Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T11:46:25.425Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Functionalism and the Meaning of Social Facts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Warren Schmaus
Warren Schmaus*
Affiliation:
Illinois Institute of Technology
*
†Lewis Department of Humanities, Illinois Institute of Technology, 3301 South Dearborn, Chicago, IL 60616.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper defends a social functionalist interpretation, modeled on psychological functionalism, of the meanings of social facts. Social functionalism provides a better explanation of the possibility of interpreting other cultures than approaches that identify the meanings of social facts with either mental states or behavior. I support this claim through a functionalist reinterpretation of sociological accounts of the categories that identify them with their collective representations. Taking the category of causality as my example, I show that if we define it instead in terms of its functional relations to moral rules, it becomes easier to recognize in other cultures.

Type
Philosophy of Social Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 66 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 1999 , 1999 , pp. S314 - S323
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

I would like to thank those who attended the 1998 PSA session in which I delivered an earlier version of this paper, especially James Bohman, Douglas Jesseph, Mark Risjord, and Paul Roth, for their comments and suggestions.

References

Boyer, Pascal (1994), The Naturalness of Religious Ideas. Berkeley: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520911628CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durkheim, Emile ([1912] 1995), The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Translated by Fields, K. New York: Free Press. (Originally published as Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. Paris: Alcan.)Google Scholar
Durkheim, Emile and Mauss, Marcel ([1903] 1963), Primitive Classification. Translated by Needham, R. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Originally published as “De quelque formes primitives de classification: contribution à l'étude des représentations collectives”, L'Année sociologique 6: 1–72.)Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford (1973), The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Granet, Marcel ([1922] 1975), The Religion of the Chinese People. Translated by Freedman, M. New York: Harper Torchbooks. (Originally published as La Religion des Chinois. Paris: Gauthiers-Villars.)Google Scholar
Hallpike, Christopher R. (1979), The Foundations of Primitive Thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. (1970), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. (1991), “The Road Since Structure”, in Fine, A., Forbes, M., and Wessels, L. (eds.), PSA 1990, vol. 2. East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association, 3–13.Google Scholar
Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien ([1910] 1985), How Natives Think. Translated in 1926 by Clare, L. A. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Originally published as Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures. Paris: Alcan.)Google Scholar
Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien. ([1922] 1978), Primitive Mentality. Translated in 1923 by Clare, L. A. New York: Macmillan. (Originally published as La mentalité primitive. Paris: Alcan.)Google Scholar
Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien. ([1927] 1928), The Soul of the Primitive. Translated by Clare, L. A. New York: MacMillan. (Originally published as L'Ame primitive. Paris: Alcan.)Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth G. (1993). White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice. Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT Press.Google Scholar
Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred R. (1952), Structure and Function in Primitive Society. London: Cohen & West, Ltd.Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan (1996), Explaining Culture: a naturalistic approach. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Ltd.Google Scholar
Tooby, John and Cosmides, Leda (1989), “Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, Part I: Theoretical Considerations”, Ethology and Sociobiology 10: 29–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar