This article compares the main elements of Parsons' and Sorokin's sociological work in the context of the formation and development of an American school of social theory during the 1930s-1950s. Of these elements, four are meta-theoretical, and four substantive or theoretical. Included in the first group are the problems of methodology, selection, convergence versus divergence, and interpretation. The possibility of social dynamics, the conception of the social system, micro versus macro-social and economic action comprise the second. The comparison suggests that the different roles of Parsons and Sorokin in American social theory are to be, in part, accounted for by extra-scientific rather than strictly scientific factors.
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