These two sociological theories, championed by Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann , have attracted the most attention from sociologists because they seek to encompass the entire research program, from theories of action to theories of structure . They compete in the same field as the structural paradigm, that is, all those visions that begin with the structures of society to explain individual behavior. However, these two theories are similar, yet at the same time contrasting, as each seeks to demonstrate the opposite of the other from a particular perspective. Let's try to understand how it is possible to overcome this dualism between these two theories, without which it is impossible to understand the foundations of the social system . This is also a key term that refers to a concept dear to sociology, which overlooks individuals during its analysis.
Talcott Parsons's Structural-Functionalism: The Individual
Starting from epistemological positions of Kantian and Popperian origin, that is, from the deductivism typical of the scientist par excellence, Parsons's structural-functionalism seems to project – and this is perhaps the main flaw of the American sociologist's theory – also his concerns regarding the question of social order , of integration due to the fact that in the United States of America social deviance and the disintegration of the fabric of values were spreading endemically. Thus, in this context of heartfelt fear for an issue that appears to be political in all respects, Parsons constructs a true system of thought that makes the post-World War II American colossus the field of study of his investigations, at times corroborated by occasional and sporadic empirical research, especially on the family.
The core of Parsons's thesis can be summarized in the formula " everything in society, nothing outside society ." This means that the individual is so integrated into the system that he cannot extricate himself from its fabric. As Max Weber loved to repeat: "Man is an animal suspended in webs of meanings he himself has spun," and who remains entangled in them, I would add. Parsons's individual is, to use Harold Garfinkel's accusatory expression, a "culture junkie."
Talcott Parsons's Structural-Functionalism: The System
In this sense, the Colorado Springs sociologist has theorized the so-called AGIL model where each element of the system – the structures : economic (A), political (G), regulatory (I), cultural (L) – is functional to the conservation , balance and reproduction of the whole. The concepts of system and function are key in the most orthodox doctrine. Therefore we will have: market institutions (structures) that correspond to the function that Parsons calls adaptation (A); political institutions that fulfill the function called goal (G); legal institutions that correspond to the integrative function (I); finally, institutions that fulfill the functions of latent model (L), that is, the reproduction of the latent model of society (what we could generically call "culture"). Everything must be able to be sufficiently integrated to the function of perpetuating the system over time.
Niklas Luhmann's Functional-Structuralism: The Individual
While Parsons in his sociological theory had given centrality to structures that had to perform certain functions for the survival of the system, Niklas Luhmann overturned the structure-function relationship in a new formula destined to take hold in sociological science as one of the most relevant theories of the last century: functional-structuralism.
The primacy of function over structure takes on a different meaning in Luhmann's sociological theory. In this conceptual context, for Luhmann, the individual is nothing more than eclipsed by the theoretical landscape; for this reason, the concept of " psychic system " takes on a converse importance, allowing a glimmer of individuality (but not subjectivity) to survive in the framework of the German sociologist. The individual, thus reduced to a puppet of the " systems "—social, psychic, biological, etc.—no longer finds room for the expression of his own subjectivity, so much so that he can be compared to a simple puppet prey to communicative stimuli ( input ) that react on him through a filter of the psychic system, which in turn emits other stimuli ( output ).
Niklas Luhmann's functional-structuralism: the system
From the perspective of the social system , Luhmann develops a theory capable of restoring the system to its rightful centrality, countering any attempted subjectivism. As we have said, the individual is almost entirely subject to the system's characteristics, so it is within the system that we must focus our attention in order to understand social change, for example, or explain a given phenomenon. Nonetheless, Luhmann differs from these assumptions in the generalizing claims of Parsons' theory in that, contrary to Parsons, he conceives of the system as an abstraction of the researcher to reduce the complexity of reality; It's not that Parsons didn't draw on a Kantian epistemology, just like Luhmann, but rather the American sociologist conceived his interpretative model as absolute and applicable to different societies, even "archaic" or distant ones. Luhmann, on the other hand, more humbly considered his own interpretative model to be one of many possible ones, thus arriving at a type of relativism that many in the academic community of sociologists did not like. The priority of function over structure , or rather, structures, is due to the reason why Luhmann prefers to use the principle of " complexity reduction " in relation to the researcher's functionality, according to which multiple different activities can give rise to multiple different functions: this is the principle of functional equivalence , already anticipated in his time by Parsons.
Critical considerations
In general, we can consider the experiences of structural-functionalism and functional-structuralism respectively as—pardon the repetition—functional to the consolidation of a broader vision according to which it is possible to abstract from the complexity of reality the essential core of factors that influence, to one extent or another, the variables that have obtained confirmation of empirical existence, a fact which—tangible ontological consistency—allows us to explain society starting from a priori premises.
Such "empiricizing" questions regarding the concrete contribution of the two theories to the history of sociological thought are implicit and, in a certain sense, "hidden" or "omitted" in Parsons's work (see the writings of Parsons's student, Robert K. Merton, who corrects the "distortions" and, consequently, the limits of this theoretical approach). Parsons himself begins with a reflection elaborated "at the desk" to arrive at generalizations that escape empirical control (consider how demanding an empirical investigation of the colossal scope of a comparative one is in terms of resources and time); whereas in Luhmann, the issue of theoretical concepts is called into question, considered, as I said above, relative to the research subject, and in this context therefore as prototypes of "complexity reduction," to use the German sociologist's own terminology.
