Assessing Functional Explanations in the Social Sciences
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7104556 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hope Kincaid (0000-0001-5032-815X, University of Alabama, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1990 |
| Volume | 1990 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 341-354 |
| Publication date | 1990-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | PSA Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0270-8647 • E-ISSN: 2327-9486 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/psaprocbienmeetp.1990.1.192715 |
| OpenAlex | W2317427117 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 17 |
Despite decades of controversy, functionalism continues to be a lively research tradition in the social sciences. Furthermore, social scientists who reject Parsonian functionalism and its variants frequently make liberal use of functional explanations. Yet, neither social scientists nor philosophers have reached any consensus on when and where functional accounts are legitimate. Critics doubt that functionalism is really explanatory or testable; advocates are unfortunately vague on their claims and the evidence for them. In what follows I try to clarify what functionalism entails, discuss some ways in which functional hypotheses can be confirmed, and evaluate criticisms. While I think much functionalism is bad science, I hope to show that the problem is not one of principle but of practice. Social scientists use the term “functionalism” in diverse ways. At times the term refers to a specific theoretical movement in sociology and anthropology—the movement identified with Malinowski and Parsons
Epistemology · Functionalism (philosophy of mind · Social science · Sociology · Structural functionalism · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Social and Cultural Dynamics
G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx’s Theory of History—A Defence
The Architecture of Blame and Praise
Political Realism and Institutions
Mechanisms and Functional Hypotheses in Social Science
Institutional Corruption
Use, Purpose, and Function—Letting the Artifacts Speak
What’s the Point? A Presentist Social Functionalist Account of Institutional Purpose
Explaining Decision‐making in Government
A philosophical discussion of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research in social science
Rational reconstructions and the question of function
Regulating the poor
Organizational Ecology
Pigs for the Ancestors
Constructing social theories
The State in Capitalist Society
Environment, Subsistence and System
Dynamic Functionalism
Karl Marx's Theory of History
The Nature of Selection
Explaining what people eat
Dynamic Functionalism
On the Purity of Women in the Castes of Ceylon and Malabar
Theoretical Logic in Sociology
Is Population Ecology a Useful Paradigm for the Study of Organizations
| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,48 |
| Citation span | 2005 - 2026 (22) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 10 |