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The label “functionalism” comprises a variety of schools of thought pertaining to different disciplines, and certain precautions should therefore be taken if it is to be used properly. For some authors, functionalism is an explanatory schema, applicable to nearly all complex systems, according to which each and every part of a system fulfills a necessary, though not always explicit, function for the system as a whole. In this sense, functionalism has significant teleological, finalistic, or at least etiological connotations (Huisinger 2003). Other authors defien functionalism as the ontological thesis that function is all-important and stuff (or composition) irrelevant. In this sense, functionalism is a basic ontology which intends to offer a (modern) philosophical...
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Lozano-Gotor, J.M. (2013). Functionalism. In: Runehov, A.L.C., Oviedo, L. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_1672
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