Tönnies in the literature

The reductionist approach of Talcott Parsons

Mildred Schachinger

pp. 527-536

in: Lars Clausen, Carsten Schlüter (eds), Hundert Jahre "Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft", Wiesbaden, Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 1991

Abstract

Talcott Parsons' discussion of Ferdinand Tönnies' social theory in his "Note on Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft" is examined. He tends to approach Tönnies through Max Weber, assumes that Weber absorbed Tönnies' ideas. He asserts that his own conceptual scheme of pattern variables transcended Tönnies' theory: "As I have stated in print more than once ..., a critique of the Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft dichotomy constituted the most important reference-point in the theoretical literature for the development of the conceptual scheme which eventually came to be called the pattern variables' (Talcott Parsons, 1973b, p. 151). Parsons uses the method of reductionism (i.e., refusal to deal with the substantive content of a theory) in discussing Tönnies. He omits important elements of Tönnies' theory such as volition, dialectical tension between opposities, and the abstract instrumental nature of the concepts. Parsons' assessment that Tönnies' dichotomy is simplistic, that it describes and classifies but does not analyze, and hence is not theory, is a misrepresentation — subreption — of Tönnies' work and of his contribution to sociology.

Cited authors

Weber Max

Parsons Talcott

Tönnies Ferdinand