Introduction

Fri, Sep 23, 2016 9:55 - I recently accessed Kieran Healy’s syllabus for his contemporary sociological theory course (see here) and have started an individual study course. The first session is on ‘functionalism and its discontents.’ This seems to be a bridge from courses in ‘classic’ sociological theory:

Last semester, you followed the more or less conventional sequence of “classical” socio- logical theorists through the long nineteenth century. You ended a generation later with Talcott Parsons’s effort to unify these thinkers into some sort of research program. Along with the rest of the social sciences, Sociology grew and differentiated rapidly a er World War II. Parsons tried to ground his historical synthesis in a systems framework. Structural-functionalism’s period of dominance was disputed and relatively brief, but much of what followed in American Sociology can be seen as a reaction to its failure. Some of the theory groups that followed began working out parts of the post-Parsonian wreckage. Sometimes this was accompanied by a self-consciously modest view about the scope and limits of theory, but sometimes they sought to replace the entire framework using a single part of the original. Others attempted to build a new canon of previously neglected classics, or imported work from outside the field. Amongst the most influential in practice were attempts to develop theory in direct engagement with empirical research rather than by way of quasi-philosophical system-building or armchair cultural criticism.

I am interested in identifying remnants of functionalism in the sociology of markets and organizations.

Summary

Barnes (1995) includes a chapter on functionalism. “Functionalist theories in the social sciences seek to describe, to understand and in most cases explain the orderliness and stability of entire social systems” (37). Whereas individualism explains the whole from parts, functionalism seeks to explain (describe) the parts from the whole. Barnes goes on to challenge the feasibility of explaining parts by reference to contributions to the whole: “To say that an organ exists because of what it contributes to the whole system is to risk the charge of teleology, of explanation by purpose in a system that knows know purpose” (43).

Personally, I think acknowledging functionalism’s descriptive nature is possible without denial of a designer of or a purpose for parts. It is like subjecting a piece of artwork to explanation: ‘Why are there yellow leaves by the pond?’ Perhaps we can comment on the artist’s underlying purpose, but it supposes a single interpretation to the work. An alternative is describing the effects of the yellow leaves by the pond on the work’s interpretation.¹

It is useful here to distinguish between studying the causes of effects and the effects of causes (Holland 1986). The movement is from ‘why do we have universities’ to ‘what impact do changes to (given ’part’ of society) have on (societal outcome)’.

A deeper matter is

References