Toward an integrated sociological method: Marx's, Weber's, and Parsons' methods in the light of the interpenetration principle

The dissertation argues for an integrated sociological method capable of reconciling the prevailing divergent sociological paradigms. It demonstrates that symbolic interactionism and social reality construction are inherent in the institutionalization of meaning in Schutz's sense which is the subject-matter of content analysis as a constituent element of the integrated method. On the other hand, the phenomenological and the structural-functional sociologies are shown to be basic to every sociological observation and every construction of conceptual causal models, respectively, both being phases of the integrated sociological method in its procedural aspect.;Furthermore, the dissertation integrates the positivist and the hermeneutic approaches in sociology. It argues that the difference should be drawn not between the interpretive and the hypothesis-testing approaches as qualitative and quantitative - these are simply inherited scientific ideologies in our discipline, - but rather between sociological understanding (Verstehen) and interpretation (Bedeutung), or, more exactly, between inductive hypothetical understanding and deductive interpretive discovery as two different procedural phases of the integrated sociological method.;These conclusions are reached based on a preliminary reading of Marx, Weber, and Parsons from a single perspective of the integrated method the idea of which is based on the concept of concerted social action and the constructive principle of bilateral interpenetration. By contrast with the relatively brief discussions of Marx and Weber, Parsons is given a special attention due to the need to clarify the (logically) semantic nature of his central problems which differ from the mainly syntactic problems in Marx and Weber.;A critique of Parsons' concept of symbolic media is followed by a suggestion of genuine media of circulating social objects. Then Parsons' road is traced from setting the task of discovering concerted social action to his relapse into voluntaristic action rejected earlier. In demonstrating Parsons' inadequate response to Merton's and Blau's advances in structural-functional methodology, this methodology is given a new, integrated formulation. The discussion of Parsons' treatment of equilibrium introduces a generalized skewed normal distribution as a basic ingredient for a quantitative model of distributive justice.