Everything about Methodological Individualism totally explained
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 doesn't 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 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, [butalso] 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're 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 doesn't 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."
Methodological individualism isn't 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 communist regime were to arise, it too would have to be sociologically understood on methodological individualist principles. However, the conflation of methodological with political individualism (for example,
liberalism of the
laissez-faire variety) is common, by friends and foes of the former alike.
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