The second approach to explaining ritual behavior is certainly indebted to the work of such men as Smith, Freud, and Durkheim. Yet very few, if any, of the leading contemporary scholars working on the problems of religion, ritual, and myth begin with a quest for origins. The origin-evolutionary hypothesis of ritual behavior has been rejected as quite inadequate for explaining human behavior because no one can verify any of these bold ideas; they remain creative speculations that cannot be confirmed or denied.

Turning from origin hypotheses, scholars next emphasized empirical data gathered by actual observation. Contemporary academic literature is rich in descriptions of rituals observed throughout the world. If the term origin can be used as central to the first approach, the term function can be used as indicative of the primary focus of the second approach. The nature of ritual, in other words, is to be defined in terms of its function in a society.

The aim of functionalism is to explain ritual behavior in terms of individual needs and social equilibrium. Ritual is thus viewed as an adaptive and adjustive response to the social and physical environment. Many leading authorities on religion and ritual have taken this approach as the most adequate way to explain rituals. Bronisław Malinowski, A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Clyde Kluckhohn, Talcott Parsons, and Edmund Leach, all English or American anthropologists, adopted a functional approach to explain ritual, religion, and myth.

Most functional explanations of ritual attempt to explain this behavior in relation to the needs and maintenance of a society. The strengths of this approach are dependent upon a claim that it is both logical and empirical. It is a claim, however, that is open to serious criticism. If the aim of functionalism is to explain why rituals are present in a society, it will be necessary to clarify such terms as need, maintenance, and a society functioning adequately, and this becomes crucial if they are to be taken as empirical terms. From a logical point of view, functionalism remains a heuristic device, or indicator, for describing the role of ritual in society. If it is asserted that a society functions adequately only if necessary needs are satisfied, and if it is further asserted that ritual does satisfy that need, then scholars cannot conclude that, therefore, ritual is present in that society without committing the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent. To assert that the need is satisfied “if and only if” ritual is present is a tautology and a reversal of the claim to be empirical.

The history of religions approach

A third approach to the study of ritual is centered on the studies of historians of religion. The distinction between this approach and the first two is that though many historians of religions agree with functionalists that the origin-evolutionary theories are useless as hypotheses, they also reject functionalism as an adequate explanation of ritual. Most historians of religions, such as Gerardus van der Leeuw in the Netherlands, Rudolf Otto in Germany, Joachim Wach and Mircea Eliade in the United States, and E.O. James in England, have held the view that ritual behavior signifies or expresses the sacred (the realm of transcendent or ultimate reality). This approach, however, has never been represented as an explanation of ritual. The basic problem with it remains that it cannot be confirmed unless scholars agree beforehand that such a transcendent reality exists (see also religion, study of: History and phenomenology of religion).