Functionalist theories have been proposed for just about everything: mental states, dispositions, moral properties, truth, causation, and much else. The time has come for a functionalist theory of ...

The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Mar., 1984), pp. 1-18 (18 pages) The equilibrium model has long been used in sociology. It has been especially prominent in structural-functional ...

A prudent measure given the pace of technological progress. Even if AI doesn’t turn against us in some future robot war, we ...

If I wanted to be controversial, as a sociologist, I might say that serial murder is “functional” for society. However, a less inflammatory way to say the same thing is that serial murder can be ...