The implications of these considerations justify the statement that all empirically verifiable knowledge even the commonsense knowledge of everyday life - involves implicitly, if not explicitly, systematic theory in this sense.
Talcott Parsons

The importance of certain problems concerning the facts will be inherent in the structure of the system.
Talcott Parsons

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.
Talcott Parsons

The part an actor played on stage was once written on a separate roll of paper.
Talcott Parsons

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.
Talcott Parsons

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.
Talcott Parsons

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.
Talcott Parsons