ABSTRACT
In summer of 1969, the author decided to revise his dissertation for publication. The dissertation was an analysis of the sort some philosophers make of theories in the physical sciences in which underlying categories are brought out and their meanings appraised. Arthur Pap's book The Apriori in Physical Theory, is an example. In the years following the author's dissertation, a critical literature arose on Parsons' theory that was of a vehemence he had encountered only in political diatribes, never before in scholarly critiques. Claims were made that Parsons' theories were ahistorical and could not deal with change. These allegations, which the author knew from his study of Parsons' work to be ignorant and false, were but a prelude to personal attacks. Parsons was characterized as a bourgeois ideologue ensconced in Harvard, the apex of academic privilege, where he was contriving theories that served to safeguard the status quo.
