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Methodological Individualism, Psychological Individualism and the Defense of Reason

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Richard Schmitt
Richard Schmitt*
Affiliation:
Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, U.S.A.
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Extract

Jon Elster believes that methodological individualism is self-evident (Elster 1986, 66). Not finding it so, and being suspicious of philosophers who claim that their views are so obvious as to demand no arguments in their favor, I went back to retrace the outlines of the methodological individualism debate. It turns out that the participants to the debate disagree widely as to what they are arguing about; it is not obvious to them what methodological individualism is. The defenders of methodological individualism agree with their critics much more than those critics acknowledge. Each side ascribes views to the other which its proponents disown explicitly.

Type
II Methodology and Microfoundations
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 15: Analyzing Marxism , 1989 , pp. 231 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1992

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