ABSTRACT
Parsons' work flows from the analysis he gives of some of the major problems confronting sociology in SSA. What this means is that at the centre of his work lies a fundamental confusion. His voluntarism is too eclectic to reconcile positivism and idealism. Running throughout his work are two different programmes – a social action one in the idealist tradition and a social system one in the positivist tradition. The action programme focuses on the meaning of an action to an actor, while his social systems programme focuses on the consequences of an activity for a system of activity. Parsons does not have an action system, as he claims, but only a behavioural system and a separate action theory.
