Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-l4ctd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-13T16:18:43.236Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Methodological individualism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2009

Kyriakos M. Kontopoulos
Affiliation:
Temple University, Philadelphia
Get access

Summary

Upon entering the domain of social sciences one is confronted with the perennial issue of the antagonism between the individualist and collectivist forms of explanation of human social phenomena. We have already encountered this dilemma in our earlier discussion of the epistemic strategies pursued at large in contemporary science; in this chapter we focus on the more specific formulations of the debate in social theory, between methodological individualists and the so-called “methodological collectivists” or “holists.” It will clarify matters if we first elucidate the salient features of the two camps. Imagine, first, a political situation in which radical minorities of the Left and the Right frame the political discourse in preferred radical binary terminology, labeling their opponents as “communists” or “fascists”. In such an environment the semantic cut of the population into two antagonistic camps is, of course, arbitrary and it is directed toward the absorption of the middle ground, based on the old strategic principle that those who are not friends of our enemies surely belong to our camp. “Anti-communist” or “anti-fascist” crusades would emerge putting pressure and, possibly, silencing the many other moderate voices. Apparently, something of that sort has happened in the debate between radical individualists and radical collectivists, an agon fueled by the foundationist, absolutist assumptions of the received positivist philosophy of science. The debate was framed primarily by the advancing armies of logical empiricists and other affine analytical philosophers (see Dray 1968; O'Neill 1973; Popper 1966; Suppe 1977; Watkins 1957; cf. Margolis 1977) who successfully labeled all those opposing epistemic individualism as “ “collectivists.”

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×