Methodological Individualism:Philosophical Aspects

Abstract

This article examines the way in which methodological individualism (MI) has emerged during the twentieth century, how the views of Popper were influential in shaping it, and how the arguments for and against it are currently represented. The project of defining social entities in individualistic terms is distinguished from the project of explaining them in individualistic terms. And explaining social entities in terms of actual individuals is distinguished from explaining them in terms of hypothetical rational actors. It is argued that the idea that all explanation in social science should be individualistic is implausibly strong, and that it depends on a demand that we prefer lower levels of analysis: a demand which would not be acceptable in other areas. A presumption of MI is that individualistic explanations, while they may in practice be difficult to find, are more informative than ones that appeal to collectives or wholes (Elster and Watkins take this view). Using an argument of Jackson and Pettit, this presumption is criticized. Throughout, connections with philosophy of mind are stressed. For example, it is suggested that recent work on the idea of joint intention may pose a challenge to MI.