The Uncoupling of System and Lifeworld Jiirgen Habermas The provisional concept of society proposed here is radically different in one respectfromthe Parsonianconcept:thematureParsons rein terpretedthestruc¬tural components of the lifcworld -culture, society, perso nality -as action systems constituting environments for one another. Without much ado, he subsumed the concept of the lifeworld gained from an action-theoretical perspective under systems -theoretical concepts. As we shall see below, the structuralcomponentsofthe lifeworldbecomesubsystems of ageneralsystem of action, to 'which the physical substratum of the lifeworld is reckoned along with the "behavior system." The p roposal That I am advancing here, by contrast, attempts to take into account the methodological differences between the internalist and the externalist viewpoints connected with the two conceptual strategies . From the participant p erspective of members of a Iifeworld it looks as if sociologywith