#12618 - Cohen Marxism And Functionalism - Sociological Theory

Gerry Cohen - Functional explanation, consequence explanation, and Marxism

1. Marxism, Functional Explanation, and Game Theory

• Marxism relies on consequence explanations, in which consequences are used to explain their causes

  • according to Elster, consequence explanation is available to biology but not to the social sciences

    • Elster claims that Marxism should rely upon game theory rather than functionalism

      • but this is not possible to historical materialism, which necessarily relies on consequence explanations

  • historical materialism claims that:

    • the level of development of the productive forces in a society explains the nature of its economic structure

    • its economic structure explains the nature of its superstructure

    • for this to be consistent with the following Marxist theses, the species of explanation must be functional:

      • the economic structure of a society promotes the development of its productive forces

      • the superstructure of a society stabilizes its economic structure

    • functional explanation = ‘e occurred because the situation was such that an event of type E would cause an event f type F’

• Historical materialism cannot contain game theory because it is not a theory of behaviour

  • rather it is a theory of the forces and relations constraining and directing behaviour

    • the short term outcomes of class struggle may be determined by behaviour, but the long term outcomes are governed by a dialectic of forces and relations of production, not by behaviour

2. Functional explanation and the theory of chance variation and natural selection

• Functional explanation = where something is explained by its function, or where something is explained by the function of something or other (possibly not itself)

  • consequence explanation = where the fact that E causes F helps to explain the occurrence of E

  • evolution is an example of consequence explanation, because ‘it is because an environment is such that in it a certain feature would improve the reproductive capacity of members of a species that the species acquires that feature’

  • the central Marxist explanations are consequence explanations, but not necessarily (or not clearly) functional explanations

• Does evolution provide/justify functional explanations?

  • do particular organisms develop certain features because they are or were functional for that organism?

    • no - features are developed in particular organisms because of genetic endowments, regardless of whether they are or were functional for that organism

      • particular organisms have no way to remove features that are no longer functional

  • do particular organisms develop certain features because they are or were functional for something other than it (e.g. the species)?

    • if an individual organism has a particular feature because it is a functional feature (as opposed to being because of random variation) then it is because it was functional for past organisms, rather than being functional for that individual organism

      • this led to higher reproduction rates for those organisms

      • this is not a full functional explanation - A has feature F which is functional for A, and has feature F because of F’s function, but not because of F’s function for A

      • if such an explanation were a functional explanation, then we would be committed to functional explanations of non-functional features, because of the functionality of the replication mechanism for past organisms

  • does something other than a particular organism have/develop a certain feature because it is/was functional for it?

    • yes, species develop certain features because they are functional to that species

      • e.g. speed is functional to the hare, and the hare is fast because it is functional for it to be fast

  • does something other than a particular organism have/develop a certain feature because it is/was functional for something other than it?

    • for every feature for which there is an evolutionary explanation, we can explain it as functional both to the species and to individual organisms

3. Functional explanation and Elster loops

• Some mundane beef with Elster: perhaps he has the wrong conception of what a functional explanation is/whether functional explanation is possible in the social sciences

4. Consequence explanation and the theory of chance variation and natural selection

• Does evolution provide/justify consequence explanations?

  • consequence explanation = where an event is explained by the fact that an event of the given kind would have such and such consequences in that situation

  • if so, then e.g. the fact that long necks benefit giraffes explains the acquisition by the giraffe species of a long neck, since the stated dispositional fact explains which chance variants survived and reproduced

    • it is the fact that long necks are of value that explains the selection of that variation

  • we can tell minute stories about which random mutations did and do not survive and reproduce, but this doesn’t mean that we can’t give an overarching consequence explanation that tells us the basis for selection (dispositional characteristiscs)

5. Consequence explanation and mechanisms: Elster v. Cohen

• Elster argues that the claim that B functionally explains A must be supported by a plausible story that reveals how B functionally explains A

  • this is sufficient but unnecessary - we can support the claim without knowing the mechanism, simply by pointing to ‘an appropriately varied range of...