Snakes and Ladders: Parsons and Sorokin at Harvard

One of the most intriguing episodes in the history of American sociology is the intersecting career paths of Talcott Parsons and Pitirim Sorokin. Both were present at the creation of the Harvard Department of Sociology in 1931—albeit at widely disparate points of entry. The most complete and ambitious effort to do so has been that of Barry Johnston, who emphasizes the centrality of “theory schools” in his explanation. In particular, he points to the conjunction of endogenous factors at Harvard and exogenous factors in sociology outside of the University to account for the reception given to the theoretical systems of the two thinkers. Based on his formal conception of theory construction, Johnston emphasizes the great differences between the “Integralism” of Sorokin and the “Functionalism” of Parsons. The specific analytical properties of the two frameworks are held to be determinate for their relative degree of success. These are Parsons’s theoretical framework and Parsons’s emergent framework.