Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:09:44.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Methodological Individualism and Social Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Richard W. Miller
Richard W. Miller*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Past criticisms to the contrary, methodological individualism in the social sciences is neither trivial nor obviously false. In the style of Weber's sociology, it restricts the ultimate explanatory repertoire of social science to agents' reasons for action. Although this restriction is not obviously false, it ought not to be accepted, at present, as a regulative principle. It excludes, as too far-fetched to merit investigation, certain hypotheses concerning the influence of objective interests on large-scale social phenomena. And these hypotheses, in fact, merit empirical consideration. The attractiveness of methodological individualism as a regulative principle depends on two independent confusions, the conflation of an agent's reasons for action with the beliefs, needs, desires, or goals which are the reasons why he acted as he did, and the identification of explaining a phenomenon and describing its causes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , September 1978 , pp. 387 - 414
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1978

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.)

Footnotes

†

I am extremely indebted to an anonymous Philosophy of Science referee for his numerous helpful criticisms. I also benefitted from Robert Stalnaker's comments and advice and from the suggestions of Richard Boyd, Alan Garfinkel, Alan Gilbert and Carl Ginet.

References

[1] Benedict, R. “Configurations of Culture in North America.” American Anthropologist 34 (1932): 1–27.10.1525/aa.1932.34.1.02a00020CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2] Carr, E. H. What is History? New York: Random House, 1961.Google Scholar
[3] Cunningham, F. “Practice and Some Muddles about the Methodology of Historical Materialism.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 3 (1973): 235–248.10.1080/00455091.1973.10716879CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4] Engels, F. Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. In Marx, K. and Engels, F., Selected Works, vol. 3. Moscow: Progress Publishers 1970. pp. 335–376.Google Scholar
[5] Evans-Pritchard, E. E. Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azanda. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1937.Google Scholar
[6] Gellner, E. “Explanations in History.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Suppl. vol. 30 (1956): 157–176.10.1093/aristoteliansupp/30.1.157CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[7] Goldstein, L. J. “The Inadequacy of the Principle of Methodological Individualism.” Journal of Philosophy 53 (1956): 801–816.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[8] Lukes, S. “Methodological Individualism Reconsidered,” British Journal of Sociology 19 (1968): 119–129.10.2307/588689CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[9] Mandelbaum, M. “Societal Facts.” British Journal of Sociology 6 (1955): 305–317.10.2307/587130CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[10] Marx, K. and Engels, F. The German Ideology. New York: International Publishers 1970.Google Scholar
[11] Marx, K. The Poverty of Philosophy. New York: International Publishers 1963.Google Scholar
[12] Schutz, A. “Common Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action.” In M. Natanson, Philosophy of the Social Sciences. New York: Free Press 1963. pp. 330–341.Google Scholar
[13] Watkins, J.W.N. “Historical Explanations in the Social Sciences” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 9 (1957): 104–117. Reprinted as “Methodological Individualism and Social Tendencies” In M. Brodbeck, Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. New York: Macmillan 1968. pp. 269–280. Page references are to the Brodbeck volume.10.1093/bjps/VIII.30.104CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[14] Watkins, J.W.N. “Ideal Types and Historical Explanation.” In A. Ryan, ed. The Philosophy of Social Explanation. London: Oxford University Press 1973. pp. 82–104.Google Scholar
[15] Weber, M. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr 1968.Google Scholar
[16] Weber, M. The Methodology of the Social Sciences. New York: Free Press 1949.Google Scholar
[17] Weber, M. Theory of Economic and Social Organization [Economy and Society, vol. 1]. Translated by Henderson, and Parsons, . New York: Free Press 1947.Google Scholar
[18] Winch, P. The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy. London: Routledge Kegan Paul 1958.Google Scholar