ABSTRACT
In this chapter we shall show how Parsons elaborates the four-function schema, of itself a fairly simple matter, into a complex and abstract ‘grand theory’ in which the two central premises of voluntarism and general analytical theory are united. We shall try as far as possible to keep our exposé apart from the commentary as we did in the discussion of Parsons’s provisional version of the action theory. Accordingly, this chapter will give a rough sketch of the new voluntaristic action theory and the last chapter will be devoted to an evaluation of that theory in the light of the four pretensions already mentioned.
