Talcott Parsons

Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 – May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist working in the classical tradition. He is best known for developing social action theory and structural functionalism, and is widely regarded as one of the most significant sociologists of the 20th century. After completing a PhD in economics, Parsons taught at Harvard University from 1927 to 1973. He joined the faculty of Harvard’s newly formed sociology department in 1930 as one of its first professors, and later played a key role in creating the university’s Department of Social Relations. Parsons’ social action theory was the first broad, systematic, and generalizable theory of social systems to emerge from both the United States and Europe, grounded in empirical data. Among his major contributions to English-language sociology were his translations of Max Weber’s work and his analyses of Weber, Émile Durkheim, and Vilfredo Pareto. These thinkers heavily shaped his perspective and provided the foundation for his own theory. Parsons understood voluntaristic action as being constrained by cultural values and social structures, which ultimately determine all social actions—rather than actions being driven by internal psychological processes. Although he is usually labeled a structural functionalist, Parsons published an article in 1975 arguing that “functional” and “structural functionalist” were inaccurate descriptions of his theory. Starting in the 1970s, a younger generation of sociologists criticized Parsons’ theories as socially conservative and his writing as unnecessarily complicated. Sociology courses have since given less attention to his ideas than during his peak influence from the 1940s to the 1970s. However, interest in his work has recently revived. Parsons strongly advocated for the professionalization of sociology and its growth within American academia. He was elected president of the American Sociological Association in 1949 and served as its secretary from 1960 to 1965. **Early life** Parsons was born on December 13, 1902, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Edward Smith Parsons and Mary Augusta Ingersoll. His father, a graduate of Yale Divinity School, was ordained as a Congregationalist minister and initially served a pioneer community in Greeley, Colorado. By the time of Talcott’s birth, his father was a professor of English and vice-president at Colorado College. During his ministry in Greeley, Edward sympathized with the Social Gospel movement but viewed it from a higher theological standpoint and opposed socialist ideology. **Education**

**Amherst College** As an undergraduate, Parsons studied biology and philosophy at Amherst College, earning his BA in 1924. Amherst was a family tradition: his father, uncle Frank, and older brother Charles Edward had all attended. Initially drawn to medicine, inspired by his brother, Parsons took extensive biology courses and spent a summer at the Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. His biology professors at Amherst were Otto C. Glaser and Henry Plough. Gently nicknamed “Little Talcott, the gilded cherub,” he became a student leader. He also studied under institutional economists Walton Hale Hamilton and philosopher Clarence Edwin Ayres, who steered him toward social science and introduced him to the works of Thorstein Veblen, John Dewey, and William Graham Sumner. Parsons additionally took a course on Immanuel Kant’s philosophy with George Brown and a course in modern German philosophy with Otto Manthey-Zorn, a noted Kant interpreter. From an early age, he showed a strong interest in philosophy. Two term papers Parsons wrote for Clarence E. Ayres at Amherst have survived, known as the Amherst Papers, which are of great interest to Parsons scholars. The first, dated December 19, 1922, was titled “The Theory of Human Behavior in its Individual and Social Aspects.” The second, written on March 27, 1923, was “A Behavioristic Conception of the Nature of Morals.” These papers reveal his early interest in social evolution and also show that he disagreed with his professors: he argued that technological development and moral progress are two structurally independent empirical processes. **London School of Economics** After Amherst, Parsons spent a year at the London School of Economics, where he encountered the work of Bronisław Malinowski, R. H. Tawney, L. T. Hobhouse, and Harold Laski. At LSE, he befriended E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Meyer Fortes, and Raymond Firth, all participants in Malinowski’s seminar. He also formed a close personal friendship with Arthur and Eveline M. Burns. There he met Helen Bancroft Walker, a young American, and they married on April 30, 1927. The couple had three children: Anne, Charles, and Susan. **Heidelberg University** In June, Parsons moved to Heidelberg University, where he earned his PhD in sociology and economics in 1927. At Heidelberg, he worked with Alfred Weber (Max Weber’s brother), his dissertation adviser Edgar Salin, Emil Lederer, and Karl Mannheim. He was examined on Kant’s *Critique of Pure Reason* by philosopher Karl Jaspers, and on the French Revolution by Willy Andreas. Parsons wrote his Dr. Phil. thesis on *The Concept of Capitalism in the Recent German Literature*, focusing mainly on Werner Sombart and Weber.