ABSTRACT
When Talcott Parsons unveiled The Structure of Social Action in 1937, he was seeking to replace two conceptions of the sociological tradition with a novel vision of that tradition. As late as 1935 Parsons had expressed an intention to include Georg Simmel in the grand synthesis, describing him as one of the three writers from the idealistic tradition, along with Weber and Toennies, who had been "most important" in the evolution of his views. The task of relating Simmel and Parsons proves particularly formidable because of one feature that the two theorists shared, a feature that distinguishes them from virtually all of the other originative sociologists. Simmel's approach to the study of society is vulnerable in three respects, which a Parsonian critique readily reveals. Insofar as both Simmel and Parsons provide arguments to support the position of epistemic pluralism, they can be drawn on to support the type of integration of their respective approaches advocated.
