ABSTRACT
Central to the argument of this book is the contention that functionalism is a ‘frozen’ version of evolutionism, and that ‘neo-evolutionism’ is an attempt to resuscitate the underlying pattern of evolution which the earlier periods of functionalism tended to obscure and ignore. Alternatively, one can see the recent phase of functionalism, its extension to encompass the problem of change, as an attempt to ‘put the system on wheels’, as it were. Put another way, what functionalism aimed at was the union of evolutionism with equilibrium analysis. And whereas the earlier periods of functionalism highlighted the role of equilibrium and understood the social system as an interdependence of mutually compatible parts, the more recent phase has tended to re-emphasise the fundamental evolutionary framework within which social equilibria function and develop.
