HUMAN STUDIES 3, 357-366 (1980)

The Issue of Human Subjectivity in Sociological Explanation:

The Schutz-Parsons Controversy*

PAUL TIBBETTS, PHD Department of Philosophy

University of Dayton

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

The Theory o f Social Action (Grathoff, 1978) contains the extent correspondence between Alfred Schutz and Talcott Parsons, an exchange which took place in 1940-41,just after Schutz had immigrated to the United States. This was also three years after the publication of The Structure o f Social Action (Parsons, 1937) and eight years after the appearance of Schutz' Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt (1932; later translated as The Phenomenology o f the Social World [Schutz, 1967]). Accordingly, the correspondence centers on Schutz's critique and Parsons" defense of themes in the latter's The Structure o f Social Action (hereafter abbreviated as SSA), with no reference by Schutz to any of Parsons' later writings.

However, though this exchange of letters is unfortunately restricted to these relatively early writings of Schutz and Parsons, many of the themes and criticisms that were to preoccupy and haunt both these authors are already evident at even this early date. Accordingly, it is one of those irreparable losses to the sociological and philosophical literature that this correspondence did not continue as the careers of these two authors went their respective ways. In any ease, the significance of this correspondence is twofold: First, it is the only known written exchange between two of the leading exponents of functionalism and phenomenology during this critical period, with each theorist to later write his own chapter in American sociology. Secondly, there is at times, a penetrating discussion of"cognitive, subjective states," both as to the methodological status of such states and concerning what, if any, role they are to play in sociological explanations of human action. The exchange Of letters is therefore significant from both the history of ideas perspective and as regards epistemological considerations, as we will see.

*An earlier version of this paper was read at the American Sociological Association, New York City, August 27-31, 1980.

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Of pa r t i cu la r interest to some readers will be the seemingly disproportionate amount of time and concern devoted to "philosophical matters" or, as we would phrase it today, to "conceptual issues" (e.g., regarding human subjectivity, the verifiability criterion, self-knowledge, the relation between theory and observation, the definition of "facts" in sociological inquiry, and so on). Concern with such issues will come as no surprise to some readers, given that both authors were drawing upon one or another segment of the German intellectual tradition from Kant to Weber to Husserl.

THE BASIC ISSUES BETWEEN SCHUTZ AND PARSONS

It should be noted at the outset that Schutz was largely sympathetic with Parsons' Herculean attempt in the SSA to construct a theory of rational social action which avoided the limitations of both Utilitarianism and Positivism and which combined the insights of Pareto, Durkheim, Weber, and Marshall. Schutz obviously had great admiration for what he took to be a scholarly masterpiece; accordingly, his lengthy comments were intended as constructive, and not at all intended as critical, of Parsons' reconstructive analysis of human action. Schutz even suggests in one place that the SSA "starts exactly where my own book ends." Schutz' remarks were therefore offered by a friendly critic, though as we will see Parsons did not always receive them in this spirit.

The exchange essentially begins with a nearly 60-page letter/manuscript by Schutz in which he first summarizes what he takes to be the major themes and arguments of theSSA, including a 40-page.critique. Let us proceed directly to the latter. First, Schutz notes that in Parsons' account of the "unit act" (i.e., the ends, means, actor, situation, and normative orientations which define an action), little is Said regarding the role of motives, an omission which is understandable to Schutz given Parsons ' emphasis on the external ly observable features of human action. Schutz' alternative approach (Grathoff, 1978, p. 33) is to distinguish between in-order-to motives and because motives: where the former refer to the goals toward which the performed action is a means, the latter denote those motives which initiated the action in the first place. For Schutz, Parsons was simply mistaken if he thought that motives were irretrievably subjective and therefore beyond "objective description." On the contrary, for Schutz both types of motives can be subjected to ideal-typical analysis and, in turn, be employed as a"scheme of interpretation" by an external observer. In fact, such ideal-typical analysis is already at work for Schutz in everyday social interaction. Schutz then remarks (Grathoff, 1978) that:

... all the normative values Parsons has analyzed in discussing the work of the four sociologists under consideration.., are interpretable as systems of in-order-to or because

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motives, to the extent that the subjective point of view of all these phenomena is retained [pp. 35-36].

Secondly, and consistent with the above remarks regarding motives, Parsons' approach is, in effect, to construct a theoretical scheme employing only "objective categories" by means of which an external observer can interpret human action. For Schutz such an approach totally ignores what is for him foundational to any adequate account of social action: the subjective experiences of the actor. Nor was this a merely minor difference of focus between Schutz and Parsons. On the contrary, as Schutz (Orathoff, 1978) writes:

this problem of dealing with subjective phenomena in objective terms is the problem for the methodology of the social sciences . . . . The theory of social action.. , stands or falls with the results of any analysis of the relation between the subjective point of view and the terms which sociologists actually use in performing their concrete research work [pp. 36-37].

Schutz is here reacting to the claim in the SSA that all features of Parsons' unit act can in principle be analyzed from an outsider's point of view in terms of objective categories defined by an abstract system of theoretical concepts. For Schutz, the subjective dimensions of an act cannot be neatly correlated with any finite set of externally observable features of an action. On the contrary, such subjective factors as motives, intentions and attitudes require direct reference to an actor's own experience and therefore to first-person accounts. An analysis of the unit act which omits reference to the actor would therefore be like an account of the play Hamlet which neglected the leading character!

Summarizing this first criticism, Schutz (Grathoff, 1978) therefore raises what he considers to be the methodological issue dividing himself from Parsons:

. . . the only question Professor Parsons never asks is, what really does happen in the mind of the actor from his subjective point of view. His analyses only answer the question of how a theoretical scheme can be established which is capable of explaining what may happen or what may be considered as happening in the mind of the actor. And so Parsons is not concerned with finding out the truly subjective categories, but seeks only objective categories for the interpretation of subjective points of view [p. 36].

Lastly, Schutz raises the issue of how the observer is to obtain an "honest description and explanation" of social phenomena. Schutz's own answer is that the observer constructs schemata of ideal types within or against which observed actions are situated and interpreted. Such ideal-type schemata are not constructed purely a priori, however, prior to observation, nor are such ideal-types purely arbitrary. On the contrary, for Schutz the elements within the ideal-typical analysis must satisfy four criteria: (1) the ideal type being posited must be relevant to the problem being investigated (such as the analysis of being a stranger, a homecomer or a "well-informed citizen"; see Schutz, 1964); (2) the vocabulary employed in the ideal-typical analysis must be "reasonable and understandable" to both the actor and to other non-

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sociological ly t ra ined social agents; (3) the analysis must be consis tent with the requirements o f formal logic; and (4) the ideal - type must conta in "on ly scientifically verif iable a s sumpt ions" which are consis tent with the body of our larger scientific knowledge. Schutz (Gra thoff , 1978) then concludes that :

These postulates gives the necessary guarantees that the social sciences do in fact deal with the real social world, the one and unitary life-world of us all, and not with a strange world of fancy that is independent of and has no connection with our world of everyday life [p. 6O].

This theme o f the conceptua l p r ior i ty of the l ife-world to all abs t rac t scientific theor iz ing is a recurrent theme in all of Schutz 's writings. To take but one fur ther example f rom a col lect ion of Schutz ' s papers (Wagner , 1970):

Doubtless on a certain level real scientific work may be performed without entering into the problems of subjectivity . . . . [However,] this type of social science does not deal directly and immediately with the social life-world, common to us all, but with skillfully and expediently chosen idealizations and formalizations of the social world . . . . We can [and should] always go back to the "forgotten man" of the social sciences, to the actor in the social world whose doing and feeling lies at the bottom of the whole system. We, then, try to understand him in that doing and feeling and the state of mind which induced him to adopt scientific attitudes towards his social environment.

We undertake to study the process of idealizing and formalizing as such, the genesis of the meaning which social phenomena have for us as well as for the actors, the mechanism and the activity by which human beings understand one another and themselves [pp. 268-269].

Consequent ly , Schutz s imul taneous ly argues for two theses which, f rom Pa r sons ' po in t of view, are seemingly incompat ib le : first, that the subject ive d imens ion is an indispensable e lement in any sociological ly adequa te account of h u m a n ac t ion and the motives behind such ac t ion and, second, tha t this subjective e lement can be analyzed and in terpre ted object ively by means o f ideal - typica l analyses.

P A R S O N S ' R E S P O N S E T O T H E A B O V E

Init ial ly, Pa r sons expresses two basic reservations. Firs t , tha t where Schutz a p p e a r s m o r e i n t e r e s t e d in " p h i l o s o p h i c a l q u e s t i o n s " c o n c e r n i n g ep is temology and methodo logy , Pa r sons ' own concern is with cons t ruc t ing a general ized system of scientific theory and therefore with what he terms " theore t ica l sys temat iza t ion ." Second, Schutz is evident ly more concerned with such abs t rac t ph i losophica l issues for their own sake (such as 'what real ly goes on inside people ' s heads ' ) than with mat ters per ta in ing to empir ica l evidence and validi ty. As Parsons (Gra thof f , 1978) writes:

I regard it as perhaps the most important singular merit of my book that it has not treated considerations of theory and methodology simply in terms of abstract generalities, but

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always in terms of their relation to specific and definite problems of the interpretation of empirical phenomena and generalization about such phenomena.

It seems to be an altogether legitimate requirement of criticism of a scientific work that the critic should show the importance of his criticism on this level [of empirical relevance, p. 67].

Parsons then goes on to note specific instances of each of these points in Schutz's writings. E. g., where (on Shutz's account) the distinction between science and commonsense is absolutely fundamental, for Parsons such a distinction is but "a matter of refinement." Rather than there being some sort of ontological chasm between commonsense and scientific assertions, such that the former is governed by an internal logic essentially different from that of the formal deductive reasoning associated with the latter, for Parsons there is but a single logic of explanation. Accordingly, the only reliable, criterion of knowledge for Parsons concerning social action and interaction is "verifiability by scientific procedure" rather than by any appeal to commonsensical intuitions and first-person protocol reports. Parsons' claim that scientific verifiability is sufficient as a criterion of valid knowledge also leads him to reject Schutz's attempted distinction between a subjective as against an objective account of truth. As Parsons (Grathoff, I978) notes:

it is not statement in scientific form but verifiability by scientific procedure which is the relevant criterion [of empirical knowledge].

I doubt, furthermore, whether there is any such thing as a tenable subjective concept of truth which adequately describes the logic of common-sense action but which is different from that of science [p. 76].

Consequently, Schutz's proposed antithesis between the subjective and the objective dimensions of human action could for Parsons entail a corresponding dualism on the methodological level between phenomenologi- cal and more "scientific" modes of inquiry. For Parsons, as suggested earlier, there is but a single body of empirical knowledge, namely, knowledge empirically verified by external observers using categories derived from an abstract formal scheme. Parsons is not, of course, so much denying that there is a subjective, experiential dimension to human action as rejecting the claim that a special, phenomenological method over and above that of scientific observation is required to investigative this dimension. As Parsons had earlier written in the SSA (1937):

Our immediate intuitions of meaning may be real and, as such, correct. But their interpretation cannot dispense with a rationally consistent system of theoretical concepts. Only in so far as they measure up to such criticism can intuitions constitute knowledge [p. 589].

In response to this and related assertions in the SSA, Bauman (1978) rightly remarks that:

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The 'subjective point of view' becomes, therefore an analytical device. Accordingly, understanding becomes a matter of scientific analysis. The 'subjective point of view' in Parsons ' version, as in Hnsserl's, means eviction of the empirical subject . . . . The task of understanding has been by the same token finally freed from'intuitionist misconceptions' which insisted that understanding can be reached only in the mystical unity with the subject, and therefore cast the 'understanding' humanities beyond the bounds of science [pp. 135-136].

For Parsons, then, Schutz's dualism between the subjective and the objective dimensions of human action, though perhaps consistent with Cartesian philosophy, runs directly counter to the verifiability criterion of meaning and of reliable knowledge. I will return to this point later.

Schutz's reply to all of this is to reiterate his own commitment to the centrality of the subjective point of view in the action scheme. Regarding the concept of rationality, for example, Schutz (Grathoff, 1978, p. I01) rejects the Parsonian account that "an action is rational only if the actor acts for reasons understandable and verifiable by positive empirical science" and that unless rationality is defined in this way, then, on Parsons' account, there would simply be no rationality at all. Schutz (Grathoff, 1978, p. 104) goes on to note some ramifications of Parsons' verifiability bias, particularly Parsons' inadequate account of the following: (I) the specifically social categories of action and mutual interaction, (2) the problem of the frames of reference by which one agent interprets the actions of another, (3) the elcment of temporality in human action by mcans of which past and anticipated acts are distinguished, (4) the interpretive schema which even the scientific observer must employ in his description and analysis of the significance of an action, and (5) the interrelation between intersubjectivity and socially constructed values. These and related points lead Schutz (Grathoff, 1978) to the conclusion that:

. . . you have to go a few steps further in radicalizing your theory in order to arrive at a more general concept which, on the one hand, permits an application to problems actually beyond the reach of your theory and, on the other hand, to a more consistent formulation of your basic ideas, above all of the concept of subjectivism [p. 105].

In a brief final reply to these criticisms, Parsons admits that he has not studied Der sinnhafte Aufbau der socialen Welt to the extent that Schutz obviously has regarding the SSA. However, even after their lengthy correspondence, Parsons felt little inclination to return to Schutz's major work. Parsons' reasoning (Grathoff, 1978) is as follows:

Either, as I felt when I wrote the letters, the things which you are primarily concerned with discussing are not of the first order of importance for my particular range of theoretical interests or, on the other hand, I have failed to grasp their significance [p. 108].

For example, Parsons (Grathoff, 1978) saw little reason to "go into the kind of analysis of the subjective point of view in relation to the time element which was the central theme ~f your analysis" [p. 108]. Similarly with regard to the supposed significance of the "alter ego" in social interaction. Parsons

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(Grathoff, 1978) then concludes with an overall appraisal of Schutz's phenomenological account of the social world.

... when the level is reached where the sciences of action, as you said in your last letter, deal exclusively with the objects constituted by and through acts of an actor without considering the actor and his acts, that it ceas~ [for Parsons] to be a theory of action, whatever else it may become [p. 109].

EVALUATION OF THIS EXCHANGE

The issues dividing Schutz and Parsons are, I think, most revealed in Parsons' "Retrospective Perspective," an essay written in 1974, over three decades after the original correspondence with Schutz had concluded. Parsons reviews and elaborates on a number of issues, a few of which I have singled out for discussion. First, there is the matter of the "subjective point of view" and what role if any it is to have in sociological inquiry and explanation. Moving beyond his earlier position, Parsons now argues that an actor's self- understanding of his intentions, motives, and objectives is not possible by any supposed appeal to "immediate experience." For Parsons, not only self- understanding, but also our knowledge of external physical objects, as wellas an understanding of the motives of other actors requires a c~ framework or set of interpretive categories within which such understanding is s i tuated. It is Schutz ' s emphasis on a f r a m e w o r k - i n d e p e n d e n t understanding of one's self which Parsons therefore flatly rejects. There is no direct access to any subject matter, not even to one's own subjective states.

It is interesting to note that Parsons now appears to have forgotten his earlier admonition to avoid entanglement with questions of epistemology and methodology for he is himself adopting a quite definite epistemological position as to what does and does not constitute empirical knowledge. Epistemological considerations are not avoided by a positivist appeal t o scientifically rigorous forms of inquiry, for the legitimation of such inquiry itself presupposes the adequacy of some version of empiricism concerning "evidence," "fact," and "observation." In all fairness to Parsons, however, he at least did not adopt one of the more simple-minded versions of empiricism according to which reliable observation was merely a matter of opening one's eyes and looking very carefully. On the contrary, Parsons (Grathoff, 1978, p. 68) had argued in his earlier correspondence with Schutz that "the role of th6 conceptual scheme is only analytically distinguishable from given experience. We always observe, i.e., we experience, in terms of a conceptual scheme." Such a position is entirely consistent with the view developed in the S S A

(1937):

It is fundamental that there is no empirical knowledge which is not in some sense and to some degree conceptually formed. All talk of pure sense data, raw experience or the unformed stream of consciousness is not descriptive of actual experience, but a matter of

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methodological abstraction. In other words, in Professor Henderson's phrase, all empirical observation is in terms of a conceptual scheme. This is true not only of sophisticated scientific observation but of the simplest common-sense statements of fact [p. 28].

In any case, if Parsons thought that such a Kantian account of observation was one whose merits could be ascertained scientifically and therefore without reference to epistemological considerations, then he is clearly mistaken. For what is the entire scientific enterprise itself i f not an epistemological standpoint concerning the criteria o f what constitutes genuine as against spurious empirical knowledge claims and reliable methods o f inquiry? Without here venturing into the tangle of epistemological issues surrounding the theory contaminated/theory neutral controversy regarding observation (see Grandy, 1973, for some of the classical statements on this matter), my own conclusion is that Parsons simply failed to appre~ate that all scientific inquiry is invariably grounded in a theory of knowledge, whether this be phenomenalism, perceptual realism, critical (Popperian) rationalism, Kant ian i sm, or whatever . I f Pa r sons had been sensit ive to such considerations he might have been less inclined to dismiss out of hand Schutz's criticisms as merely "questions of epistemology and methodology." This might in turn have occasioned a greater self-examination by Parsons of the epistemological presupposit ions and implications built into the conceptual model of social action developed in the SSA.

I therefore propose that a central reason why Parsons was unable to understand what Schntz was trying to say was simply due to Parsons' mistaken belief that, whereas he was doing scientific theorizing, Schutz was merely engaged in epistemology and philosophy. Granted, Schutz ' phenomeuology of the social world is not "scientific" if science is defined as synonymous with what is observable and verifiable in some simple-minded positivistic sense. Nor is it scientific if this is equated with the logical deduction of explanations from a formally constructed scheme of concepts and definitions. As suggested earlier, Schutz's response as a philosopher was to raise questions concerning what exactly constitutes "object ivi ty," "observation," and "verification." A further specific question might by, "Why should the descriptions and explanations of an action by an external observer be intrinsically any more reliable than those of the actor himself?." Then there is the problem of which conceptual scheme of interpretation to adopt. In the SSA, Parsons had himself considered and rejected both utilitarian and positivistic models of rational behavior, the former because it made the selection of ends an essentially random, arbitrary affair, the latter because it left no room for voluntary actions. But just as utilitarianism and positivism were for Parsons seriously deficient in these and other respects, his own view that human action can best be understood from the outside and in terms of a formal theoretic model concerning means-ends relations is itself deficient from a phenomenological point of view. Interestingly, Schutz (Wagner, 1970)

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later suggested how a system of abstract concepts might be grounded in experience:

The constructs involved in common-sense experience of the intersubjective world in daily life.., are the first-level constructs upon which the second-level constructs of the social sciences have to be erected.

How is it possible to form objective concepts and an objectively verifiable theory of subjective meaning-structures? The basic insight that the concepts formed by the social scientist are constructs of the constructs formed in common-sense thinking by the actors on the social scene offers an answer. The scientific constructs formed on the second level.., are objective ideal typical constructs and, as such, of a different kind from those developed on the first level of common-sense thinkingwhich they have to supersede. They are theoretical systems embodying testable general hypotheses [pp. 274-275].

I ronical ly , in his c o r r e sponde nc e Pa r sons tended to stress object ive observation and formal theory construct ion to the relative neglect o f first- person experiences, whereas in the SSA there are passages which read as though they had been written by Schutz. E.g., in the SSA (1937) we find the following:

There is a subjective aspect of human action. It is manifested by linguistic symbols to which meaning is attached. This subjective aspect involves the reasons we ourselves assign for acting as we do. No science concerned with human action can, if it would penetrate beyond a certain level, evade the methodological problems of the relevance of facts of this order to the scientific explanation of the other facts of human action. This study will be intensively concerned with them [p. 26].

This is not the place to a t tempt to document and account for the apparent inconsistencies between such passages in the SSA and the more positivistic posit ion taken in the correspondence here under review. Parsons might have shifted toward "scientific objectivity" in reaction to what he might have considered an excessive subjectivism on Schutz 's part and by phenomenology in general. Whether Parsons was correct in this interpretation hinges on how one defines phenomenology and, in turn, such concepts as "objectivity," "verification," and so on. After reading and rereading this correspondence it is hard to believe that Parsons had any really adequate account o f the phenomenological alternative, as though phenomenology were just another form of introspective psychology.

As to the distinction between science and epistemology, then, the issue o f what to include and what best ignore in one's model of human action cannot be resolved by the simple expedient of appealing to what will or will not satisfy "scientific criteria" o f observation and validity. As I have suggested, such criteria are themselves not independent of one's prior epistemological presuppositions. In turn, and somewhat ironically, such presuppositions are not conceptually independent f rom one's model o f human cognitive and perceptual activity concerning how people experience the world a round them, how distortions creep into such experience, how conflicts in motives

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and intentions are resolved, and from the general reliability of first person pro tocol reports. But ra ther than this in ter re la t ion between: (1) epistemological considerations, (2) a model of cognitive/perceptual processes, (3) a theory of human motivation and action, and (4) the criteria of scientific validity issuing in a counsel of despair, it should rather suggest that epistemological and empirical considerations are not so easily kept distinct, with the one left to the philosophers and the other to scientists. Parsons' rather uncritical view on these matters was therefore largely responsible for the failure of the correspondence to join where Schutz had wanted it to join: at the level of the epistemological foundations of the scientific enterprise itself.

REFERENCES

Baurnan, Z. Hermeneutics and Social Science. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. Brodersen, A. (Ed.). The Collected Papers of Alfred Schutz, VoL IL" Studies in Social Theory.

The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964. Grandy, R. (Ed.). Theories and Observation in Science. Englewood Cfiffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,

1973. Parsons, T. The Structure o f Social Action. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1937. Wagner, H. (Ed.). Alfred Schutz on PhenomenologyandSociaIRelations. Chicago: University

of Chicago Press, 1970. Schutz, A. ThePhen~176176176176176176176

1967.