{"id":2410,"date":"2016-12-13T16:59:04","date_gmt":"2016-12-13T21:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cyrussamii.com\/?p=2410"},"modified":"2016-12-13T16:59:04","modified_gmt":"2016-12-13T21:59:04","slug":"notes-on-methodological-individualism-ontology-and-social-science-theorizing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cyrussamii.com\/?p=2410","title":{"rendered":"Notes on methodological individualism, ontology, and social science theorizing"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Sugden’s JEL review of Epstein’s The Ant Trap<\/em> (.html<\/a>):<\/p>\n

The current “consensus view” [in philosophy] recognizes a distinction, first proposed by Lukes (1968), between explanatory
\nindividualism and ontological individualism. Explanatory individualism maintains that social facts are best explained in terms of
\nfacts about individuals and their interactions, while ontological individualism maintains that social facts are exhaustively determined
\nby facts about individuals and their interactions. The consensus view is that explanatory individualism is a contestable claim about the
\nmost useful methodology for social science; it might be true that many social facts are best explained individualistically, but there are no good grounds for treating nonindividualistic explanations as unacceptable in principle. In contrast, the consensus view takes ontological
\nindividualism to be true\u2014indeed, trivially true, a set of what Lukes (1968, p. 20) called \u201cbanal propositions.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You could take the ontological point further to propose that facts about individuals are exhaustively determined by their finer moving parts (cells, all the way down to atoms), but this does not affect judgments of explanatory individualism. So don’t confuse the ontological point with evaluations of explanatory power.<\/p>\n

Epstein thinks that these (and other) considerations do indeed support a ‘maybe, maybe not’ position towards explanatory individualism…. But he challenges the second part of the consensus view, that social properties are nothing over and above the properties of individuals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hmmm…so Epstein takes issue with social scientists’ emphasis on methodological individualism.<\/p>\n

[Epstein’s] new way of thinking [“social ontology”] begins with the recognition that the actions of groups do not necessarily supervene on [that is, reduce immediately to,] the actions of group members. That allows us to understand that particular kinds of groups (legislatures being an example) can be set up to achieve particular purposes, and that thousands of years of sociality have endowed human beings with strategies for \u201cimproving the design of groups, helping to ensure that they accomplish their purposes\u201d (pp. 234\u201335). In the case of a legislature, the [group-level] factors that can be manipulated [while keeping the individuals constant] include its rules for aggregating votes and the rules by which its members are elected. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sugden is not convinced, at least not convinced that social scientists’ emphasis on methodological individualism has caused them to overlook such possibilities:<\/p>\n

Of course, Epstein is right about this. But if these are new ideas for social ontology, they are not new for social science.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So even if social scientists’ principles are not stated in a complete fashion, it is not clear that there has been an important consequence to that. This leads Sugden to wonder, does progress in social science really require that ontological questions like this are sorted out?<\/p>\n

\nIf [a] counterfeit dollar is not
\ndetectably different from the real thing, both
\ntypes of bills will serve interchangeably as a
\ncommon medium of exchange. A natural way
\nof modeling this scenario\u2014say, as part of an
\nexplanation of changes in the general price
\nlevel in an economy with forgery\u2014would be
\nto use a model in which paper money is a
\nhomogeneous commodity, produced both by
\nthe Bureau of Engraving and Printing and by
\nthe Mafia. In a model of this kind, the concept
\nof \u201cmoney\u201d does not correspond with…ontological<\/em> accounts of
\nwhat money really<\/em> is [emph. added]. But in deciding to use
\nthis modeling strategy, the modeler does not
\nneed to engage in ontological analysis of the
\ntrue nature of money. The rationale for amalgamating
\nthe two types of bills into a common
\ncategory comes from economic reasoning
\nabout the properties of trade and from an
\nunderstanding of what the model is designed
\nto do.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Sugden’s JEL review of Epstein’s The Ant Trap (.html): The current “consensus view” [in philosophy] recognizes a distinction, first proposed by Lukes (1968), between explanatory individualism and ontological individualism. Explanatory individualism maintains that social facts are best explained in terms of facts about individuals and their interactions, while ontological individualism maintains that social facts … <\/p>\n

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