0 the principle that the most important thing about an object such as a building is its use rather than what it looks like
1 the idea that products, organizations, etc. should be designed to be practical and useful:
Atomistic functionalism claims that there is a direct linkage between functional motivations and 'properties of particular grammars ' (174).
But evolutionary functionalism does not strike me as necessarily normative.
Besides offering useful descriptive insights, probabilistic functionalism can also be predictive.
Admittedly, many functionalists would reject this characterization as impossible since many functionalists see rejection of generative theory as a fundamental component of functionalism.
In this section we also briefly describe the recent threat to functionalism.
In particular, the new functionalism is imbedded in a multilateral approach.
From the perspective of realizer functionalism, the role variety rides roughshod over distinctions that need to be taken seriously.
From the present state of play, it seems to us, either future semantic trajectory is possible; but neither threatens functionalism.