List of Talcott Parsons Quotes

The Implications Of These Considerations Justify The Statement That All Empirically Verifiable Knowledge Even The Commonsense Knowledge Of Everyday Life - Involves Implicitly, If Not Explicitly, Systematic Theory In This Sense.

Special Emphasis Should Be Laid On This Intimate Interrelation Of General Statements About Empirical Fact With The Logical Elements And Structure Of Theoretical Systems.

It Is Probably Safe To Say That All The Changes Of Factual Knowledge Which Have Led To The Relativity Theory, Resulting In A Very Great Theoretical Development, Are Completely Trivial From Any Point Of View Except Their Relevance To The Structure Of A Theoretical System.

The Hypothesis May Be Put Forward, To Be Tested By The S Subsequent Investigation, That This Development Has Been In Large Part A Matter Of The Reciprocal Interaction Of New Factual Insights And Knowledge On The One Hand With Changes In The Theoretical System On The Other.

But The Scientific Importance Of A Change In Knowledge Of Fact Consists Precisely In J Its Having Consequences For A System Of Theory.

A Scientifically Unimportant Discovery Is One Which, However True And However Interesting For Other Reasons, Has No Consequences For A System Of Theory With Which Scientists In That Field Are Concerned.

Empirical Interest Will Be In The Facts So Far As They Are Relevant To The Solution Of These Problems.

But The Fact A Person Denies That He Is Theorising Is No Reason For Taking Him At His Word And Failing To Investigate What Implicit Theory Is Involved In His Statements.

It Is That Of Increasing Knowledge Of Empirical Fact, Intimately Combined With Changing Interpretations Of This Body Of Fact - Hence Changing General Statements About It - And, Not Least, A Changing A Structure Of The Theoretical System.

A Theoretical System Does Not Merely State Facts Which Have Been Observed And That Logically Deducible Relations To Other Facts Which Have Also Been Observed.

Spencers God Was Evolution, Sometimes Also Called Progress.

If There Are Four Equations And Only Three Variables, And No One Of The Equations Is Derivable From The Others By Algebraic Manipulation Then There Is Another Variable Missing.