How to Make a Functionalist Argument

Abstract

Sociologists have an awkward relationship with functionalist explanations. Despite having declared “functionalism” to be obsolete, some form of functionalist argument still remains cryptically present in much substantive research. We argue that the resulting inability to talk plainly about functions is a major hindrance for theory building in the discipline. As such, this article has two goals. The first is disambiguation. What does it mean to attribute a function to something? We answer this question by elaborating on the distinction between proper functions (responding to why-is-it-there questions) and role functions (responding to how-does-it-work questions). The second is to introduce a typology of functional arguments that builds upon this distinction, allowing us to recast “functionalism” as a set of general explanatory strategies and not as a substantive theory about society. Importantly, these forms of argument are not burdened by the problems with the organicist framework that many sociologists associate with functionalism.