Contemporary Sociology is characterized by the coexistence of different concepts of social knowledge.Continuity of sociological ideas at the moment is the very basis of the teachings of the society.A significant contribution to this progress made concept - structural and functional analysis of Parsons, which is issued by the American scientist formulated in the middle of the last century.Today Talcott Parsons recognized in the scientific world as one of the classics of sociology.He created a detailed concept - functional analysis, which is a necessary methodological tool of sociological knowledge of the modern world in all its diversity.
At the heart of this concept is the concept of system, it is associated with it the whole complex of ideas and issues that are in the domain of research on social balance, conflict, consensus and the evolution of society as a system.
first Parsons affect the functional analysis as a methodological resource, exploring the theory of Henderson, Pareto, where the main place was given to the issues of the economy and its role in the evolution of society.Then, this theme was continued by Schumpeter, who came to the analysis of the economy from the point of view of its systemic nature.
Summarizing the findings of scientists, Parsons comes to the conclusion that the system itself can not be explained by objective social trends, so it is necessary to include a systematic analysis of the components and the study of social functions.So was born a complex theoretical education - "structural-functional analysis."Its essence lies in universalism approaches to the study of patterns and trends observed in contemporary social life.
completely new in this theory was the study of cybernetic aspects of society as "cultural system of symbolic meanings."Cybernetic method made it possible to more specifically deal with the hitherto almost unexplored problems of stability and the entropy of society.
Justified Parsons functional analysis and provided an opportunity for a fresh look at the problem while the popular social conflict.The fact that the spread of positivism and its methods and created a one-sided conflict in the interpretation of the category of stability and conflict.Therefore, the question was raised about the co-existence in a society of chaos and order as the dialectical aspects of social life.Then develops the theory of conflict, Lewis A. Coser - American economist and sociologist, in fact, Parsons added the idea, claiming that the company does not exhaust one of its stable of all possible states.This conclusion has become particularly important in justifying the development trends of the economy, which is undergoing a process of cyclic shifts its state - during crises followed by periods of relative economic stability.Therefore, the functional analysis of the economy and today stands as a necessary methodological technique study of economic processes, especially in the assessment of the probability of risks and other macroeconomic forecast.
In theory, Parsons unit of analysis concrete action in favor of the individual, rather than an abstract society as a whole.This fundamentally new approach made it possible to analyze the society not in terms of individual features of the person, which was accepted in psychology, but in terms of consideration of the individual's behavior in a particular situation.According to Parsons - social action is localized in space and time behavior, which is due to the implementation of human society in the surrounding certain functions.In the context of these functions may be crossing a variety of structures, social mechanisms, values and cultural systems, and they will all have an impact on human behavior and performance of their social functions.
This completely original approach, which included functional analysis, and the new methodological paradigm laid the foundations and future of European sociology.Known followers of Parsons' ideas were here Max Weber, Vilfredo Pareto, Robert Michels.
In general, although the theory of Parsons contains some elements of abstraction and formalism, it continues to be very popular and almost claimed the analytical study of contemporary society.
