ABSTRACT
Parsons' main conclusion in SSA is that Marshall, Pareto, Durkheim and Weber converged on a single theoretical schema. In order to take into account key facts required to understand human society, they were forced to move away from positivism and idealism. However, both positivism and idealism have a ‘permanently valid precipitate’ (pp.718–19), which Parsons claims to have made the basis of a ‘voluntaristic theory’. The rest of his work, Parsons (SSA, pp.E–F; 1964, b, p.316) claims, is an elaboration of such a theory.
