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This open access book presents and defends a new approach towards social functionalism: Presentist Social Functionalism. This approach draws on recent developments in evolutionary biology and philosophy of biology to provide a more compelling theoretical foundation for functionalist social analysis. Functionalist approaches to the social sciences—which aim at using facts about what social institutions are for to provide a fulcrum with which to understand, evaluate, and respond to social reality—are about as old as the subject itself, but have also been the subject of much criticism. In particular, a widespread concern for the functionalist tradition in the social sciences is that functional ascriptions often lack a plausible theoretical grounding, and that where such a theoretical grounding can be provided, the empirical presuppositions of this grounding often fail to be met. However, recent developments in evolutionary biology and the philosophy of biology promise to change this situation: they show that functional ascription can be compellingly made in an ahistorical, non-reproduction-based, and non-normative manner, which makes it possible to develop a new account of social functionalism that can fulfil the latter’s theoretical and empirical desiderata. To show this, the book begins by laying out the major existing accounts of social functionalism and detailing their challenges. It then develops the new, alternative account of Presentist Social Functionalism. Given its interdisciplinary nature and application-focused approach, the book is of interest to researchers in a variety of fields, from evolutionary biology to the social sciences and philosophy.
List of contents
Chapter 1. The Theoretical Backbone—Social Institutions, Functionalism, and Social Science.- Chapter 2. Missing Mechanisms, Arbitrary Assignments, and Counterfactual Conundrums—Existing Accounts of Social Functionalism and Their Problems.- Chapter 3. Presentist Social Functionalism—The Foundations.- Chapter 4. Presentist Social Functionalism and the Function of Corporations.- Chapter 5. Institutional Corruption—The Presentist Social Functionalist Account.- Chapter 6. Artifacts—A Presentist Social Functionalist Account (co-written with Clint Hurshman).- Chapter 7. Conclusion.
About the author
Armin Schulz is an interdisciplinary researcher investigating what we can learn from linking evolutionary biology and the cognitive and social sciences. His particular focus is on the evolutionary pressures on representational decision-making, both with a view towards cognitive psychology and economics.
He earned a BSc and MPhil in economics and philosophy from the London School of Economics, and received a PhD in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (under the supervision of Elliott Sober). After that, he returned to the LSE as an assistant professor, where he spent a further three and a half years before joining the philosophy department at the University of Kansas, where is currently a professor. He is the author of two books (“Structure, Evidence, and Heuristic: Evolutionary Biology, Economics, and the Philosophy of Their Relationship,” Routledge, 2020, and "Efficient Cognition: The Evolution of Representational Decision Making," MIT Press, 2018) as well as over30 papers in the leading journals in the field. He has presented his research in many parts of the world and has experience in engaging with non-professional audiences through interviews at National Public Radio and articles in Aeon magazine (among others). He regularly teaches classes in cognitive science, philosophy of social science, and philosophy of science.
Summary
This open access book presents and defends a new approach towards social functionalism: Presentist Social Functionalism. This approach draws on recent developments in evolutionary biology and philosophy of biology to provide a more compelling theoretical foundation for functionalist social analysis. Functionalist approaches to the social sciences—which aim at using facts about what social institutions are for to provide a fulcrum with which to understand, evaluate, and respond to social reality—are about as old as the subject itself, but have also been the subject of much criticism. In particular, a widespread concern for the functionalist tradition in the social sciences is that functional ascriptions often lack a plausible theoretical grounding, and that where such a theoretical grounding can be provided, the empirical presuppositions of this grounding often fail to be met. However, recent developments in evolutionary biology and the philosophy of biology promise to change this situation: they show that functional ascription can be compellingly made in an ahistorical, non-reproduction-based, and non-normative manner, which makes it possible to develop a new account of social functionalism that can fulfil the latter’s theoretical and empirical desiderata. To show this, the book begins by laying out the major existing accounts of social functionalism and detailing their challenges. It then develops the new, alternative account of Presentist Social Functionalism. Given its interdisciplinary nature and application-focused approach, the book is of interest to researchers in a variety of fields, from evolutionary biology to the social sciences and philosophy.
