Improving Functionalist Arguments

Contemporary sociology finds itself in an awkward position. Despite having declared the death of functionalism, some form of functionalist argument still remains cryptically present in much substantive research. We argue that this 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. This allows us to recast “functionalism” as a set of general explanatory strategies and not as a substantive theory about society. This framework enables us to better evaluate, challenge, and improve upon much of the sociological research that currently relies on these forms of argument. Importantly, these forms of argument are not burdened with the problems associated with the organicist framework many sociologists have in mind when they think of functionalism.