Social Theory, Social Research, and a Theory of Action

(1986) - James S. Coleman

Journal: American Journal of Sociology
Link:: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/228423
DOI:: 10.1086/228423
Links::
Tags:: #paper #RAT
Cite Key:: [@Coleman1986]

Abstract

After an extraordinarily promising beginning in 1937 with The Structure of Social Action, Talcott Parsons abandoned his attempt to ground social theory in a theory of purposive action. The functionalism that resulted moved in one direction, while social research has progressively moved in an individual-behavioristic direction, resulting in an ever-widening divergence between research and theory. This paper describes paths in research and in theory development that will reconstitute relevance of each for the other. The essential elements are two. The first is use of a theory of purposive action as a foundation for social theory; this entails acceptance of a form of methodological individualism and rejection of holism. The second is a focus in social research and theory on the movement from the level of individual actions to macrosocial functioning, that is, the level of system behavior.

Notes

• Parsons abandoned his attempt to ground social theory in a theory of purposive action

• To use a theory of purposive action as a foundation of social theory; this entails acceptance of a form of methodological individualism and a rejection of holism. Second, a focus on social research and theory on the movement from the level of individual actions to macrosocial function, that is, the level of system behaviour.

• The promise and loss of a theory of action

• Hobbes, Smith, Locke, Rousseau, and Mill all held a single theory of action, differing only in details: individuals were seen as purposeful and goal directed, guided by interests and by rewards and constraints imposed by a social environment

  • It was fundamental because it allowed connected intentions of persons with macrosocial consequences

• Implicit in the rejection of functionalism as a theory of social organisation and the acceptance of a theory of purposive action as a grounding for social theory is a simultaneous rejection and acceptance of purpose. Purpose is rejected at the level of the system, but not at the level of component actors. A theory of action is indeed a functional theory at the level of the actor: the actor is regarded as acting ''purposively''. Actions are caused by their intended consequences

• The action, or behaviour, of the system composed of actors is an emergent consequence of the interdependent actions of the actors who make up the system

• The watershed in empirical research and the growth of individualistic behaviourism

• Although the empirical, statistical survey was highly individualistic it lacked an explicit purposive or intentional orientation

• Empirical research that became the dominant form of sociology came to be of limited usefulness to 'social theory'. First, it was lacking a theory of action, replacing ''action'' with ''behaviour'' and eliminating any recourse to purpose or intention in its causal explanations; second, it focused on explaining the behaviour of individuals per se, seldom moving up to the level of community or other social systems

• Changes in society and changes in the relation of social research to action

• The issue for social theory involves incorporating information into a theory of action involving corporate actors at a societal level and persons who are their clients. Purposive action requires information, and in a social structure in which the information is valuable its possession can affect the distribution of power

• The mainstream of social research has shifted from explaining the functioning of social systems to accounting for individual behaviour

  • With this shift, the dominant model of explanation shifted away from on in which purposive action of individuals, taken in combination and subject to various constraints, explained the functioning of social systems. This was replaced by a form of behaviourism in which various factors external to the individual's consciousness are introduced to account for variations in individuals behaviour

• The micro-to-macro problem

• Sometimes called the problem of transformation by Europeans, or the problem of aggregation by economists

• Put in a causal diagram form, it can be seen as the effect of one macro-level variable on another, such as the effect of religious doctrine on the economic system.

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• A second theoretical approach to the central problems of sociology is not to remain at the macrosocial level but to move down to the level of individual actions and back up again. This approach is known as methodological individualism.

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• The paradigmatic micro-to-macro theoretical work is in economics in general equilibrium theory

• Empirical research and a theory of action

• A frequent virtue of the research based on meaningful connections was its richness of description, which provides an understanding of the course of social action. A frequent defect was an inability to go beyond system description, in order to pose and answer analytical questions.