Methodological Individualism

Information about Methodological Individualism

Methodological individualism is a philosophical method aimed at explaining and understanding broad society-wide developments as the aggregation of decisions by individuals. In the most extreme version, the "whole" is nothing but the "sum of its parts" (atomism). It has also been described as "reductionism," a reduction of the explanation of all large entities by reference to smaller ones. It should, however, be noted that methodological individualism does not imply political individualism, although methodological individualists like Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper were opponents of collectivism. A specific formulation of methodological individualism might also incorporate hypotheses about the relations of individuals to society.

Social science

Methodological individualism is opposed to, for example, the comparison of experimental and control groups of individuals, because individualism denies that a collectivity is an autonomous decision-maker, and demands that the social sciences ground their theories in individual action. The idea has also been used to attack, among other ideas, historicism, structural functionalism, and the roles of social class, gender roles, or ethnicity as determinants of individual behavior. The idea that advertising affects individual tastes has been seen as contrary to methodological individualism.

One early version of methodological individualism can be seen in the writings of Thomas Carlyle, in which human history is seen as a collection of the biographies of heroes. (See philosophy of history.) William James tried to free methodological individualism of Carlyle's elitism. He wrote that "communities change from generation to generation" due to not only "the Grants and the Bismarcks, [but also] the Joneses and the Smiths." Grant and Bismarck were the heads of governments of the U.S. and Prussia respectively when James wrote those words, but they are balanced in this passage by the anonymous Joneses and Smith, who also throw their stones and have their says in the communities' development.

Economics

Methodological individualism is an essential part of modern neoclassical economics, which usually analyzes collective action in terms of "rational", utility-maximizing individuals. This is the so called Homo economicus postulate. In this view, the structure and dynamics of most economic institutions can be explained using it.

However, methodological individualism does not require that the utility function of each individual may be known. In Mises' praxeology, for instance, rational individuals are held to act on their most important needs first, but individuals don't necessarily have a numerical value for each of their needs.

One example of methodological individualism in economics was the criticism of the Historical School's promotion of statistical analysis by the Austrian School of economics in the Methodenstreit.

Sociology

In sociology, Jon Elster (among others) is well-known for following this lead: "The elementary unit of social life is the individual human action," he argues. "To explain social institutions and social change is to show how they arise as the result of the actions and interaction of individuals. This view, often referred to as methodological individualism, is in my view trivially true." (Elster, 1989, 13)

Strictly speaking, methodological individualism is not an argument for political individualism. At least, this was Max Weber's position, who argued at the start of the twentieth century that if a properly-functioning socialist regime were to arise, it too would have to be sociologically understood on methodological individualist principles. However, the conflation of methodological with political individualism (i.e., liberalism of the laissez-faire variety) is common, by friends and foes of the former alike.

References

Heath, Joseph (2005), "Methodological Individualism", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Eprint.
McClamrock, Ron (1991), "Methodological Individualism Considered as a Constituive Principle of Scientific Inquiry", Philosophical Psychology.

External links

Jon Elster

In natural philosophy, atomism is the theory that all the objects in the universe are composed of very small, indestructible building blocks - atoms. Or, stated in other words, that all of reality is made of indivisible basic building blocks.
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reductionism is a theory that asserts that the nature of complex things is reduced to the nature of sums of simpler or more fundamental things. This can be said of objects, phenomena, explanations, theories, and meanings.
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Libertarianism

Schools of thought
Agorism
Anarcho-capitalism
Geolibertarianism
Green libertarianism
Right-libertarianism
Left-libertarianism
Minarchism
Neolibertarianism
Paleolibertarianism
Progressive libertarianism

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Karl Raimund Popper, CH, FRS, FBA (July 28, 1902 – September 17, 1994) was an Austrian and British^[1] philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics.
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Collectivism is a term used to describe any moral, political, or social outlook, that stresses human interdependence and the importance of a collective, rather than the importance of separate individuals.
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The social sciences are a group of academic disciplines that study human aspects of the world. They diverge from the arts and humanities in that the social sciences tend to emphasize the use of the scientific method in the study of humanity, including quantitative and qualitative
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Historicism is the theory that claims:

that there is an organic succession of developments (also known as historism or the German historismus), and
that local conditions and peculiarities influence the results in a decisive way.

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Structural functionalism also known as a social systems paradigm is a sociological paradigm which addresses what social functions various elements of the social system perform in regard to the entire system.
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Gender", in common usage, refers to the differences between men and women. Encyclopaedia Britannica notes that gender identity is "an individual's self-conception as being male or female, as distinguished from actual biological sex.
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ethnic group or ethnicity is a population of human beings whose members identify with each other, usually on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry.^[1] Ethnicity is also defined from the recognition by others as a distinct group^[2]
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Thomas Carlyle (December 4, 1795 – February 5, 1881) was a Scottish essayist, satirist, and historian, whose work was hugely influential during the Victorian era. Coming from a strictly Calvinist family, Carlyle was expected by his parents to become a preacher.
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Hero (Greek ἥρως), in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demi-god, the offspring of a mortal and a deity.
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Philosophy of history or historiosophy is an area of philosophy concerning the eventual significance, if any, of human history. Furthermore, it speculates as to a possible teleological end to its development—that is, it asks if there is a design, purpose, directive
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William James (January 11 1842 – August 26 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and the philosophy of pragmatism.
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Ulysses S. Grant,^[2] born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869–1877).
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Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, born Otto Eduard Leopold of Bismarck-Schönhausen (1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), was a Prussian and German statesman of the 19th century, born to a wealthy family.
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Motto
"In God We Trust" (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum" ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
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Prussia (German: (help info ) ^[1]; Latin: Borussia, Prutenia; Latvian: Prūsija
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Neoclassical economics refers to a general approach in economics focusing on the determination of prices, outputs, and income distributions in markets through supply and demand.
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Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Greek for oikos (house) and nomos (custom or law), hence "rules of the house(hold).
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Rationality as a term is related to the idea of reason, a word which following Webster's may be derived as much from older terms referring to thinking itself as from giving an account or an explanation. This lends the term a dual aspect.
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Homo economicus, or Economic man, is the concept in some economic theories of man (that is, a human) as a rational and self-interested actor who desires wealth, avoids unnecessary labor, and has the ability to make judgments towards those ends.
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In economics, utility is a measure of the relative satisfaction or desiredness from consumption of goods. Given this measure, one may speak meaningfully of increasing or decreasing utility, and thereby explain economic behavior in terms of attempts to increase one's utility.
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Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
Birth: September 29, 1881 (Lemberg (now Lviv), Austria-Hungary)
Death: October 10, 1973 (New York City, New York, USA)
School/tradition: Austrian economics
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Praxeology is the science of human action. The term was first coined in 1890 by Alfred Espinas in the Revue Philosophique, but the most common use of the term is in connection with the work of the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises and his adherents.
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The Historical school of economics was an approach to academic economics and to public administration that emerged in 19th century in Germany, and held sway there until well into the 20th century.
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Methodenstreit is a German term (lit. 'strife over methods') referring to an intellectual controversy or debate over epistemology, research methodology, or the way in which academic inquiry is framed or pursued.
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