Alfred Schütz: Über die Notwendigkeit einer Radikalisierung der Handlungstheorie (17. 3. 41)

Alfred Schütz’s private letter to Talcott Parsons, dated 17 March 1941 and presented here in its 1977 German translation, combines an attempt to repair an intellectual relationship with a substantive argument about the foundations of action theory. Responding to three letters from Parsons, Schütz insists that their disagreement concerns neither the value of Parsons’s achievement nor the need for systematic social science. It concerns whether an action theory grounded in the actor’s subjective perspective has sufficiently examined what subjectivity and sociality entail. The letter moves from an account of the disputed manuscript’s origins, through particular interpretive disagreements, to the demand for a more radical investigation of social intersubjectivity.

The opening’s personal urgency is integral to this argument. Parsons has treated Schütz’s manuscript as an adversarial criticism of his book, whereas Schütz intended a provisional contribution to shared problems. He recalls his own 1932 study, his sustained reading of Parsons, and an invitation from Hayek to contribute to Economica. A projected 5,000-word article grew into a 25,000-word manuscript whose critical questions were meant to establish the basis for discussion. Apparent objections sometimes served to test interpretations rather than announce settled refutations. Schütz locates their projects within a common undertaking:

In meinen Augen liegt der Schwerpunkt beider Untersuchungen – Ihrer und meiner – darin, ein theoretisches System für die Fundamentalwissenschaft der Sozialwelt – nämlich: die Wissenschaft vom sozialen Handeln – zu entwerfen.

English translation: In my view, the central concern of both investigations—yours and mine—is to devise a theoretical system for the fundamental science of the social world—namely, the science of social action.

This convergence does not eliminate analytical disagreements. Schütz distinguishes examining actions from examining their products: cultural formations can be studied as products without retaining the producing actor and act within the analysis. On that particular level, neither a positivistic nor a voluntaristic action theory is required. He nevertheless stresses that the subsequent arguments of his manuscript do not depend on this disputed thesis. He also acknowledges a possible misunderstanding of Parsons’s distinction between unit analysis and element analysis, asking how each relates to concrete and analytical levels. Concerning rationality, he denies attributing exclusively scientific reasoning to actors; his objection instead concerns the status of scientific verifiability within Parsons’s definition.

The dispute over “methodology” is equally consequential. Schütz rejects a division under which Parsons supplies general scientific theory while he supplies merely epistemological preliminaries. His intended term, Wissenschaftslehre, encompasses the logical foundations of theory as well as methodology narrowly understood. Investigating the subjective perspective therefore belongs within social theory itself. His autobiographical account reinforces this point: concrete problems in economics and jurisprudence led him toward Weber and Pareto, and subsequently toward Bergson and Husserl as sources of conceptual tools. Philosophy serves the clarification of social-scientific problems, while those problems provide a test of its usefulness.

Aber natürlich halte ich daran fest, daß die Aussagen der sozialwissenschaftlichen Theorien sich mit der Gesamtheit des philosophischen Wissens in Einklang befinden müssen.

English translation: But of course I maintain that the propositions of social-scientific theories must accord with the totality of philosophical knowledge.

Schütz’s central criticism emerges from this conjunction of empirical purpose and foundational scrutiny. He accepts analysis of act units and the subjective structure of action, but argues that Parsons treats crucial phenomena as already given. Most importantly, a general account applicable equally to solitary conduct and conduct oriented toward another person has not yet explained the specifically social character of action.

Andererseits meine ich, daß Ihre Untersuchungen nicht radikal genug sind, insbesondere dort, wo es um die subjektive Perspektive geht, und daß Sie eine Menge von Phänomenen einfach als gegeben hinnehmen, die genauerer Untersuchung bedürfen.

English translation: On the other hand, I think that your investigations are not radical enough, particularly where the subjective perspective is concerned, and that you simply take a great many phenomena as given which require closer examination.

The required extension includes orientation toward an alter ego, reciprocal interaction, the temporal difference between projected and completed actions, and the categories of personality and anonymity. Schütz also distinguishes the social scientist’s attitude from that of a participant: their interpretations are related, but operate under different qualifications and acquire different meanings. Values and science cannot simply enter the theory against an unexplained background of an already differentiated social world.

Alle diese Fragen können durch eine wirklich radikale Untersuchung der sozialen Intersubjektivität geklärt werden.

English translation: All these questions can be clarified through a truly radical investigation of social intersubjectivity.

“Radicalization” thus means extending the theory toward its insufficiently examined presuppositions, not abandoning its central commitments. Such inquiry would itself constitute a crucial part of general sociology, clarifying the subjective–objective distinction and widening the theory’s explanatory reach. The letter closes by asking whether Parsons wishes to continue the exchange. An anecdote about Beethoven marking an entire manuscript with a cross conveys Schütz’s sense of wholesale rejection. His final request—that the manuscript be received as a long private letter—returns the theoretical dispute to its enabling condition: reciprocal willingness to treat criticism as an effort toward understanding.