ABSTRACT
Parsons is after a framework of basic categories that must be necessarily presupposed in any theory of social action. He offers us in his first work the means-end schema as precisely that framework. The schema consists of the categories of means, ends, conditions and norms. Of course there have been and still are theories of “action” that openly repudiate one or more of these ‘basic’ categories. And those theories are to be heard expounded by adherents of idealistic, utilitarian and positivistic traditions. But a determinate explanation of social action, for which purpose those very theories have been formulated, cannot be had unless the facts to which each of the categories refers, with no exception, are explicitly taken into account. This is Parsons’ thesis throughout. And yet further, Parsons shows that Marshall, Pareto, Durkheim and Weber, starting from very different positions, were each moving in their work towards a recognition of the theoretical importance of all the categories. Parsons defines the categories as follows: Every action is performed by someone who acts, an actor. His action involves, first, an end, or future State of affairs, towards which the process of action is directed. Second, action always occurs under some conditions which the actor cannot alter. Such conditions constrain his actions. Third, action always involves means employed for the achievement of an end. Fourth, action, however, always involves norms which direct the selection of some means over others that are available. “Action,” Parsons tells us, “must always be thought of as involving a state of tension between two different orders of elements, the normative and the conditional. As process, action is, in fact, the process of alteration of the conditional elements in the direction of conformity with norms.” 1
