Paradygmat funkcjonalny Herberta Spencera
Herbert Spencer’s Functional Paradigm

Summary/Abstract: In this article, the author reconstructs the particular sense attributed in the Spencer’s functionalism to notions such as function, need, subject of a function and objective consequences. He shows a fundamental difference between this concept and twentieth-century functional theories in sociology. Although they all use the same terms, they give them a remarkably different meaning. Change made by Durkheim in the meaning of the term „function” is of fundamental importance: for Spencer the word “function” meant a specific activity (action, work), but it came to mean the result of an influence. The author challenges the way in which the founding role in the twentieth-century’s functional paradigm is attributed to Spencer. At the same time, he points to theoretical import of the original concept of Spencer in relation to the functional approach as modified by Durkheim.

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