Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 00:46:38 +0200 (EET)
Subject: M-TH: functionalism


Well, Justin

I don't think there's nothing wrong with functional explanation as
such. There's always room for them provided one has other kind of
explanations when they're more suitable.

Secondly, for you functionalism might be a vague term, but what about
this: there's 'old' functionalism of Parsons and parsonians, and then
there's neo-functionalism. (In sociology, I mean.) For parsonians
society was just a network of functional dependencies, to put it
bluntly, which raised the question of change: does change really come
only as a functional necessity? And: aren't there any societal
antagonisms? For marxists that sort of theory was a nightmare. No room
for revolutionary action. For neo-functionalists such as Jeffrey
Alexander there surely is some space for human agency in their
theories. But at least in the case of Alexander neo-functionalism is
still far away from reality - see his criticism of Pierre Bourdieu in
"Fin de Siécle Social Theory".

I have few papers against metaphysical individualism but won't
recommend them to you because you don't read finnish.

Jukka L



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