Functionalism

Question 1

What is Verstehen/Meaning (Weber)?

Answer 1

• systematic interpretive process
• outside observer attempts to relate to a culture

• A systematic interpretive process in which an outside observer of a culture attempts to relate to it and understand others.*

Question 2

How or why is Verstehen/Meaning (Weber) used?

Answer 2

• to identify and interpret human actions as observable events
• to provide explanation for individual actions and group interactions

• The goal is to identify human actions and interpreting them as observable events leading us to believe that it not only provides for a good explanation for individual actions but also for group interactions. The meaning attached needs to include constraints and limitations and analyze the motivation for action. Weber believed that this gives the sociologist an advantage over a natural scientist because “We can accomplish something which is never attainable in the natural sciences, namely the subjective understanding of the action of the component individuals”.*

Question 3

Where was Verstehen/Meaning (Weber) first cited?

Answer 3

Weber

1904/5

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Question 4

What are the problems/limitations of Verstehen/Meaning (Weber)?

Answer 4

• assumes it is possible for a person born of one culture to completely understand another culture
• subjective thoughts and feelings are regarded as bias in the sciences

• It is simply impossible for a person born of one culture to ever completely understand another culture, and that it is arrogant and conceited to attempt to interpret the significance of one culture’s symbols through the terms of another (supposedly superior) culture. Critics believe that it is the sociologist’s job to not just observe people and what people do but also share in their world of meaning and come to appreciate why they act as they do. Subjective thoughts and feelings regarded as bias in the sciences is an important aspect to be controlled while doing sociological research.*

Question 5

What is Verstehen/Meaning (Weber) often compared to?

Answer 5

• Emic vs Etic
• Reflexivity
• Cultural Relativism

Question 6

What is Social Structure?

Answer 6

• patterned social arrangements
• emergent from & determinant of the actions of individuals

• Social Structure is the patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of the individuals.*

Question 7

How or why is Social Structure used?

Answer 7

• seen to influence important social systems
• • *
• Social structure may be seen to influence important social systems including the economic system, legal system, political system, cultural system, and others. Family, religion, law, economy and class are all social structures. The “social system” is the parent system of those various systems that are embedded in it.*

Question 8

What are the problems/limitations of Social Structure?

Answer 8

• may mask systematic biases e.g. subvariable of gender
• • *
• The notion of Social Structure may mask systematic biases, as it involves many identifiable subvariables, for example, gender. Some argue that men and women who have otherwise equal qualifications receive different treatment in the workplace because of their gender, which would be termed a “social structural” bias, but other variables (such as time on the job or hours worked) might be masked.*

Question 9

What is Function?

Answer 9

• parts of society work to maintain balance
• maintain connectedness & integration

• The idea is that the different parts of a society (rituals, institutions, statuses, lineages) work to maintain the connectedness and integration of society as a whole.*

Question 10

How or why is Function used?

Answer 10

• to demonstrate society’s ability to maintain or “reproduce” itself
• • *
• For the structural functionalists, society’s ability to maintain or “reproduce” itself over time was an extremely important insight, and in the past theorists have at times tended to take the self-maintenance of society for granted.*

Question 11

What are the problems/limitations of Function?

Answer 11

• underestimates the degree to which societies are not harmoniously integrated
• • *
• Later anthropologists (e.g. postmodernists) have pointed out that the structural functionalists may have underestimated the degree to which societies are not harmoniously integrated, and change over time. The underlying insight - that societies are often systematically (if not always harmoniously) integrated - has, however, remained a part of the foundation of anthropology as a subject.*

Question 12

What is Holism?

Answer 12

• the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
• the parts cannot exist independently of the whole

• The theory that parts of a whole are in intimate interconnection, such that they cannot exist independently of the whole, or cannot be understood without reference to the whole, which is thus regarded as greater than the sum of its parts.*

Question 13

How or why is Holism used?

Answer 13

• to refer to an analysis of a society as a whole which refuses to break society into component parts.

Question 14

What are the problems/limitations of Holism?

Answer 14

• considered to be an artefact from C19th socio-evolutionary thought
• inappropriately imposes scientific positivism (general laws) upon cultural anthropology

• It is concerned with all human beings across times and places, and with all dimensions of humanity (evolutionary, biophysical, sociopolitical, economic, cultural, psychological, etc.) Some leading anthropologists disagree, and consider anthropological holism to be an artifact from 19th century social evolutionary thought that inappropriately imposes scientific positivism upon cultural anthropology. Positivism holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. Introspective and intuitive knowledge is rejected.*