Definition of "functionalist" [functionalist]

• One who believes in functionalism. (noun)

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• "At the end of his book on Blair's Britain, Chapman has this to say about what we've lost and what we might need to see revived: 'A revival of the idea of functionalist democracy pioneered with the Whitley Report at the end of the First World War, could transform social relationships and participation."
• "The Cognition and Culture theorists of religion, whom I wrote about last week, have as their main enemies the "functionalist" school who believe religion is not a byproduct but a useful form of social organisation which holds people together as nothing else can."
• "To be clear, the criticisms I have voiced of Caillois are not at all specifically anthropological ones, they are criticisms from the point of view of social theory generally; that is, there are certain features of arguments that we have come to understand are deeply problematic in a general way across the social sciences, such as functionalist arguments, or totalizing ones."