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This book is Prof. Givon's long-awaited critical examination of the fundamental theoretical and methodological underpinnings of the functionalist approach to grammar. It challenges functionalists to take their own medicine and establish non-circular empirical definitions of both 'function' and 'structure'. Ideological hand-waving, however fervent and right-thinking, is seldom an adequate substitute for analytic rigor and empirical responsibility. If the reductionist extremism of the various structuralist schools is to be challenged on solid intellectual grounds, the challenge cannot itself be equally extreme in its reductionism. The book is divided into nine chapters: 1. Prospectus, somewhat...
Essay from the year 2002 in the subject Sociology - General and Theoretical Directions, grade: 2ii (B), Oxford University (New College), language: English, abstract: Both functionalism and symbolic interactionism are sociological theories i.e. sets of ideas which provide an explanation for human society. Like all theory, sociological theory is selective because it cannot explain everything or account for the infinite amount of data that exist. Theories are therefore selective in terms of their priorities and perspectives and the data they define as significant. As a result, they provide a particular and partial view of reality. There are a wide variety of sociological theories, and they can ...
A range of current approaches to architecture are neglected in our contemporary writings on design philosophies. This book argues that the model of 'function' and the concept of a 'functional building' that we have inherited from the twentieth-century Modernists is limited in scope and detracts from a full understanding of the purposes served by the built environment. It simply does not cover the range of functions that buildings can afford nor is it tied in a conceptually clear manner to our contemporary concepts of architectural theory. Based on Abraham Maslow's theory of human motivations, and following on from Lang's widely-used text, Creating Architectural Theory: The Role of the Behavioral Sciences in Environmental Design, Lang and Moleski here propose a new model of functionalism that responds to numerous observations on the inadequacy of current ways of thinking about functionalism in architecture and urban design. Copiously illustrated, the book puts forward this model and then goes on to discuss in detail each function of buildings and urban environments.
M.J. Mulkay traces the development of certain recent versions of functionalism and exchange theory in sociology, with special attention to 'theoretical strategy'. He uses this term to refer to the policies which theorists adopt to ensure that their work contributes to their long range theoretical objectives. Such strategies are important, he believes, because they place limits on the theories with which they are associated. He shows how each of the theorists he studies devised a new strategy to replace the unsuccessful policies of a prior theory in a process of 'strategical dialectic'. This often has unforeseen consequences for the direction of theoretical growth, and the author interprets changes in theoretical perspective largely as products of these strategical innovations.
In this book, Michael Faia challenges the view that functionalism should be rejected.
First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
This book is a simple introduction to the history and various systems of Psychology. It provides a basic understanding of major systems and theories in psychology in a comprehensive way. It covers in detail the historiecal backgrounds taking plave before the emgergence of each system. As such, it provides a better understanding about the historical emergence of status of psychology and in beginning its separation from philosophical traditions. It covers a lucid discussion with emphasis on the antecednet forces of all the important system of psychology. Besides the traditional systems, it alos includes in separate chapters a discussion on the CONGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, the EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY, the HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY and the INTERNATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. An overview of psychology in India has also been one of the salient features of the book. This will briefly introduce to teachers and students about what the Indian psychologists are doing.The book is an ideal text for undergraduate and post graduate course of psychology.
Anthony Smith's important work on the concept of social change, first published in 1973, puts forward the paradigm of historical change as an alternative to the functionalist theory of evolutionary change. He shows that, in attempting to provide a theory of social change, functionalism reveals itself as a species of 'frozen' evolutionism. Functionalism, he argues, is unable to cope with the mechanisms of historical transitions or account for novelty and emergence; it confuses classification of variations with explanation of processes; and its endogenous view of change prevents it from coming to grips with the real events and transformations of the historical record. In his assessment of functionalism, Dr Smith traces its explanatory failures in its accounts of the developments of civilisation, modernisation and revolution. He concludes that the study of 'evolution' is largely irrelevant to the investigation of social change. He proposes instead an exogenous paradigm of social change, which places the study of contingent historical events at its centre.
Essays discuss behaviorism, reductionism, physicalism, functionalism, the nature of mental states, and the foundations of psychoanalysis.