Journal ArticleDOI
De-parsonizing weber: a critique of parsons' interpretation of weber's sociology*
TLDR
One of the most influential interpretations of Max Weber's sociology has been that provided by Talcott Parsons, especially in The Structure of Social Action as mentioned in this paper, which is erroneous both in many of its particulars add in the general cast that it gives to Weber's theoretical product.Abstract:
One of the most influential interpretations of Max Weber's sociology has been that provided by Talcott Parsons, especially in The Structure of Social Action. We contend that the Parsonian interpretation is erroneous both in many of its particulars add in the general cast that it gives to Weber's theoretical product. The crux of Parsons' misrepresentation is his overweening emphasis on the category of the normative. A confusion of "factual regularities" with "normative validity" - despite Weber's numerous warnings against such - led Parsons to an exaggeration of the importance Weber assigned to normative orientations of social action, legitimacy add collectivity integration, and, correspondingly, to a severe understatement of the importance of nonnormative aspects of social action and structures of dominance. In consequence, Parsons expanded what was but a part of Weber's sociology and made it very nearly the whole.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
The Matter of Habit
TL;DR: The concept of "habit" was long a staple term in the conceptual vocabulary of Western social theorists and continued to function as a major background factor in the substantive writings of both Emile Durkheim and Max Weber as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Institutionalization of Social Investment: The Interplay of Investment Logics and Investor Rationalities
TL;DR: In this article, the authors take an interpretive approach drawing on institutional theory and other work on the sociology of markets to conceptualize social investment as a socially constructed space within which different investment logics and investor rationalities are currently in play.
Book ChapterDOI
Weber’s Last Theory of Capitalism: A Systematization
TL;DR: A systematic formulation of Weber's theory of the origins of large-scale capitalism, based upon the lectures given just before his death, is given in this article. But it does not consider the role of religious ideas and motivations in his early Protestant Ethic thesis and unlike his analyses of the world religions.
Journal ArticleDOI
Between Faith and Science:World Culture Theory and Comparative Education
TL;DR: The authors argue that such research, while failing to support its own claims, actually produces world culture, as its assumptions and parameters create the very image of consensus and homogeneity that world culture theorists expect scholars to accept in faith.
Journal ArticleDOI
PERSPECTIVE—The Sociological Ambivalence of Bureaucracy: From Weber via Gouldner to Marx
TL;DR: The present article challenges both Weber's and Gouldner's accounts, arguing that although bureaucracy's enabling role may sometimes be salient to employees, even when it is, bureaucracy typically appears to them as ambivalent—simultaneously enabling and coercive.
References
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Book
From Max Weber: Essays in sociology
TL;DR: A collection of Max Weber's key papers is presented in this article with a new preface by Professor Bryan S. Turner, who was one of the most prolific and influential sociologists of the twentieth century.
Journal ArticleDOI
Classic on Classic: Parsons' Interpretation of Durkheim
TL;DR: Parsons' commentary on Emile Durkheim's work, first set forth in The Structure of Social Action and later developed is undoubtedly the most influential interpretations yet to appear in English as mentioned in this paper.