Normative Determinism

The purpose of this paper is to discuss Harold Garfinkel's critique of normative determinism as a philosophical element in the work of Talcott Parsons. It will draw out some implications of Garfinkel's work for both sociology and the philosophy of science. The backdrop for Garfinkel's work is, of course, that of Talcott Parsons, in whose newly formed Department of Social Relations at Harvard Garfinkel enrolled as a doctoral student in 1946.

To Parsons' groundbreaking thesis that sociology needed a theoretical structure equivalent to that which mathematics began to provide for physics in Galileo's day, Garfinkel later entered a respectful antithesis that pursued the same ultimate goal of creating a truly scientific sociology, but along different methodological lines. The reverberations of this dialogue, which has taken place in the arena of and in continuity with the central traditions of Western philosophy, continue down to the present.

Parsons' agenda of creating a scientific sociology--a discipline that would function as a social science rather than as one of the humanities--began by identifying the data for study, the methodologies for study, the procedures for creating models, hypotheses, experiments, theories, etc., in ways that paralleled mathematical physics as closely as possible. The goal was to be able to create objective descriptions and quantifiable predictions of human behavior that would be to some extent replicable and that would as far as possible not d

Related Essays

Personality Theory & Gender In Aggression .... might include: coercive power, social control, normative approval, management .... between the environment, the behavior, and the person (reciprocal determinism). .... (1829 7 )

Machiavelli and Hobbes .... The rules and laws based on moral or ethical precepts that are normative in any .... and Hobbes (1994) is that the former maintains a complete determinism which has .... (1829 7 )

Testing of Ethnic Children This type of determinism holds that intelligence may be racially biased, and although .... one wants to succeed, one must learn to establish normative behavior that .... (2520 10 )

Race and Education This type of determinism holds that intelligence may be racially biased, and although .... one wants to succeed, one must learn to establish normative behavior that .... (2451 10 )

Marxism and Modern Feminism .... though perhaps not the Marxist analysis of the historical determinism embedded in .... apparent intent of doing nothing so much as asserting a normative vision of .... (1931 8 )

lly" rational conduct had drawn attention away from whether actions are "reasonable" by common-sense standards and had also created an inappropriate emphasis on normative determinism. Garfinkel denied that normative rules, no matter how thoroughly internalized, could determine an individual's conduct, or that intersubjective knowledge is founded upon such rules (Heritage, 1984, p. 33-34). Whereas Parsons had thought that the reflexive aspects of actors' orientations were an obstacle to the maintenance (and explanation) of social order and had therefore attempted to marginalize them as epiphenomenal, Garfinkel argued that such cognitive functions are instead critical to the maintenance of social order. Furthermore, Garfinkel rejected absolutely the assumption that the ordinary judgments of ordinary social actors can ever be discounted or dismissed as irrelevant or epiphenomenal in the analysis of social action or social organization. Heritage (1984) says the following on this point: [I]t is the Parsonian disregard for the entire common-sense world in which ordinary actors choose courses of action on the basis of detailed practical considerations and judgments which are intelligible and accountable to others, which ultimately con

Category: Psychology - N