> you said something something about the "proof of the pudding" as if GA
Cohen had proven the validity of functional explanation in a way that was
extremely pleasing to you.
Actually, I think that Cohen did a good thing in puttinmg the issue on the table, but
utter failed to show how functional explanations were valid. However, I think hewas
right in identifying historical materialist explanations as functional ones.
explanations of this sort involve an obnoxious form
>of teleology. if you don't introduce the dysfunctional mechanisms in conjunction
with the functional ones.
I agree. It's part of my criticism of Cohen in that he cannot make this distinction,
although he does insist in another part of his account on the distinction between
relations of production that are functional for and those that fewtter or are
dysfunctional for the forces of production.
> functionalism and functional explanation are the same thing if
dysfunctional mechanisms -- i.e., the way in which capitalism is a
contradictory system -- are ignored.
No, because you might think that there are many social phenomena that have neither a
functional nor a dysfunctional explanation. Functionalism I take to be doctrine that
everything is functional.
--jks
