Van Bouwel, Jeroen (2024) Dimensions of the Methodological Individualism/Holism Debate. [Preprint]
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Abstract
Analyzing the doctrine of methodological individualism and its opposition to methodological holism, I start by briefly reviewing three historical periods in which the discussion around it was very lively (i.e., the turn of the century around 1900, the 1950s, and the 1980s-90s) explicating the variety of characterizations of methodological individualism. To highlight the connection of these philosophical discussions to social scientific practice, intradisciplinary as well as interdisciplinary dynamics, I then look into the debates around microfoundations (in the 1980s) and so-called economics imperialism in the social sciences (and its impact within political science in the 1990s). While both the microfoundations project and economics imperialism are driven by methodological individualists, here too it seems important to pay attention to the variety of understandings of methodological individualism as well as the exact ambition of their undertakings (evaluated along different dimensions, i.e., ontological, epistemological, axiological, and institutional). Overall, I conclude that when looking into the history of the social sciences, the best philosophers can do when discussing methodological individualism and holism is to carefully distinguish the broad variety of positions that can be evaluated along multiple dimensions, to demonstrate the benefits of methodological pluralism as well as expose the downsides of methodological monocultures.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Additional Information: | This is a draft of a chapter to appear in: Yafeng Shan (ed.) History and Philosophy of the Social Sciences. Springer, Boston Studies in Philosophy and History of Science. All comments welcome at jeroen.vanbouwel@ugent.be | ||||||
| Keywords: | methodological individualism, methodological holism, scientific pluralism, social epistemology | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Economics Specific Sciences > Historical Sciences General Issues > Reductionism/Holism General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science Specific Sciences > Sociology |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Jeroen Van Bouwel | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 24 Jun 2024 15:22 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 24 Jun 2024 15:22 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 23605 | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Economics Specific Sciences > Historical Sciences General Issues > Reductionism/Holism General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science Specific Sciences > Sociology |
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| Date: | 2024 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/23605 |
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