Social Functions in Philosophy

Rebekka Hufendiek is an Assistant Professor at the University of Basel. Her research interests lie in philosophy of mind and philosophy of science, particularly in empirical and ideological dimensions of research on cognitive and behavioral features. Her book Embodied Emotions: A Naturalist Approach to a Normative Phenomenon (Routledge 2015) provides a noncognitivist theory of emotions. Daniel James’ historical research concerns the intersection of Hegel’s metaphysics with his political philosophy. With a view to contemporary debates in social philosophy, he is interested in the concept of social power and its fruitfulness for social-scientific inquiry, as well as in social dispositions and their connection to social-structural explanation, Raphael van Riel holds a position as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Duisburg-Essen, where he directs a research group which focuses on theories of explanation. In his book The Concept of Reduction (2014), he offers a novel explication of reduction claims in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of science.

Introduction

Rebekka Hufendiek, Daniel James, and Raphael van Riel

1. The Empirical Issues in Functional Explanations in the Social Sciences

Harold Kincaid

2. Do Organizations Adapt?

Daniel Little

3. Social Dysfunctions

Heiner Koch

4. In Search for Missing Mechanisms. Functional Explanation in Social Science

Raphael van Riel

5. From Natural Hierarchy-Signals to Social Norm Enforcers. What Good Are Functional Explanations of Shame and Pride?

Rebekka Hufendiek

6. What Grounds Social Role Normativity?

Charlotte Witt

7. The Social Function of Morality

Andreas Müller

8. The Function of Gender as a Historical Kind

Mari Mikkola

9. Function Without Intention? A Practice-Theoretical Solution to Challenges of the Social Domain

Amrei Bahr

10. Revealing Social Functions through Pragmatic Genealogies

Matthieu Queloz

11. Social Organisms. Hegel’s Organizational Theory of Social Functions

Daniel James