Functional Explanation Again

[Kelley Walker]

At 11:23 AM 3/23/01 -0500, Jim Farmelant wrote:
>For Cohen, the underlying telos in his functional explanations is not 
>system maintenance and social cohesion in quite the same sense of Durkheim 
>or Malinowski but rather the continued development of the forces of 
>production.  In his scheme, the development of the forces of production 
>may either be fostered by the social relations of production that exist at 
>a given historical moment or they may be hindered.  The same set of 
>relations of production may well foster the development of the forces of 
>production  at one but later on act as fetters on their further 
>development.  In Cohen's view when this contradiction between the forces 
>of production and the relations of production occurs, then it is quite 
>likely that changes will eventually occur in the relations of production, 
>so that new relations will arise that are better adapted to the forces of 
>production. (This is what is known as Cohen's Thesis of the Primacy of the 
>Forces of Production).
>
>On the other hand when the existing relations of production are
>relatively well adapted to the current level of development of the forces 
>of production, then the social system will tend to function so as to 
>stabilize the existing relations of production.  In Cohen's view, it is 
>thus possible to analyze the supersturcture (i.e. the state, law, 
>religion, and ideology) in terms of its functioning to stabilize the 
>economic base (i.e. the forces of production combined with the relations 
>of production).
>Therefore, in Cohen's view, functional explanations of the supersturcture
>ought to be prove to be especially fruitful.   <brevity snip>

when one of my mentors, manfred stanley, lectured undergrads on SF during 
my very first TA stint, he was startled a bit as he felt water dripping on 
him.  he looked up and said, "hmmm. a pipe is leaking...." then he resumed 
the lecture, but didn't get very far. he stopped dead in his tracks and 
looked up again and said, "it's NOT leaking! IT'S CONDENSING!!"

oh my! he loved that.  students didn't get it without quite a bit of 
discussion in sections later, of course.  but it made manny exceedingly happy!

btw, dennis, i don't disagree with you re: SF.  what i've been pointing out 
is primarily that the kneejerk derision of SF on the part of some 
marxisms  is hilarious since they often engage in it themselves, but don't 
recognize it since they believe that their foundational assumptions are 
superior to that of Durkheimian,etc SF.  and, second, i agree with Jim and 
Justin that SF needs a more sophisticated critique than that conventionally 
lodged at Durkheimian/Etc variants of SF.

and, yoshie, it isn't a discussion of "methodology for the sake of 
discussing it" (your words) that i was after. it was a discussion of the 
nature of scientific EXPLANATION.  methodology and explanation are rather 
different things, tho they are surely NOT unrelated.

kelley