Methodological individualism is a philosophical system that privileges the individual as sovereign. Methodological individualism stanford encyclopedia of. Hobbes and tocqueville on individualism, equality, and. The first law of nature holds that every man should seek peace and preserve it and if he cannot obtain it he must defend himself by all means including war. Methodological individualism precludes explanations that appeal to social factors that cannot in turn be individualistically explained. Methodological individualism in ecology james justusy methodological individualism has a long, successful, and controversial track record in the social sciences. Three theories of individualism usf scholar commons.
In the social sciences, methodological individualism is the principle that subjective individual. The positive political economy of individualism and. The meanings of individualism by steven lukes we shall begin with the fact that the same word, or the same concept in most cases, means very different things when used by differently situated persons. Hobbes is an intellectual revolutionary who undertook nothing less than a fundamental regrounding of philosophy, one comparable in its radicality with the new beginning proposed by descartes. Hobbes methodological individualism, completely assumed by the neoclassical school as a way of explaining the economic world, understands the individual. The same orientation was shared by social and political philosophers of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries such as hobbes, smith, locke, rous. Its record in ecology is much shorter but proving as successful and controversial with socalled individualbased models. Possessive individualism was widely hailed as a pathbreaking interpretation of seventeenthcentury english.
Applied to human social life, hobbes believed, the laws of motion would at first lead to conflict, whereupon human intelligence would. The second law of nature lays down that a man must be willing, along with others and in the interests of peace and. Contexts of definition, theory and the new discourse of problem solving the examples of holism in the sciences are considered in detail in a separate article see. Three theories of individualism philip schuyler bishop abstract this thesis traces versions of the theory of individualism by three major theorists, john locke, john stuart mill and john dewey, as they criticize existing social, cultural, economic, legal and military conditions of their times. Mill, weber, and, more recently, george homans and j. Hobbes and tocqueville on individualism, equality, and centralized administration by grant webster there exists a connection between hobbes and tocqueville has thus far been inadequately explored in the academic literature. Meanings of methodological individualism geoffrey m. It is common to categorize social scientific theories as either individualistic or holistic, and to assume that they are opposites. Methodological individualism stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Of course, part of hayeks motivation for endorsing methodological individualism and demanding that socialscientific explanations specify a mechanism at the actiontheoretic level is that he wants to emphasize the limitations of the individuals actors perspective. Max webers basic aim of his interpretative sociology was a methodological foundation of sociology that makes it possible to grasp the subjective motives and intentions of the actors.
It was first clearly articulated by hobbes, who held that it is necessary that we. Defenders of methodological individualism generally claim that it is. Macpherson was a political philosopher who placed a genuinely novel interpretation on the history of political thought in the political theory of possessive individualism. Meanings of methodological individualism geoffrey hodgson. There are different versions of both doctrines, and some versions combine elements from both. Add one setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your universitys proxy server configure custom proxy use this if. Methodological individualism and holism in political science lse. References to hobbess works follow the pattern used in my hobbess system of ideas, hutchinson, london, 1965. Those of us who have had the good fortune to be exposed to prof. The political theory of possessive individualism hobbes to locke. However, the term is rarely defined with adequate precision and some crucial ambiguities are explored in this article. A group of thinkers trying to recover the holistic sense of what is known today as social sciences emerged in scotland during the xvii century. Hobbes methodological individualism, completely assumed by the neoclassical school as a way of explaining the economic world, understands the individual separated from the social organization. According to hobbes, the natural equality of human beings means that all have the ability to kill one another.
It has been suggested that hobbes was a methodological individualist watkins. Indeed mcpherson himself does not fully develop his own thesis due to some needless methodological commit ments. In what follows i discuss and hopefully render harmless a doctrine which has a very long ancestry, has constantly reappeared in the history of sociology and still appears to haunt the scene. Watkinsthat insists that explanations of social phenomena must derive from the.
Methodological individualism reconsidered springerlink. It was, we might say, conceived by hobbes, who held. Hobbes was critical of the assumptions of scholastic philosophers, whose evidence for human nature was based upon aristotelian metaphysics and cartesian observation, as. Coleman 1990 stated that, in his own variant of methodological individualism, the interaction among individuals is seen to result in emergent phenomena at the system level p. In economics, peoples behavior is explained in terms of rational choices, as.
A brief list of individualistic stance of hobbes reminds us of way pers observation hobbes so frequently portrayed as the great absolutist, is perhaps the greatest individualist in the history of political thought. Mac pherson s lectures on political thought at the university of toronto will be extremely delighted to find within the pages of this book a more coherent. The changing face of methodological individualism annual. Hobbes to locke has been republished just before the fiftieth anniversary of its first publication, 1 which might constitute an approximation to a scholars dream of immortality. Inspired by this hobbesian approach, methodological individualists. In the recent methodological individualismholism debate on explanation, there has been considerable focus on what reasons methodological holists may advance in support of their position. Methodological individualism is the view that phenomena can only be understood by examining how they result from the motivations and actions of individual agents. T he n ature of r ati on al c hoice b rief h istory although the origins of rational choice theory may be a bit murky, its modern roots stem from the age of reason. Hodgson abstract advocacy of methodological individualism is widespread, especially among economists. Crudely put, methodological individualism is the thesis that good socialscientific explanations should refer solely to facts about individuals and their interactions, not to any higherlevel social entities, properties, or causes. This article discusses the concept of methodological individualism and rational choice mirc. The tension between methodological individualism and holism. Lionel robbins methodological individualism in the light.
In part, this is due to a misreading of hegel and tocqueville, two. Lionel robbins methodological individualism in the light of the philosophy of science thiago dumont oliveira abstract this paper draws on the debate among philosophers of science in. Methodological individualism reconsidered in what follows i discuss and hopefully render harmless a doctrine which has a very long ancestry, has constantly reappeared in the history of sociology and still appears to haunt the scene. Mirc strives to explain international events by positing individuals, states, or substate actors, with fixed preferences and identities, who rationally adjust their beliefs and strategies in response to the information they receive and the strategies pursued by other actors.
Hobbess theory of the social contract is an early example of a rational choice. In this article i distinguish a number of versions of methodological individualism that differ significantly in. Over and above his opposition to methodological individualism in philosophy, hegel also argued against. The political theory of possessive individualism hobbes. The tension between methodological individualism and holism regarding a complete reduction of sociology to psychology does not realize that both the sensitivepsychic facet of reality psychology and the social side sociology reflectthe quantitative meaning of the one and the many. However, the idea of methodological individualism as a fundamental principle of analyzing social occurrences and happenings has been proposed by. Methodological individualism and holism in political. Hobbes, locke, and rousseau james devine in rich capitalist countries, liberal political cultures. Defenders of methodological individualism generally claim that it is an. Some readers might think that such a stance requires one to give up ethical individualism, but it does. The first use of the term methodological individualism in english was again by schumpeter in his 1909 quarterly journal of economics paper, on the concept of social value see. Methodological individualism and rational choice oxford.
Methodological individualism criticizing and superseding possibilities 187 the term methodological individualism first appeared in schumpeters theory of economic development17, p. Social theory, social research, and a theory of action. Crawford brough macphersons the political theory of possessive individualism. There is a long tradition in the social sciencesgoing back to hobbes and continued through j. Her message is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his. This neat picture is not so much wrong as too simple. The individualism of hobbes was widely taken to be the application of the laws of motion to human life. Hobbess leviathan, part 5 mary midgley opinion the. Their methodological criticisms have a tendency, however, to devolve into repudiations of moral individualism as such. Hobbess quite doubtful reputation does not stem from his rejection of aristotles philosophy but rather from his insight into the deadly consequences of equality. This orientation, a form of methodological individualism, is one that grounds social theory in a theory of individual action. Methodological individualism sage research methods. In developing his moral and political philosophy, hobbes assumes the methodological approach of deductive reasoning, combining mathematics and the mechanics of science to formulate his ideas on human nature. The methodological implications of the schutzparsons debate.
414 409 1351 799 1140 1130 1152 980 543 923 1080 137 380 1350 283 399 731 636 1320 1272 822 590 747 1507 430 474 327 773 1200 724 880 1162 1221 92 798