1. For further details of this modification see Brownstein (1982:75-82).

2. For further details of the theory of interpenetrative systems, see Luhmann 1977, 1978, 1984:286-345; Jensen 1978.

3. There are somewhat divergent judgments on the metatheoretical status of this integrative strategy: Brownstein (1982:68) tends to believe that Parsons's endeavor can best be described as a form of obsessive eclecticism, while Alexander (1983:45, 74, 129, 154, 183, and elsewhere) characterizes them mildly as "ecumenicism" and more forcefully as "imperialistic ambitions" or "accumulationism." For a more comprehensive discussion of Parsons's metatheoretical ideas, see Schmid (1989:19-115).

4. This confusion can already be observed in Parsons's first major theoretical treatise of 1937 (1968:75-77).

5. I discuss this conflation at some length in Schmid (1972:177-180). For a typical example of this conflation, see Parsons (1969:8), where, at the same time, he defines values by the help of norms and defends a "distinction between value and differentiated norm" on the basis of the belief that norms can be regarded as situational specifications of the "common societal value system" (1969:9). break

6. Whether there is a "nonlinguistic subsystem of human culture" (Bauman 1973:88-91) depends entirely on whether the nonlinguistic part of culture can be symbolically formulated (see Leach 1978:62-63), whereas it is not decisive whether this symbolization takes place on a conscious or a nonconscious level.

7. For this theory of an objective use of symbols, see Popper (1972:106-152, 153-190, 1984:11-40) and Schneider (1973:137-139).

8. Alexander takes this case to be a "logical illusion" and "sociologically unfounded" and believes that if cooperation between actors actually takes place, a "cultural commonality" will tend to build up (1984:311-314). In my view this position is incorrect. First, Alexander certainly cannot mean that the factual coexistence of cooperation and a contradictory cultural system is logically excluded; he believes rather, as his example shows, that such coexistence is unstable to a large degree, which is quite a different notion. Furthermore, and in true Parsonsian tradition, Alexander's understanding of culture is evidently restricted to values (and norms), which suggests a belief that cooperation without a common set of values simply does not exist. But both theses are contradicted by recent theoretical (and empirical) considerations of the condition of "egoistic cooperation" (see Axelrod 1984; Kliemt 1985, 1986; Voss 1985). The forms of cooperation described by these authors remain stable as long as the participant actors do not lose interest in the returns they get from cooperation; they are certainly not in need of a cultural commonality of values to maintain this interest. But, of course, if they actually lose their interest in mutual cooperation, such (nonexistent) common cultural values cannot serve to sustain cooperation. However, an interest guided form of cooperation is neither logically impossible nor empirically improbable.

I assume that Alexander's assumptions are based on a conflation of (normative) integration (by the help of a set of common values) and stability of a relation in the sense that no actor has good reason to relinquish his participation. These two theses are quite independent of each other, but can be unified: for example, membership of a normatively integrated social relation may (under quite debatable circumstances) be accepted as one reason not to leave it.

9. Such additional fields of understanding are enumerated by Simmel and Sombart, who differentiate between Sachverstehen (objective understanding), Gefühlsverstehen (emotional understanding), Stilverstehen (stylistic understanding), and so on (Simmel 1984:61-83; Sombart 1929:208-226).

10. Such an elaborated theory has been developed, among others, by Gadamer (1965) and Popper (1969, 1972:162-180) and even more radically by Luhmann (1984:191-241).

11. Space does not permit detailed discussion of this theory here. For further clarification I draw the reader's attention to M. Archer's important study (1988) and to an interesting article by P. Drechsel (1984), especially to the extensive literature cited there; I limit myself to an outline of such a theory in the section on heuristic prospects for the development of a valid theory of culture in this chapter.

12. Brownstein (1982:64-65) has convincingly shown that Parsons's idea of an acting cultural system does not follow necessarily from the basic assumption of the AGIL-schematization. break

13. It would be interesting to know whether Parsons has adopted Simmel's theory of the cultural system, which implies this very idea that cultural entities can have a dynamic of their own. See my critical discussion of this theory in Schmid (1987:256-259).

14. This involves the view that the de-coupling of different system levels is, in the last analysis, a product of the actors themselves (or, to express it in Parsons's terminology, of the social system); see Giesen and Schmid (1989).

15. Some of Parson's commentators have been led by this fact into somewhat daring and overcomplex modifications of the AGIL-schema (for example, Gould 1976); Brownstein (1982:29-30) quite correctly regards this as theoretically and empirically indefensible.

16. For the importance of this "logic of the situation," see Popper (1961:147-152, 1969); for a more critical explanation of individual and/or social action, see Schmid (1985).

17. parsons's own theory of culture has been interpreted as representing such a form of reductionism; see Archer (1988:30-38).

18. To exclude a strict determination of culture by some sort of Produktions-verhältnisse does not, of course, imply that there are no restrictions resulting from how actors organize their social relations (see Douglas 1970; Swanson 1968, among others). Reductionist determinism has been conclusively criticized by Alexander (1982a).

19. I have criticized Luhmann's position in Schmid (1987a:40-43).

20. Refering to Parsons's "functionalism," I do not pretend that he really believed any system to be in the state of a perfect reproductive equilibrium, but that he can be considered a "methodological functionalist" insofar as he saw the necessity to analyze systems as "boundary maintaining systems" (see Lackey 1987:42). For a more general statement concerning functional analysis see Davis (1959).

21. The state of systems analysis in Parsons's time is well documented by Buckley (1968); for parsons's original qualifications as an economic theorist, see Camic (1987).

22. For a negative appraisal of Parsons's commitment to developing such a theory of culture change, see Savage (1981:204).

23. That it is possible to theorize on this issue is exemplified by Archer (1988:158-171, 183-184, 199-201, 207-208).

24. For such a model of change, see Popper (1972:180-183), Schmid (1987), Mayntz and Nedelmann (1987), and others.

25. For such a model of "revolutionary" changes in cultural traditions see especially Popper (1966).

26. Thus Parsons (1972a:10) speaks of a "sprunghafte Entwicklung des (gesellschaftlichen) Anpassungsvermögens," and he is well aware that there are breakdowns in cultural traditions; see his conception of a seed society (1977a).

27. For the possibilities of such a modified theoretical program, see Prigogine (1976), Boulding (1978), Jantsch (1979), Martens (1985), D'Avis (1984), Valjavec (1985), Bühl (1988), Gleick (1988), and many others.

28. Worthy of consideration are the objections of Camic (1979), which suggest that Parsons improperly included in his critique of the utilitarian per- soft