. The work of Dilthey, Simmel, and Max Scheler remains a challenge for further epistemological clarification.

The categorial structure implicit in interpretive studieslinguistic, temporal, explanatoryalso remains as yet not well examined. Dilthey in the nineteenth century and Gadamer in the twentieth have written intelligible and extensive works on the logic of interpretive methods and clarified their characteristics. The epistemological substrates of the knowledge these methods yield now await unearthing.3 Such unearthing would facilitate more clearly defined comparisons and potential rapprochements among them and other social theories. It is at the categorial level that genuine consolidation among viewpoints can be made. As we have learned from the experiences of other disciplines, most recently from microbiology, theoretical consolidation is a precondition for greater advances in knowledge. This is true for all the sciences, not only the natural sciences. Not the least in this respect, the method of convergence Parsons employed so successfully in advancing the scope of action theory, bringing together the apparently disparate work of Weber, Durkheim, Pareto, Marshall, Freud, and others, is a prime example of consolidation at the categorial level.4 Consolidation is an ongoing challenge and task.

The next expansion Parsons undertook of the theory of social action occurred shortly after this book was published. (No causal relation was involved.) This and two further expansions of importance will be noted briefly and with a minimum of comment. In 1974, with the collaboration of three of his former students, Willie De Craemer, Rene Fox, and Victor Lidz, with me, and with additional inputs from the historian of science and biology A. Hunter Dupree, the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, and especially the sociologist Robert N. Bellah, Parsons embarked on an extension of action theory that he identified as a paradigm of the human condition. Up to the construction of the human condition paradigm, action theory was geared to analyzing the nature of