It is that of increasing knowledge of empirical fact, intimately combined with changing interpretations of this body of fact - hence changing general statements about it - and, not least, a changing a structure of the theoretical system.
Talcott Parsons

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

From all this it follows what the general character of the problem of the development of a body of scientific knowledge is, in so far as it depends on elements internal to science itself.
Talcott Parsons

But the scientific importance of a change in knowledge of fact consists precisely in j its having consequences for a system of theory.
Talcott Parsons

Empirical interest will be in the facts so far as they are relevant to the solution of these problems.
Talcott Parsons

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.
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

The conception that, instead of this, contemporary society is at or near a turning point is very prominent in the views of a school of social scientists who, though they are still comparatively few, are getting more and more of a hearing.
Talcott Parsons