State the importance of functional method and also soem of its important critiques.

1. Functional method refers to the functional analysis, which is also known as functionalism, and ‘structural functionalism’.

‘Functionalism’ is a doctrine which asserts that the main task of sociology and social anthropology is to examine the contribution, which social items make to the social and cultural life of human collectivities. It may additionally assert that to examine social phenomena in this manner is to explain why these items occur at all and/or why they have presisted.

2. Functionalism provides a perspective from which one can attempt an analysis of a society. The central concern is with the source of order and stability in society. The focus is on :

(a) The way social institute assists to maintain order and continuity in social life, and

(b) The way structural arrangements in society influence behaviour.

3. The notion of ‘social function’ had, of course, been formulated in the nineteenth century, most explictly by Herbert Spencer. It is based upon an age-old analogy between society and organism, but it could be presented in a more scientific way after the development of modern biology.

II. Some of the Important Critiques of Functional Method :

1. The functional method, in sociology and social anthroplogy, appeared initially as reaction against the methods and claims of the evolutionists. It was a criticism of native and superficial uses of the comparative method and of the methods of conjectural history : In which unverified and unsystematic data were employed in contemporary or primitive socities for reconstructing the early stages of human social life.

2. It was also a criticism of the intention and claim of the evolutionists to give a sceintific account of the whole social history of mankind.