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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by PelleSmith (talk | contribs) at 13:13, 17 March 2008 (→Functionalism vs. functional definitions). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Omissions (often serious) and unanswered qeuestion are invisible in CAPITALS in the article. Please removed these invisible warnings (only) after the omission has been addresses. The same warnings IN CAPITALS, but visible, are here User:Andries/Theories_of_religion.Andries (talk) 10:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Functionalism vs. functional definitions

First, I'd like to applaud the entry creator for a wonderful addition to Misplaced Pages. That said, I'd like to make a suggestion. I just self-reverted an edit I made that had specified "functionalist" theories of religion as those stemming from Functionalism in the social sciences: Functionalism (sociology). The reason I self reverted and realized the issue was more complicated is because the difference between functional and substantive definitions does not conflate directly with theories of religion--and "functional" definitions are not "functionalist" definitions. The latter term is applied to functionalism, the afore mentioned social scientific paradigm. I noticed this problem, because functionalism as a theoretical orientation is certainly not a broader category within which Freudian reductionism finds itself, whether or not both essentialize religion through what it does, as opposed to what it is. On top of this proponents of substantive definitions do not need to have "substantive" theories, despite the mistake, be it uncommon, made by a few writers to use this phrase. Of course when a theorist uses a certain type of definition (substantive or functional) there are clearly implications to the broader theoretical project. I would not deny this, but the matter should be presented differently. Certain theorists work from the premise of a substantive or a functional definition, but we should not classify their theories as such, and I think it causes special problems because of existence of "functionalism" as a historically defined theoretical orientation in the social sciences, and because its relationship to the definitional enterprise is much less clear. For instance, Geertz definition of religion is functional (for third party example of this identification see Berger, Peter L. 1977. "Some Second Thoughts on Substantive versus Functional Definitions of Religion." JSSR. 13(2):125-133). However, I would never call Geertz a functionalist, although Berger (in the piece I referenced) does talk about how Geertz reflects the Durkheimian impetus in the social sciences. Anyway this is a much to long way of saying the following: Unless there are any objections I think we should not complicate the substantive, functional split between ways of defining religion with suggestions about larger theoretical projects. Any thoughts?PelleSmith (talk) 13:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)