CONCEPTIONS OF VALUE‐RELEVANCE AND THE THEORY OF ACTION

The inquiries of Weber and Parsons into the relationships between value freedom and value‐relevance as elements in the methodology of the social sciences are renewed in the present essay. A major foundation of the discussion is provided by the Weber‐Parsons distinction between judgments pertaining to values, value‐commitments, and the value‐relevance of knowledge, on the one hand, and judgments of fact or logic, schemas of proof, and the value‐freedom of intellectual disciplines, on the other hand. However, questions are raised about the methodological claims that value‐relevance necessarily represents a relativistic element in a body of knowledge while any universality of its significance can be grounded only in pertinent schemas of proof. The factor of value‐relevance is examined in a more differentiated fashion by two applications of the Parsonian four‐function paradigm. In the first paradigm, four fundamental elements of the value‐relevance of social scientific knowledge are identified. In the second paradigm, four levels in the cultural generalization of the value‐relevance specifically of theoretical knowledge are distinguished. At the highest level of generalization, here called philosophical, value‐relevance may be framed in transcendental terms that can impart a universality to the substantive significance of knowledge. This proposal is then bolstered by an examination of the ways in which Dilthey and then, with greater generality and precision, Simmel secured value‐relevance for their theoretical schemes.