An Inquiry On G.A.Cohen's Functional Explanation Method

One of the founders of Analysis Marxism,Gerald Allan Cohen,whose masterpiece Karl Marx's Theory of History:A Defense is considered to be a foundation of analysis Marxism.In this book,Cohen proposed that the scientific historical materialism should conform to the logical argumentation norm,which is the primary norm of science.From the perspective of logic,The central point of historical materialism has the inherent difficulty of logical inconsistency.Cohen believed that only understanding it as functional explanation can this difficulty be resolved,and thus historical materialism is logical.Therefore,he proposed that the central explanation of historical materialism is functional explanation,and on this basis to complete the defense of historical materialism in Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defense.In view of Cohen's defense path,domestic and foreign academic circles have engaged in intense discussions.The discussion in foreign academic circles mainly focuses on the methodology of functional explanation,while the domestic academic circles the relationship between functional explanation and historical materialism.This thesis is divided into two parts to investigate Cohen's functional explanation method.The first part is the inquiry of the methodology of functional explanation,which is the first two chapters.The second part is to clarify the relationship between functional explanation and historical materialism,which is the third chapter.The question to be dealt with of the former is the effective problem of functional explanation as a method.The latter is whether functional explanation is the central explanation of historical materialism.In the methodological inquiry of functional explanation,I sort out Cohen's path of thinking,and also clarify the two important arguments between Cohen and Elster:the loop argument and the third factor argument,and also take an inquiry on the relationship between functional explanation and causal explanation from Cohen perspective.At the same time,in this process,the structure,scope of application,source of explanatory power,method of confirmation,and limit of explanation of the functional explanation under Cohen view are clarified.In the clarification of the relationship between functional explanation and historical materialism,the different views on the issue of consistency are the startingpoint of the arguments.Using this as a clue,I sort out the main points of domestic academic circles and find out that the three scholars Yu WuJin,Chen Wei and Duan Zhongqiao can basically represent the three main trends of domestic academic circles.Thus in the thesis I would clarify the arguments of the three scholars and try to point out the shortcomings,and also highlight the promising direction that indicated by them.