ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the statement that sociology, to the extent that it employs functionalist canons, is liberated from the long-standing charge that political commitments and prescriptions underlie both the conscious theory and the unconscious tendencies of sociological investigation. Structural-functionalism has, assumed the burden of the way of meeting the charge that sociology is conditioned by political presuppositions. The idea that functionalism, as a theory of pattern-maintenance, is not intrinsically ideological tends to avoid an encounter with the primary issue, which is that functionalism is intrinsically political. From a scientific viewpoint the question is not whether functionalism is intrinsically any one kind of political ideology, but to what extent it can be distinguished from political ideology. This chapter examines the claims of functionalism to be a theory and method of sociology that is free from extraneous, political criteria. The ideological premises and commitments of functionalism are considered against a background of growing demands for greater specificity and application in sociology.
