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Philosophy of Science Association

Functionalism and the Meaning of Social FactsAuthor(s): Warren SchmausSource: Philosophy of Science, Vol. 66, Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetingsof the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers (Sep., 1999), pp. S314-S323Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Philosophy of ScienceAssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/188780

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Functionalism and the Meaning

of Social Facts

Warren Schmaustt

Illinois

nstitute

f

Technology

This paperdefendsa social functionalist nterpretation,modeled on psychological

unc-

tionalism,

of

the meanings of social facts. Social functionalismprovides

a

better

expla-

nation of the possibilityof interpreting ther cultures han approaches hat identify he

meanings of social facts with either mental states or behavior. I support this

claim

through

a

functionalistreinterpretation f sociological accounts of the

categories hat

identify them with their collective representations.Taking the category of causality as

my example,

I

show that

if

we define it instead

in

terms of its functional relations

to

moral

rules,

it

becomes easier to

recognize

n

other

cultures.

1. Introduction.A

social functionalistaccount

of

the meanings

of

social

facts

can

provide

a

better

explanation

of

how it is

possible

to

interpret

other culturesthan other approachesare able to provide. Social

func-

tionalism defines social facts in

terms

of their

functional

relationships

to

other

social

facts,

environmental

conditions,

and

types

of

actions.

It does not attempt

to

reduce social facts either to behavior or to the

mental states

of

the

members

of

the

society

in

question. Also,

it does

not

leave

their

meanings dependent on the interpretationsof ethnog-

raphers.Social functionalismemphasizesthat a type of social fact can

be instantiated

in

multiple types

of

mental

states, public expressions,

or

even brain

states,

much

as psychological functionalismemphasizes

that the same

type

of

mental state can be instantiated

n

multiple

types

of

brain states.

I

will

illustratethe

strength

of

this approach

through

a

tLewis Department

of

Humanities,

Illinois

Institute

of

Technology,

3301

South

Dear-

born, Chicago,

IL

60616.

11would like to thank those who attended the 1998 PSA session in which I delivered

an earlier

version

of

this paper, especially James Bohman, Douglas Jesseph, Mark

Risjord,

and Paul

Roth,

for

their comments and

suggestions.

Philosophy

of

Science,

66

(Proceedings) pp.

S314-S323.

0031-8248/99/66supp-0024$0.00

Copyright

1999

by

the

Philosophy

of

Science

Association.

All

rights

reserved.

S314

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FUNCTIONALISM AND THE MEANING OF SOCIAL FACTS

S315

functional reinterpretation

of

Durkheimian sociology

of

knowledge.

Specifically,

I

will show that identifying the concept

of

causality with

its social functions rather han with its collectiverepresentationsmakes

it easier to recognize this concept in other cultures.

Durkheim originally conceived collective representationsas a type

of mental entity shared by the members

of

a society. These shared

representations ncluded not only a culture'sreligious and moral ideas

but also its categories

of

causality, substance, space, and time. For

instance, Durkheim and Mauss (1903) identified the Zufii category of

space

with

their

collective

representation

of the division of

space into

seven

regions

named for the seven clans

in

their tribe. On

my account,

it is not necessary for the Zufii all to have the same mental represen-

tation

in

order for them to understand his division

of

space.

It is suf-

ficient

that they

are able to

participate

n

social functions that

require

their

being

able to

specify

and

agree upon

locations.

Similarly,

to

say

that the Chinesetraditionallyconceived

time as

cycles

of

yin

and

yang

is to say that they organized agriculturaland domestic labor

in

accor-

dance

with

these cycles

and not

that they

all had the same

represen-

tation of time

(cf. Granet 1922). Also, although

social life

depends

on

moral rules that assume that

people

are

causally responsible

for

their

actions, it is not necessarythat everyonein the same society have the

same mental

representation

of the

concept

of

causality.

What is im-

portant

is

that they are

able to

agree

on

assignments

of

moral

respon-

sibility.

I

do not mean to suggest that all social scientists still adhere to

Durkheim's mentalist sense

of the term collective

representation

r

even that there is a univocal

meaning

of this term

n

the

social sciences.

Radcliffe-Brown

(1952),

for

instance, regarded

collective

representa-

tions as

explicit, public representations

such as

myths,

ritual

state-

ments, symbols,

concrete

images, artifacts,

or

gestures.

Geertz

rejects

the mentalistic

conception

of

culture, arguing

that

meaning

and

hence

culture is public (1973, 12).

Public

expressions

of

one's

culture,

how-

ever,

far

from

defining

social

facts,

are

among

the

very

social

facts that

need to be

interpreted.

To make this

point,

Geertz

distinguishes

thin

from thick

descriptions

of

behavior,

which he illustrates with his

discussion

of

winking. Winks, parodies

of

winks, practicewinks,

fake

winks,

and mere

eye

twitches all share

the same thin

description

of a

rapid

contraction of the

eyelid.

What

separates

hem are thick

descrip-

tions

of

their

meanings

n

some

public,

social

context

(1973, 6-7).

How-

ever,

a thick

description

s an

interpretation mposed

on

a social action

by

an

anthropologist

and not

necessarily

the

meaning

that it has for

the

agent

herself. The most

important

issue

for

appraising

such an

interpretation,he says, is how well it sorts things into kinds:

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S316 WARREN

SCHMAUS

If ethnography is thick

description and ethnographers hose

who

are doing the describing,

then

the

determining question for

any

given example of it . .. is whether it sorts winks from twitches and

real winks from mimicked ones. It is not against a body of unin-

terpreteddata, radically thinned

descriptions, that we must mea-

sure the cogency of our

explications, but against the power of the

scientific maginationto

bring

us into touch

with

the lives

of

stran-

gers (Geertz 1973, 16).

Presumably, then, Geertz

does

not think that

we can impose any

arbitrary nterpretation

on

a culture: there are

real

world

constraints

on the way we sort cultural items. However, Geertz offers the reader

no

clue as to how we know

when

we

have

sorted

real winks from

mimicked ones. Nor indeed does

he

tell us what it is that

separates

social

actions generally nto real and

not

just

fictional kinds

if

it is not

the

meanings they have

for

their

agents.

That

is,

if

the test

of

an inter-

pretation s that

it

helps us get into

touch

with the lives of social

actors,

it would seem that at least

one way

for

an interpretation o

succeed

would

be

for it to

sort actions into

the

sametypesthat the actorswould.

My

functionalist

approach

to

the

meaning

of social

facts

attempts

to

show how it is possiblefor interpretations o succeedin this way.

2. Social and Psychological

Functionalism.As

I

suggested above, my

functionalist

approach

to the

meaning

of social facts is

modeled

on

psychological

functionalism

and not on earlier unctionalist heories

n

the

social

sciences. Unlike

Malinowski's

functionalism,

or

instance,

t

does

not suggest any hypothesesabout

the functional

unity

of a

society

or

culture.

Psychological

functionalism defines

types

of

mental states

in

terms

of

their functionalrelationships o other mentalstates,

sensory

inputs, and behavioraloutputs. It does not identify them with either

types

of

brain states or

types

of

behavior.

Similarly,my

social func-

tionalism defines

types

of

social

facts in

terms

of their

functional

re-

lationships to other social facts, environmental nputs,andbehavioral

outputs.

It does

not

identify

them with

types

of

representations,

whethermental or

public.Hence,

somewhat

ironically,

where the rela-

tive

strength

of

psychological

functionalism

over

behaviorismderives

from

its appeal to the content of mental states,

the

strength

of

social

functionalism comes

from

keeping

such mental contents

at arm's

length.

Psychological functionalism allows

for

multiple physical

instantia-

tions

of

the same

functionally

defined

type

of mental state.

Whether

a

group

of mental

phenomena

constitutes a

type

of

mental state is de-

termined

by

whether

some

psychological generalization

holds true

of

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FUNCTIONALISM AND THE MEANING OF SOCIAL

FACTS S317

them. On the other hand, whether some group of neural phenomena

constitutes a type of brain state is determinedby

whether some neu-

rophysiological generalizationholds true of them. Even if every indi-

vidual mental state is an individual brain state, there

is no reason to

believe that the laws of psychology and neurophysiology

will divide

these states into the same classes.Two peoplewho share the same type

of mental

state,

defined

in

terms of its

psychological

function, do not

therebyshare the same type of brain state.

Similarly,

a

type

of social fact

may

have multiple psychological

in-

stantiations.

Members

of a

society may

share moral rules, religious

beliefs,

and other

concepts

that are all the same

from

the point

of

view

of their social functions. However,there is no reason to believe that all

the individual

members

of this

society thereby

have the same psycho-

logically defined kinds of mental states. Social

functions are distinct

from psychological functions. Also, just as the sametype of brain state

may

instantiate different

psychological

functions

in

different ndivid-

uals,

the same

type

of mental state can instantiatedifferentsocial

func-

tions. There is a

many-to-many relationship

between

types

of social

facts and

types

of mental

states,just

as there s between

types

of mental

states and

types

of brain states.

Hence,

there

seems

to be little reason

for the social sciencesto invokethe notion of collectiverepresentations,

when these are understood as shared mental states. Of course, social

actors

may

each have individual mental

representations

of the mean-

ings of their actions. However, even when the

meaning of the action

for the individual

s

the

same

as its social functional

meaning,

this social

functional meaning may

be

represented

n

more than one

way. Indeed,

it is not even clearthat the way in which a social actor understands he

meaning

of

his or her action is mediated

by

mental

representations.

My

social functionalism is

entirely

consistent with a materialist

posi-

tion that would eliminatethe intermediate

psychological

evel that

con-

cerns mental

representations

or

contents. On

this

reading,

a

type

of

social fact could be instantiated

n

multipletypes

of neuralmechanisms.

Dan

Sperber might object

that

in

allowing

for

only

token-token

identities between social facts and

psychological

or

neural states, my

social functionalismundermines he

possibility

of

naturalizing

he so-

cial sciences.

As

he

sees

it,

laws or

generalizations

n

the social sciences

must

be

about

types,

not

tokens

(1996, 6).

Hence,

he

opts

for a ma-

terialist ontology of mental representations,which he regards as

brainstates described n functional

terms,

and the causal chains that

connect them

(1996, 26-27).

In

reply

to

Sperber,

I

would

point

out that

to describe a brain

state

in functional terms is not

necessarily

to de-

scribe it as a kind of

representation.

There

is

no

reason

that functional

types

at

one level of

explanation

must be the same as those

at another.

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S318

WARREN SCHMAUS

Neurophysiological functions, psychological functions,

and social

functions can all be distinct from one another. There may very well be

an indefinitenumberof levels of functional descriptions.Furthermore,

Sperber's

main

interest seems to

be in

providing causal

or

epidemio-

logical accounts of the

distributionof representationswithin a culture.

He has little to

say

about how we

interpret

other cultures.

Presumably,

when an

ethnographerencounters

an entirely

new

culture, none of the

representationsn that culturewill

belong to the same causal chains as

the

ethnographer's.Unless the

ethnographerpaid attention to the so-

cial functionsas well as the

causes of these representations, he would

be unable to say that that culture

had any representationsof causality,

time, permanentsubstance, space or place, and so on.

The

multiple instantiability hesis still holds

if

we rejecta mentalistic

conception of culture and

identify

culture

instead with its public

ex-

pressions. That is, the same type of

social

or cultural

fact, functionally

defined, may have more than one

sort

of

public expression. Also,

the

same

words, symbols,

and

thinly-described

behaviors

may

have differ-

ent

meanings

n

different

social

contexts. There are

multiple

behavioral

correlates or any meaning and the

same

observablebehaviorcan

have

many

different

meanings.

One may think that I am arguingmerelyfor a functionalistreinter-

pretation

of

the notion of

collective representations.

I

want to

resist

this

interpretation.

If the

meaning

of a

social

fact is

just

a node

in

a

network

of

functionalrelationshipsamong

social

facts, why should

we

consider t a

representation

at

all?What does

this node

represent?

How

does it represent?

To

whomdoes it

represent?Why

then call

these nodes

collective

representations?

These

questions

continue to

go

unanswered

among contemporary

social

scientists,

who

nevertheless

postulate

col-

lective representations hat may differ from the actual thoughts

of

so-

cial actorsin order to give rationalinterpretationsof what would oth-

erwise

appear

to be

irrationalbehavior.As Pascal

Boyer explains,

these

collective

representations

do not describe

thoughts

that occur

to

ac-

tual

people; they

describe

thoughts

that

people might entertain,

n

the

anthropologist's view,

if

they

wanted

to make sense of what

they

ac-

tually

do and

say (1994, 51). Why

then call these notions collective

representations? do not mean to deny that a social scientistmay rep-

resent to herself a network

of

functional

relationships,

but then

this

would be an individual and not a collective

representation.

3. Functionalismand

the

Sociology

of

Knowledge.

The

sociology

of

knowledge may

be

the

social science that stands most in need of

a

functionalist

re-interpretation.

The identification

of

the

categories

of

causality, substance, space, and time with their collective

representa-

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FUNCTIONALISM AND THE MEANING OF SOCIAL FACTS S319

tions is an important assumption of those who maintain that reality s

a culturally variable construction. Cultural constructivism makes a

much more radical claim than the thesis of the social construction of

reality,which assertsmerelythat what people agree to say about reality

is the result of social processes. The cultural constructivistassertsthat

the very way

in

which one perceivesreality depends on categoriesthat

vary with and are acquiredfrom one's culture. In the philosophy of

science, the best

known

proponent

of

something

like

this position was

probably Thomas Kuhn, who in turn attributedhis views on this mat-

ter to his reading of Benjamin Lee Whorf (1970, vi). More recently,

Kuhn has

described his position as

a

sort

of

post-Darwinian

Kan-

tianism, according to which scientific taxonomies of kind concepts,

like Kantian categories, are preconditions of possible experiencebut

nevertheless can and do change, both with time and with the passage

from one community to another (1991, 12). However,

such a

cultural

constructivistposition,

if

true,

would rule out

any possibility

of

inter-

preting other cultures,for who could make sense of the actions

of

peo-

ple who lived in a differentreality?

Critics

of

cultural constructivismhave

argued

that this thesis rests

on

assumptions

about the human mind

that

lack

empirical upport

and

even run counter to currentresearchon learning,perception,and other

psychological processes (Boyer 1994, 22, 27; Hallpike 1979, 70-71;

Tooby and Cosmides 1989, 41-44). As

I

have indicated above,

cultural

constructivists

often assumethat the fundamental

ategories

of

thought

can be

identifiedwith

collective

representations. ndeed,

how else could

the

categories

be

acquired

from one's culture

if

not as some sort of

mental content

or

representation?

Additional

assumptions

are that

these categories shape

our

perception

of the

world,

that collective

rep-

resentations

depend

on

social causes

and

thus are

culturallyvariable,

and

that the

individualmind

comes

into the world as a blank slate

and

passively acquires

a set of collective

representations

rom her culture.

The critics have alreadypointedout that

there is no

empirical

basis

for

the

assumption

of the

passive reception

of culture.

However,

the whole

constructivistedificecrashesto

the

ground

once we removethe

premise

that

the

categories

of the

understanding

are

representations.

To

identify

the

meanings

of the

categories

with their

social

functions

instead of with the contents of mental states,

on

the other hand, would

help to explain how communication with and interpretation

of other

cultures is

possible. Consider,

for

example,

a functionalist

nterpreta-

tion of

the

category

of

causality

that identifies this

concept

in

other

cultures

through

its relations to moral and

legal

rules.

Human

society

as we know it would

not

be

possible

without such rules.

To have

rules,

people

must be

held

accountable

for

their

actions,

but that assumes

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S320

WARREN

SCHMAUS

that

in

some

sense they contributeto the cause

of their actions.Hence,

all societies

must have some concept or other

of

causality.

Some may

object that human societies exercisesocial control through sanctions

or the threat

of

sanctions.

Sanctions, however,are appliedas the

result

of the violation of a rule. Also,

most peoplecontinue to follow the

rules

even when the threat

of

sanctions s

not immediatelypresent.Of

course,

many

of these rules

may

be

only implicitly

understoodand not carefully

articulated

n a

legal

or moral code. Nevertheless

t would not be

pos-

sible

to

have

even

implicit

moral rules without some

notion of

respon-

sibility.

Durkheim,

in

fact, argued

that

our

concept

of a causal relation

orig-

inated from our notion of moral obligation. For Durkheim, a causal

relation is a necessary relation

and the notion

of a necessary relation

derived

from the

obligation

of members of society to participate

in

religious rites.

In

certain rites

exemplifiedby indigenous Australians,

for

instance,

one imitates a certain

species

of plant or animal

at

an

appropriate

time

of

year

in order to make it

reproduce

and flourish.

Society imposes

the

obligation

to imitate this

species

because a social

interest is at

stake. To obligate the members

of a society to perform

this

rite is to

presume

that

this performancenecessarily

leads

to

the

flourishing

of the

species

that is

being

imitated.

If

society

allowed

peo-

ple to doubt

this causal relationship, Durkheim

argued, it could

not

compel

them to perform

the rite

([1912,

524ff.] 1995, 370ff.).

To be

sure,

Durkheim was less than clear about

whether he was

providing

a

causal

or

a

functional account of the

origin

of

the

concept

of

causality.

However, we could abstract

from Durkheim's

example a functional

account

that would include

the

premisethat,

without some

concept

or

other of

causality, society

cannot

obligate

someone to

do

something.

Similarly,Levy-Bruhldescribeda notion of participation hatplays

the functional

role of

causality

in

so-called

primitive

societies.

In

accordance

with this notion of

participation,

people

are held

respon-

sible

for all sorts of

things

for which we would not blame them.

For

example,

there is

supposedly

no such

thing

for the

primitive

as an ac-

cidentaldeath

or

death

by

naturalcauses.

All

death is

due to witchcraft.

Witchcraftassumes

a notion of

participation,

according

to which one

is supposedto be able to

harm one's intended victim through

actions

taken

against

his

or her

bodily fluids, hair, nails, footsteps,

image,

clothing,utensils, etc., becauseall thesethings participate n the vic-

tim.

People

who

perform

such

witchcraft

may

be held

responsible

or

the death of their victims

(Levy-Bruhl 1910,

321ff.] 1985, 276ff.;[1922,

20ff.] 1978,

37ff.; [1927] 1928, 114ff.). Although

we may not

hold

peo-

ple

to account for murderthrough witchcraft,

nevertheless he relation

of

the

notion of

participation

to

moral

responsibility

allows us to rec-

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FUNCTIONALISM

AND

THE MEANING OF SOCIAL FACTS

S321

ognize participation

as a causal concept. Boyer,

however, questions

whether different

cultures actuallydo have different

concepts

of cau-

sation and assertsthat peopledo not plow theirfields ... in termsof

'participation'

(1994, 129).

If

this is right,however,

it shows

merely

that there may be more than

one concept of causality

operatingeven

in one and the

same so-called

primitive ociety, a point that Levy-

Bruhl would have readily conceded

([1922, 517]

1978, 442-443).

That these

various peoplescited by Durkheim

and Levy-Bruhlmay

have been mistakenabout particular

causal relationships

s besidethe

point.

The

point

of these

examplesis that the category

of

causality

is

necessary

for imposing moral obligations.

Indeed, even to think that

one is not obligated to performa rite because it does not work or to

deny responsibility

or

witchcraft

would involve

a

negative

use of the

category

of

causality. By

interpreting

he

category

of

causality

n

terms

of

its

social functional role,

I

do not mean to suggest that

the concept

of

causality

is the same

in

every way

for all

societies.

My

everyday

notion of causality,

for

instance,

has nothing to

do with

morally

cul-

pable death caused by

witchcraft or with any obligation

to imitate

totemic

species. Many

in our

society may

conceive

causality

as a sta-

tistical rather than a necessary relationship

between cause and effect.

Theremay even be functional explanationsof the culturaldifferences

among

causal concepts

that

appeal

to the

specific

roles these

concepts

play

in

each society.

Nevertheless, t is their

functional relationships o

moral rules

thatbringvarious concepts

under the

category

of

causality

and thus

that allow for the cross-cultural

nterpretation

of

concepts

like participationas causal

concepts.

To

say

that the social function

of the

category

of

causality

s to allow

us to

ascribe moral

responsibility

s not

necessarily

to

say

that this is

the

most

frequent

use

of this

concept.

As Ruth

Millikan

(1993,

161)

explains,the properfunction of a thinghas more to do with its history

of natural selection

than with the

average

conditions under

which the

thing

is found.

For

example,

the

function of the

sperm's

ail

may

be

to

propel

it towards the egg

even

if

only

one in a billion reach theirmark.

Similarly,

since

being

able to

ascribe moral

responsibility

s

necessary

to the continued existence

of human

society,

this

may

be

the function

for which the

category

of

causality

was selected. One

may object

that

the

concept

of

causality

evolved as

necessary

for

practical

tasks

like

hunting

or

gathering.

However,

as

Levy-Bruhl

suggested,

it may be

difficult to

distinguishpurely

technical

procedures

rom moral and re-

ligious rules,

especially n oralcultures.

For example,he describedhow

in

making

an ax, theprimitivemust firstpropitiate

certain

spirits

before

cutting

down the

tree

from which he will

obtain the wood for the handle

(1928, 26). Also,

the

etymology

of the word cause

suggests

its rela-

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S322

WARREN

SCHMAUS

tion

to moral responsiblity.The

word

derives

from

the law,

where

it

refers to a matter or case at hand and by extension to the charge or

accusationin the case.

Of course, a society may impose obligations on its members that

may

not

be

necessary

for

its continued survival.This

concession,

how-

ever, does not stand in the way of providing a functional account of

the

category

of

causality.

The

category

of

causality may be presup-

posed by superfluous ules as well as those rulesnecessary or the main-

tenance

of

the society

in

question. The society is better

off

having these

extra rules than having no concept

of

causality and thus no rules at

all. The

persistence of societies depends on moral rules and thus the

categoryof causality helps to maintain societiesin existence.

To answerquestions regarding he particular ocial function of each

category requiresempirical nvestigationas

well

as philosophicalanal-

ysis.

Even

if

a

category could be

shown to be

universalamong human

cultures,

such evidencewould not sufficeto establish

that

it had

a social

function. We need some

way

to

distinguishgenuine

functional

accounts

from cases

in

which it would merely appear that having a certaincon-

cept benefitssociety. There must

be some account of how

these pur-

ported benefitshelpmaintain the society

in

existence.Onemight argue

that in order for concepts to be naturallyselected in this way, these

concepts

must be

understood

by

the

members of

the

society

that the

concepts benefit.

For

example,

in

order for the individual

membersof

society

to follow

its

moral

rules, they

must be able to

understand

the

concept

of

causality. However,

it

does

not follow that

the

process by

which

individuals understand their

society's concepts

and

follow its

rules must be mediated by collective or even individual mental repre-

sentations. Natural selection

may

favor an

ability

to

understandcausal

concepts

without

selecting

for

any particular

causal

concept

or

for

members of a social group all to representthis concept in the same

way.

Social

functionalism

links

our

ability

to

use

spatial, temporal,

causal,

and

classificatoryconcepts

to our

evolution as social

beings,

and leaves as an

open question

for further research

in

the

cognitive

sciences how it is that we are able to use such

concepts.

4.

Conclusion.

In

conclusion,

the

meanings

of social

facts

should be

understood

in

terms of

their

functional

relationships

with other

social

facts,

environmental

conditions,

and behavioral

outputs.

Social func-

tionalism relates the

meanings

of social facts to behavior without re-

ducing

them to behavior.

Allowing

for

the instantiation

of

social facts

in

multiple types

of

psychological

or

neurophysiologicalstates, social

functionalism

dispenses

with

the

notion of

collective

mental

represen-

tations. It remains an

open question

whether it is still

necessary

to

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FUNCTIONALISM

AND THE MEANING OF

SOCIAL FACTS

S323

postulate

individualmental representations

n orderto explain

ndivid-

ual actions, the relationship

between the

individual and her society,

and the natural selectionof conceptualor cognitiveabilities.

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