SOC 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Talcott Parsons, Transcendental Idealism, Marxism

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 1101
• Professor: Willow Scobie

Document Summary

Talcott parsons: argued that society is a system, student of durkheim. Model of the organism: the human boy and how it all interacts, the system functions all together and all parts are necessary. Social structure (patterns of behavior) serve specific functions: ex. Critique: what about the individual: comes back to the broader pattern about the individual, we are not an organism that moves in union, we are complex individual. Combination of structure and agency: it is a two-way process by which we shape our social world through our individual actions and by which we are reshaped by society. There are broader social ruled of engagement that we all learn and adhere to. In this theory, he gives agency to the individual. As individuals, you have power over yourselves. Included in that capacity, is the ability to create your own social reality, while at the same time social reality is constructed.