帕森斯社会理论的时间维度

The Temporal Dimension of Talcott Parsons' s Social Theory

本文在对亚当、吉登斯、贝尔特等社会学家的批判基础上,尝试揭示帕森斯社会理论的时间维度。帕森斯并不是一位结构功能主义者,他的行动系统理论实际上是对"结构—过程"的功能分析。时间是帕森斯社会理论建构过程中的内在维度。对于帕森斯来说,时间并非与秩序问题无涉,而是和互动、相互交换、变迁等相关。时间进入社会理论的方式之一是如何理解"现在"。一方面,"现在"的机制表现为新生性和社会性,涉及到分化、边界、关系和媒介交换等;另一方面,思维是系统在时间维度中实现转换的重要方式,而思维时间则是系统转换的过程。

Based on the criticism of sociologists Barbara Adam,Anthony Giddens and Patrick Baert,this paper elaborates on the temporal dimension of Talcott Parsons' s social theory.The author argues that actually Parsons is not a structural-functionalist;in fact,his theory of action system is essentially a functional analysis of 'structure-processes'.The dimension of time is an internal factor of the theoretical construction of his theory.For Parsons,time is not irrelavent to 'problem of order',but has substantial relevance to interactions,interchange,change,etc.On the one hand,one of the ways in which time becomes internal element of social theory is to understand the 'present'.The mechanism of 'present' embodies emergence and sociality,in other words,it is about differentiation,boundaries,relationships,the change of mediums,and so on.On the other hand,thinking is one of the important manners to realize the shifts of systems over temporal dimension;in fact,the thinking time has been the shifting processes among systems.