Talcott Parsons - The Fragment on Simmel [From Draft Chapter XVIII (Structure of Social Action)

The "Fragment" on Simmel [From Draft Chapter XVIII (Structure of Social Action): GeorgSimmel and Ferdinand Toennies: Social Relationships and the Elements of Action]Author(s): Talcott ParsonsSource: The American Sociologist, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 21-30Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27698869 .Accessed: 01/07/2014 04:39

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The "Fragment" on Simmel [From Draft Chapter XVIII (Structure of Social Action): Georg Simmel and

Ferdinand Toennies: Social Relationships and the

Elements of Action]

Talcott Parsons

Much less even than in the previous cases do I wish to attempt in the present chapter to give a general critical evaluation of the sociological work of the two men whose names are placed at its head. It happens that they approached some of the problems which are relevant to our context in ways which are somewhat different from those we have so far considered. A brief examination of their

experience with these problems will, I think, help to illuminate some important things on the borderline of our own previous analysis, to clarify one or two of the residual categories which we have encountered.1

Simmel is most generally known to sociologists as the author of the view that

sociology should be a special science concerned with "forms of social relation

ship" as distinct from the other social sciences which are concerned with their "content." This tenet has become the basic methodological position of the so called "formal" school of sociology. Simmel's proposition has been the object of

much controversy and has often been held to be totally untenable, but somehow refuses to be completely and permanently quashed. We are not ready to raise

explicitly the question of the scope of sociology as such?that we have reserved for the final chapter. Here our concern is with the relation of Simmel's concep tion of social "form" to the conceptual sch?mas of our previous discussion.

The relevance of this question to our problems should be evident from the fact of the bifurcation we have shown to exist in the directions of Weber's

systematical theoretical thinkings. In dealing with his "general ideal types" his main explicit theorizing took, as we saw, the form of the construction, out of

elementary units of social relation, of a whole system of possible structural types which could be thought of as "composed" of these units. This mode of theoriz

Parsons 21


ing we carefully distinguished from that in which our own interest primarily lay, that of a (largely implicit) system of the elements of action. The main purpose of the present discussion of Simmel is further to clarify the relations of the two

types of theorizing to each other. In introducing the subject, Simmel2 takes the position that a new science is

not normally constituted by the discovery of a new class of concrete facts which has never been the object of scientific analysis before, but by "drawing a new line" through the facts, which brings them into relations to each other which had hitherto not been adequately understood.3 It is as such a "new line" drawn

through the facts that he wishes his concept "form of relationship" or social "form" to be understood.

As has so often proved to be the case, in this one it should prove fruitful to start by inquiring what it is that Simmel primarily distinguishes his "form" from. It is what he calls "content."4 He is very careful to state that nothing is to be inferred from the terms "form and content" as such. Their meanings in logic or

epistemology must above all be held to constitute at best analogies. The mean

ing in the present context is to be taken directly from observation of the par ticular facts.5

Human social life he conceives primarily in terms of process. Men have a

variety of different impulses, ends, interests, which constitute motivations of their action. As such these motivations are not "social." They have social impli cations only in so far as they lead to interaction6 between individuals. In so far as this interaction takes place, "society" (Vergesellschaftung) exists. In so far as this is true there will be relatively constant and determinant forms or modes of interaction. It is as such modes of interaction that Simmel defines his concept "social form."7

Simmel is very careful to point out that form in this sense is an abstraction which cannot even be thought of as concretely existent by itself. Form and con tent together constitute a concrete unity. In the concrete facts of social life they are always bound together. Form cannot be thought of as existing by itself at all, content not in so far as there is "society." Form is thus an aspect of social life.

It is important, however, to understand just what kind of process of abstrac tion Simmel is here carrying out. His starting point is a classification of concrete "motives." These are divisible into classes of concrete impulses, interests, ends, etc. Each of these classes has peculiarities of its own which make it legitimate to regard it as the object of a separate science. This is looking at the subject

matter of this group of sciences from the subjective point of view. A corre

sponding classification can also be made from the objective point of view, which will yield classes of concrete acts. The two classifications correspond in that one of the classes of interests or motives serves to activate each of the classes of concrete acts. This procedure yields a classification of what Simmel calls the "social sciences." According both to the classification of motives and of the

externally observable characters of the acts, their subject-matter is economic, political, religious, aesthetic, etc.

Unfortunately Simmel does not anywhere attempt to carry through this clas

22 The American Sociologist/Summer 1998


sification of the social sciences and their subject-matters to the point of an

exhaustive list, any list ends with an "et cetera." And above all he does not

anywhere attempt to work out what causal explanation of the acts in a given class means, how the motives are to be thought of as "producing" the acts.

Particularly he fails to inquire whether, how far, and in what sense a separate integrated system of theory corresponds to each of these classes of concrete fact. As is usually the case the list tends to begin with "economic" taken both as a class of concrete facts and as a theoretical system, without explicit state

ment of the relations of the two meanings to each other. It should be clear from our previous discussion that, had he pursued these inquiries, Simmel would

certainly have run into very serious difficulties and might well have altered his views radically.

It is not altogether surprising that he did not, since this "empiricist" view of the principle of classification of the social sciences was largely taken for granted in his time as obvious, indeed still is. But however this may be, having accepted it and laid it down as a postulate, he proceeded on his own way. What appar ently impressed him most was the fact that the definitions of the subject-matters of these sciences did not, as such, conceptually involve social relations but only specific concrete motives and kinds of acts. All these could be thought of as

existing concretely apart from social relations. Then, in the concrete facts which

actually do involve such relations, there must be another element. This element he called "social form." It may most conveniently be thought of, I think, as an

"emergent" property of the processes of action, arising when and in so far as these processes involve interaction of two or more persons. It is an "abstrac tion" in the sense in which all such emergent qualities or properties are, it cannot be isolated as even a hypothetically concrete entity, but may be concep tually distinguished. Thus the two elements, form and content, are not for Simmel abstractions in quite the same sense. One refers to type parts, the other to an

emergent property, which has much in common with an analytical element. Simmel went on to state that the justification for this abstraction lay in the

fact that form and content could be shown to vary independently of each other. The same form could be found "embodied" in different contents and vice versa. Thus "competition," which he interpreted as such a form, could be found to exist in the economic fields, in sports, in rivalry for the favor of a woman, etc.

Similarly the same motives or interests could be pursued in different forms. Thus the maximization of income of a concern may be attempted by competing with its rivals in the same market or by coming to agreements with them which will result in the suppression of competition.

Simmel himself did not pursue his conception much further, either in the direction of a further and more explicit methodological foundation, or of a

systematic development of theory on its basis. His remaining sociological work took the form of a series of brilliant but disconnected essays on what purported to be specific social forms. They are full of suggestion and insight, many of them first-rate contributions, but they are of relatively little help for our purposes.

What, then, does it all amount to for our context? It seems evident in the first

Parsons 23


place that Simmel's concentration on interaction between individuals as that which characterizes "social" phenomena focuses his attention on social relation

ships, among Professor Znaniecki's four sch?mas.8 What then is form? Nothing, I think, but the structural aspect of social relationships. We may speak mean

ingfully of the "form" of any empirical entity in this sense. It is a matter of

abstracting structural relations as such from the properties of the "parts" related in the structure in so far as the properties of the latter are definable apart from the relations. In this sense every empirical entity has "form." The earth has a

spheroid form, its orbit around the sun an elliptical form, etc. Social form differs from these examples only in that the categories for describing it are different, above all do not contain a spatial reference. Social structure is not a structure

of elements related in space but in a different frame of reference.9 Simmel does not himself go very far in defining what the frame of reference is beyond refer

ring to it as social relationships. But what are the implications for explanatory theory? What is meant when

forms of relationship are spoken of as an independent variable, in the sense

separable from content? To answer this we must go back to the general question of the nature of structure. Let us first take an example from the natural sciences. A waterfall has a "form," a structure. But whatever might be the case from another point of view,10 no natural scientist would think of this form as an

independent element. Given the contours of the river bed and the volume of flow of water per unit of time, the form of the waterfall is a resultant. Moreover, any change in its form will be held to be attributable to changes in either or

both of these other factors, such as an increase in the rate of flow, or erosion of a part of the bed. Thus form in this case is epiphenomenal to deeper-lying elements of structure on the one hand, and those of process on the other.

On the other hand, it is at least true to say that a major school of biologists from Aristotle down has held that form in the organic world was not altogether

epiphenomenal to other elements, for instance the physico-chemical aspects of life processes. It is probably safe to say that it would not be so, precisely in so far as "teleological" elements of "function" are allowed to enter into biological theory. That is, in so far as organisms are held to possess emergent properties not manifested by their non-organic constituent parts.

But the real test of a concept is not analogy, but its relations to the specific empirical facts it was framed to fit. Yet on the social level too we get this same

dichotomy of structural aspects of social relationships which are on the one hand epiphenomenal, on the other hand not.

Beyond the stage of "Crusoe economics" ordinary economic theory thinks in terms which involve social relationships, above all those of the division of labor and exchange, but also competition. On the level of economic analysis the rela

tionships of exchange for instance which arise are quite definitely resultants of the interaction of the elements with which the theory is concerned, the demand and supply schedules of the various individuals involved in the market in ques tion. The "form" of these relationships is epiphenomenal in exactly the same sense as that of the waterfall, and will equally change as a result of change in the



underlying data. The same is true of the broader class of relationships, which in cludes those of exchange, which are generally called "contractual" relationships.

At the same time it is equally true that there are social relationships the form of which cannot be understood as the resultant of the immediate ad hoc action elements11 of the parties, as in the case of contract. Thus in marriage there is an exchange of services closely analogous to the case economic theory is con cerned with; earning a money income on the one hand, management of the household on the other, for instance. Yet it is quite clear that in this case one cannot account for the "form" the exchange takes without referring to the fact that the parties constitute a married couple.12 In the market case no such ref erence beyond the immediate situation is necessary.13

Now while the concept of a contractual relationship as a limiting type is

perfectly meaningful and highly important, Durkheim has, I think, shown con

clusively14 that a total system consisting of such relationships alone is concretely impossible. Hence for there to exist contractual elements in the relations of individuals on a large scale there must exist in the same social system other elements of a different order not formulated in the conception of contractual relation. These we have found to lie above all, though not exclusively, in the institutional framework within which these relations are formed. And just in so far as this institutional framework is important to the concrete situation, the latter will not be accounted for solely as a resultant of the ad hoc interests of the contracting parties. But just this example shows clearly that the element

which is necessary over and above these ad hoc interests to account for the concrete situation cannot lie in the "form of relationship" as such, for this is

certainly even here to a large degree the resultant of the ad hoc interests, some mode of differentiation between the resultant aspect of form of relationship and other elements of it must be found. This Simmel's conceptual scheme entirely fails to provide.

Thus we may surmise that Simmel's insight was primarily into the importance of what we have called the institutional aspect of social systems. It was clearly thought of as something analytically separable from the immediate "motives" of individuals. It was not a "part" of the social structure in this sense. It was

something which could be thought of as "canalizing" their actions in certain directions which would not have been taken without its existence. It was a "mould" into which the pliable material of action was poured. And this is the

emergent quality which arises through the processes of interaction as such. It is this and this only which is the grain of truth in the "organic" theories of soci

ety,15 but as against the "reification" of "mechanistic" schemes as that of eco nomic theory, it is a profoundly important truth. Finally, true to the predomi nant "historicism" of German social thought, it is in this element of "form" that the differentiation of different social structures from each other is to be sought. The "content" of social life is ever the same, only its "form" varies.16

All this is true and the expression of a deeply important insight. But it is very severely limited in its capability of development into systematic scientific

theory. It is true that uform of relationship" is not a concrete descriptive cat

Parsons 25


egory. Social relationship is the concrete entity. The "form" is not a "part" of this but an abstraction from it in a different direction. But it is not in our sense an

analytical element. It is rather what may be tentatively called a "descriptive aspect." In spite of the abstraction involved it is a mode of abstraction which

directly cuts across the line of analysis into elements of action which has been our main concern.

This becomes evident from further consideration of the case of contractual

relations, to which we have already referred. It is true that the concrete form of such relationships cannot be understood entirely in terms of the contractual elements alone, but also, in Durkheim's terms, involves references to "the non contractual element of contract." But it is at the same time not possible to say that the latter element alone accounts for the form while the "contractual ele

ments" must, whatever their role may otherwise be, be altogether excluded from influence on form. On the contrary the "form" of a relationship must be

thought of as, in principle, capable of being influenced by all the causally impor tant elements or factors which in any way influence the concrete relationship.

This conclusion may be generalized with reference to the category of struc ture. Structure is in the first place a "descriptive aspect" of all concrete phenom ena, of all "historical individuals." It is, as such, not an explanatory category at all but a descriptive category. It may, however, take on explanatory significance in so far as it can justifiably be held to describe a "rigid" framework within

which given processes go on. Thus in understanding the operation of a steam

engine, the element of process is the expanding power of compressed steam at

high temperature. The structure of the engine "canalizes" this process so that

only one thing can happen, the thrust of the piston.17 Similarly in the biological case there are certain structural features of the organism which can, for the

purpose of studying certain processes be assumed to be fixed independently of the dynamic elements of the process. Thus the structure of the heart and blood vessels (literally) canalizes the flow of blood.

In terms of the scheme of analysis used above,18 structure in this sense is a

descriptive feature of the concrete historical individual. It is a mode of relation of type parts in a whole,19 neither an analytical element nor a mode of relation of them. It can have explanatory significance in precisely the same sense that

type-part concepts and generalizations about them have. The statement that a

given concrete system of relationship has a given form or structure is to be taken as a statement of fact about it. Like any other fact about a concrete

phenomenon it may acquire significance as a "causal factor" for purposes of historical imputation. In many cases it may be quite adequate for the purposes in hand to call attention to the fact of the existence of this structure.20

Moreover, these structural form concepts are not restricted to description of one particular historical individual. They are capable of generalization. The same

"form elements" may be found to be common to a variety of different historical individuals. In fact, as Simmel pointed out, they may, like any structure, be

analyzed into structural units, and different structures thought of as "made up" of different combinations of these units. Finally, the different "objectively pos



sible" combinations may be systematically constructed, indeed may be built up into a formally complete system of structural type concepts.

This last enterprise Simmel never even attempted to carry out. But it has been

attempted; indeed we have already encountered what I think is the most notable

attempt21 which has been made, Weber's scheme of ideal types. For this scheme

is, I think, in all essentials, formal sociology in Simmel's sense. Its starting point is essentially the same, as we have seen, the concept "social relationship." The

predominant unit out of which the types are built is that of "form"?it is the structural aspect of the concrete social relationship. Weber takes the three basic formal units, conflict, Vergemeinschaftung and Vergesellschaftung as the struc tural units out of which his more complex types are built.22 In almost all cases

these "forms" admit of widely differing "content" in Simmel's sense. Thus a

"Verein"23 may involve "economic ends" in the case of a joint-stock company, "religious ends" in the case of a sect, and scientific ends (we hope) in the case of the American Sociological Society.

We have already criticized this kind of conceptualization in terms of its gen eral adequacy for scientific theory. It is not adequate as the sole mode, but for certain purposes and within certain limits it is not only valid but indispensable. The fate of Simmel's position is an excellent illustration of the practical difficul ties a creative idea has in making its way. Simmel set up the concept "form" as the basis for a science of sociology. The great majority of the critics have not

inquired what kind of concept it was and of what use could it be in scientific work generally. They have rather, after trying to determine what he "meant" by it, gone directly to the question whether it can be made the sole basis for a science of sociology. Then coming, by whatever path, to the conclusion that it could not,

they have proceeded to infer that the concept cannot be used at all, that Simmel was "wrong."24 As we shall see in the next chapter I also do not think it a useful

procedure to define sociology as a "science of social forms." But that does not

prevent recognizing that Simmel had very important insights into the facts and made a very genuine contribution. Any acquaintance with his specific essays should convince one of that. Let us hope that some day we will get over feeling the necessity to dub a writer as either "right" or "wrong." It seems to me obvious on reading only a few of his pages that Simmel was a highly intelligent man. Then it is a fair presumption that he had something important in mind in his talk about "form." The critic, it seems to me, should first attempt to find out what it is, especially in relation to the empirical facts Simmel was concerned with. Then he should attempt to find out how the author arrived at the propo sitions the critic regards as objectionable. Only after having done this and having restated the author's empirical insights in more acceptable terms is he entitled to "criticize." The progress of science consists in the continual amendment and restatement of conceptual sch?mas, not in deciding they are "right" or "wrong."

But this is a digression. We must return to a few further considerations about structure. So far we have considered it only on the level of the structure of the concrete historical individual on which explanatory interest is centered. As a

descriptive aspect of this, structure is something to be explained, not an explana

Parsons 27


tion. It is however quite possible to explain certain features of this concrete structure on the ground that certain other structures have existed among the historical individuals which constitute the direct antecedents of the one in

question. We have, however, already noted that it is only legitimate to employ a struc

ture in this sense for explanatory purposes within the limits in which it may legitimately, as a matter of fact be assumed to be (relatively) unchanged. As soon as these limits, of change in circumstances, are transcended our structure dis solves away into process. But when this is done the category of structure reap pears again on another level. Take our previous example of the waterfall. The relevant structure for explanation of its form was that of the river bed. Over a

sufficiently long period of time this cannot be assumed to be constant, it will erode. But to the explanation of the process of erosion certain other more

"elementary" structural elements will be relevant, that of the kind of rock at the brink of the fall. By this process we may fall back on more and more elementary structures, reaching finally that of the atom, or perhaps even farther back.

As Simmel very clearly saw, structure is not an ultimate category. It is a fixation of relatively constant "forms" or modes of process. What elements are to be called structural and what processual is not "inherent" in the phenomena but a matter of the scientific problem in hand. We must break down structure into combinations of process and more elementary structures as far as is neces

sary to arrive at an "adequate" judgment. A structural category can serve ex

planatory purposes only in so far as the problem in hand does not involve a range in variation of the concrete phenomena in question which transcends the limits of its structural constancy. The "form" concepts Simmel had in mind were prima rily those on the first descriptive level for concrete social phenomena so far as they constitute interesting problems to the social scientist. Hence the narrow limitations to their explanatory usefulness and the fact that formal sociology tends to run off into relatively sterile construction and classification of possible relationship types.

Simmel's own work was saved from "formalism" in this derogatory sense by his very "dilettantism." He refused to construct a system and confined himself to empirical essays on subjects where his method was genuinely illuminating.

Weber on the other hand was saved primarily by his deep absorption in empiri cal problems of historical significance on a grand scale. Here again we can see a basis for his insistence on the fictional character of his ideal type concepts. To have been a systematic theorist on the ideal type level would have made him a "formalist" in just this sense. Probably at the same time he was also saved by his

emerging system of the elements of action which tied his structural types in

securely with his empirical researches and prevented them from running wild in uncontrolled fictional proliferation. Every concept Weber formulated had spe cific empirical applications directly in mind.

One more remark should be made about these structural concepts of form.

They are inherently concerned with the relations of "parts" of concrete histori cal individuals and can only constitute "factors" in the same sense that the latter



can. They are among the "elements" the causal significance of which is to be demonstrated by their "thinking away" or alteration. Simmel's concrete use of them demonstrates this conclusively. Thus again we see clearly that "analysis" in this sense cuts clean across that in terms of analytical elements. In principle all the elements of action are relevant to the understanding of any particular "social form."

Finally, Professor Sorokin has, I think, been the one who has most clearly pointed out,25 what is unquestionably true, that the main theoretical contribu tion of formal sociology, the formal systematics of social relationships, has been

very thoroughly and systematically worked out in another discipline, jurispru dence. It is no sheer coincidence that the most distinguished formal sociologist in this sense, Weber, had juristic training. Its marks may be seen all through his

systematic scheme of type concepts. To make the main theoretical task of soci

ology or any other empirical social science the development of formal system atics in this sense would certainly involve it in a serious and, I think, quite unnecessary jurisdictional dispute with jurisprudence. It is for the sociologist, above all in the institutional field, to make use of the jurists' schemes when he needs them, if necessary himself to fill in gaps for his particular purposes, but not to make the development of such schemes his main theoretical task. Form

concepts are indispensable tools for sociological research, but not the aim of

systematic sociological theory. Thus we see that the principal significance of the concept of social form lies

in the direction of attention toward structure and above all differentiation of structural types. It is thus a product of the soundest elements of the idealistic tradition of thought. But its main significance lies on the descriptive level. It is

important to the explanatory purposes of science only on the more analytically elementary level of historical imputation. It is quite definitively not a satisfactory substitute, as a basis for general theory in any of the social sciences, for a

systematic scheme of analytical elements. It does, however, show the importance of not confining attention to any one

of the descriptive sch?mas in which the facts of human social life may be stated. I am quite convinced that the schema of elements of action is quite adequate26 for the explanation of the structural as well as any other aspects of social life. As we have seen, particularly in the case of Weber, the common ultimate value element is peculiarly relevant to this problem, especially in the relation to non scientific "ideas." For example the predominant feature of Indian social struc

ture, the caste hierarchy, is most intimately related to this. But these conse

quences come out in relation to the action schema only when analysis in its terms has been pushed through to a relatively advanced stage. On the whole the action schema states social facts in a form which tends to minimize the struc tural elements. Hence the relationship schema, which throws them directly into the center of attention, is a highly important descriptive corrective. It is not itself ultimate but it states the facts in such a way as to throw the problems which analytical theory has to solve, into a much clearer relief and wider

Parsons 29


perspective.27 Simmel has performed a signal service in bringing these things so forcibly to our attention.... [At this point, Parsons turned to his discussion of T?nnies.]

Notes

This material on Georg Simmel is from Parson's draft chapter XVIII of a book manuscript with the working title of Sociology and the Elements of Human Action. While the chapter itself was ultimately excluded from what became The Structure of Social Action, a somewhat revised segment of the chapter that dealt with T?nnies was retained as an extended note on "Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft." The "fragment" on Simmel published here has been taken directly from the original draft chapter located in the Talcott Parsons

Papers [HUG (FP) 42.41, Box 2] at the Harvard University Archives. The chapter has previously been

published in its entirety in Teor?a Sociol?gica (Parsons 1993) and in the Simmel Newsletter (Parsons 1994). Full references have been added, and the original footnotes have been converted to endnotes. For a discussion of when the chapter was likely written, see note 17 on page 70 of William J. Buxton*s article in this issue of The American Sociologist.

1. For the limited purposes of the present discussion I shall not attempt an intensive textual criticism even in the respects relevant here, but shall confine myself to the most general references.

2. Most of the material relevant to the present discussion is to be found in the essay "Das Problem der Soziologie" printed as chapter I of his Soziologie.

3. Soziologie, pp. 3-4. 4. Inhalt. 5. "Dieser Gegensatz wird in seinem einzigartigen Sinn unmittelbar erkant werden m?ssen." (Soziologie, p.

4). This Statement has often, quite unjustly, been taken to mean that Simmel relied on some sort of

mysterious "intuition." He is simply stating that he wishes his distinction to be clarified in relation to the

particular empirical facts of human social life, not any others. 6. Wechselwirkung. 7. Soziologie, p. 5. 8. Mentioned in chapter I. 9. It is legitimate to talk of "social space" but only when it is kept clearly in mind that the term is used by

analogy only. 10. Aesthetic, for instance. 11. That is, their immediate concrete ends, and the means and conditions directly related to them. 12. We shall speak of this type of relationship below. 13. It seems to me that this difficulty lies at the basis of the criticism sometimes made of Simmel (for instance

by Professor Sorokin, Contemporary Sociological Theories, pp. 500-1) that the concept of form shifts from

being merely the general element common to a plurality of particular cases, to being an independent factor. 14. In the Division du travail. See above, Chapter VIII. 15. On this basis Simmel may quite legitimately be placed in the "sociologistic" school. 16. This can to be sure be maintained only in terms of certain classes of motives or ends, not, as we have seen,

for the concrete "content" of ultimate values. This points to the limitation on Simmel's scheme just noted. 17. The best account of the logic of this situation which I know is that of W. K?hler, Gestalt Psychology,

Chapter IV, "Dynamics and Machine Theory." 18. Chapter XVI. 19. And becomes independently important precisely in so far as the whole is "organic." 20. So long as the "alteration" of the historical imputation required does not transcend the limits within which

the constancy of the structure may legitimately be assumed to hold. 21. The other most notable is, I think, that of Leopold von Wiese in his Beziehungslehre. See, in English,

Wiese-Becker, Systematic Sociology. I personally find Weber's distinctly more satisfactory. 22. The use of the "relational" unit is not the only way in which "social structure" may be described. It is also

possible in terms of the "group schema" to think of social structure as "composed" of "individuals" and

groups as distinguished from forms of relationship. The two are not the same though often confused. They are, of course, "translatable" into terms of each other.

23. "Voluntary association," roughly. 24. This seems to me a not unfair rendering of the attitude Professor Abel takes toward Simmel. See Systematic

Sociology in Germany, chapter I. 25. Contemporary Sociological Theories, pp. 496-7. 26. As far as it has itself been adequately developed. 27. Marshall, for instance, would have profited greatly by its use.



Article Contentsp. 21p. 22p. 23p. 24p. 25p. 26p. 27p. 28p. 29p. 30

Issue Table of ContentsThe American Sociologist, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 1-107Front MatterEditor's Introduction: An Invitation to Historical Sociology [pp. 3-3]Contested Canon: Simmel Scholarship at Columbia and the New School [pp. 4-18]Editor's Note: Parsons and Simmel [pp. 19-20]The "Fragment" on Simmel [From Draft Chapter XVIII (Structure of Social Action): Georg Simmel and Ferdinand Toennies: Social Relationships and the Elements of Action] [pp. 21-30]Simmel and the Methodological Problems of Formal Sociology [pp. 31-50]Comments on Parsons's "Simmel and the Methodological Problems of Formal Sociology" [pp. 51-56]From the "Missing Fragment" to the "Lost Manuscript": Reflections on Parsons's Engagement with Simmel [pp. 57-76]Parsons's Second Project: The Social System. Sources, Development and Limitations [pp. 77-82]Social Relations Undone: Disciplinary Divergence and Departmental Politics at Harvard, 1946-1970 [pp. 83-107]Back Matter

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Talcott Parsons - The Fragment on Simmel [From Draft Chapter XVIII (Structure of Social Action)

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