About Talcott Parsons: Talcott Parsons was an American sociologist who served on the faculty of Harvard University from 1927 to 1973.
A gloss is a total system of perception and language.
Empirical interest will be in the facts so far as they are relevant to the solution of these problems.
If observed facts of undoubted accuracy will not fit any of the alternatives it leaves open, the system itself is in need of reconstruction.
The importance of certain problems concerning the facts will be inherent in the structure of the system.
The part an actor played on stage was once written on a separate roll of paper.
Theory not only formulates what we know but also tells us what we want to know, that is, the questions to which an answer is needed.
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.
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.
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.
In so far as such a theory is empirically correct it will also tell us what empirical facts it should be possible to observe in a given set of circumstances.
Now obviously the propositions of the system have reference to matters of empirical fact; if they did not, they could have no claim to be called scientific.
Of course there may well be particular reasons why Spencer rather than others is dead, as there were also particular reasons why he rather than others made such a stir.
Special emphasis should be laid on this intimate interrelation of general statements about empirical fact with the logical elements and structure of theoretical systems.
That is, a system starts with a group of interrelated propositions which involve reference to empirical observations within the logical framework of the propositions in question.
The main concern of the study is with the outline of a theoretical system. Its minor variations from writer to writer are not a matter of concern to this analysis.
Thus, in general, in the first instance, the direction of interest in empirical fact will be canalised by the logical structure of the theoretical system.
The system becomes logically closed when each of the logical implications which can be derived from any one proposition within the system finds its statement in another proposition in the same system.
The functions of the family in a highly differentiated society are not to be interpreted as functions directly on behalf of the society, but on behalf of personality.
But the scientific importance of a change in knowledge of fact consists precisely in j its having consequences for a system of theory.
Spencer's god was Evolution, sometimes also called Progress.
