A Comparison of Decisions Made on Four “Pre-Theoretical” Problems by Talcott Parsons and Alfred Schütz

Abstract This chapter compares “pre-theoretical decisions” made by Talcott Parsons and Alfred Schütz on the following dimensions: (1) a theory of objects; (2) the logical status and uses of empirical ideal types; (3) the observer as part of the field of observation; and (4) the logical status and uses of the “subjective” categories. A key distinction, somewhat indebted to Kaufmann (1944), is between the neo-Kantian “correspondence” and phenomenological “congruence” theories of reality. This distinction informs the four “pre-theoretical” decisions and the issues to which they are heir. The emphasis in extant sociological theory mostly has been predicated on the neo-Kantian solutions that informed Parsons’s approach to the pre-theoretical decisions, whereas Schütz’s decisions provide, inter alia, for a fresh attack on the relevance of time in the definition and conceptualization of action structures. The chapter is a condensation of themes from Chapter 5 of Harold Garfinkel’s dissertation, “The Perception of the Other: A Study in Social Order,” Harvard University: Department of Social Relations (1952), and was prepared by Garfinkel for a seminar in 1960.