functionalismn.

1834 ‘Publius’ in New-Eng. Telegr. 6 Aug. 197/4 It may be said, that the science of phrenology, or ‘functionalism’, is inconsistent with the immateriality of the soul.

1904 Jrnl. Philos., Psychol. & Sci. Methods 1 424 Doctor Sheldon, in his review of the book, assumes that the purport of the ‘Studies’ is a genetic account, a genetic functionalism.

1907 J. R. Angell in Psychol. Rev. 14 85 We have to consider (1) functionalism conceived as the psychology of mental operations in contrast to the psychology of mental elements... We have (2) the functionalism which deals with the problem of mind conceived as primarily engaged in mediating between the environment and the needs of the organism..; (3) and lastly we have functionalism described as psychophysical psychology.

1926 Jrnl. Relig. 6 257 The functionalist is, however, in danger of exalting his method too highly. Like J. R. Angell..he may come to regard functionalism as identical with philosophy.

1937 R. H. Lowie Hist. Ethnol. Theory xiii. 235 Malinowski's functionalism is avowedly antidistributional, antihistorical, and treats each culture as a closed system except insofar as its elements correspond to vital biological urges.

1944 B. Malinowski Sci. Theory of Culture x. 117 The type of criticism levelled against functionalism, to the effect that it never can prove why a specific form..of table implement or theological concept, is prevalent in a culture, derives from the prescientific craving for first causes.

1956 J. H. M. Beattie in A. Pryce-Jones New Outl. Mod. Knowl. 259 But basic to all forms of functionalism is the view that the facts of social life may not usefully be thought of as a collection of separate elements.

1963 C. Jacobson tr. C. Lévi-Strauss Struct. Anthropol. v. xv. 290 Therefore, historico-geographical concerns should not be excluded from the field of structural studies, as was generally implied by the widely accepted opposition between ‘diffusionism’ and ‘functionalism’.

1986 Times Lit. Suppl. 10 Jan. 45/2 The study of meaning cannot fill the intellectual vacuum left by the discarding of functionalism and its modern variant, neo-Marxism, on the one hand, and Lévi-Straussian structuralism on the other.

1994 Amer. Spectator Mar. 71/1 The combination of cultural relativism (‘Who are we to judge’?) and functionalism (‘They must know what they're doing’) has had the effect of shutting off debate.

1924 N.Y. Times Mag. 24 Sept. 5/1 In the younger American research into the art of the country itself..the importance of functionalism in the development of American architecture has been emphasized.

1930 Observer 29 June 20 Sugar-cube architecture, or to be impressively abstract ‘Functionalism’.

1935 Fortnightly Apr. 410 We are now told that ‘Functionalism’ is the one and only test of art.

1955 S. Spender Making of Poem i. 18 Functionalism is the philistinism of people who talk about a work of art as a ‘well-done job’ like any other piece of plumbing.

1957 E. H. Gombrich Story of Art (ed. 8) xxvii. 421 The theories for which the Bauhaus stood are sometimes condensed in the slogan of ‘functionalism’—the belief that if something is only designed to fit its purpose we can let beauty look after itself.

1973 R. Ellmann Golden Codgers 43 His later insistence on functionalism in decoration and in women's dress.

2004 Times Lit. Suppl. 6 Aug. 16/1 While the twin trends of decorativeness and industrial functionalism are deemed central to the style, Art Deco's self-conscious modernity never outlawed a large number of plunderings from exotic sources.

1935 Bull. School Oriental Stud. 8 286 His whole—purely psychological—philosophy of language is based on the functionalism of the Geneva school.

1956 Language 32 484 The efficacy of..linguistic change has been adequately demonstrated..by the concept of functionalism (as practiced, for example, by Martinet and his school).

1971 Jrnl. Linguistics 7 290 He views functionalism and transformational grammar as complementary, not incompatible.

1996 Nat. Lang. & Ling. Theory 14 671 Axiomatic functionalism..differs from other approaches in being a radically different theory & way of thinking in linguistics.

2016 J. L. Mackenzie in K. Allan Routledge Handbk. Linguistics xxx. 470 In functionalism, explanations are sought primarily outside language proper.., for example in such cognitive domains as memory, attention, processing, and prediction.