Individualism in social science : forms and limits of a methodology

Bibliographic Information

Individualism in social science : forms and limits of a methodology

Rajeev Bhargava

(Oxford philosophical monographs)

Clarendon Press , Oxford University Press, 1992

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [253]-261) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

The literature on methodological individualism is characterized by a widely held view that if the doctrine were stated with sufficient care it would be seen to be trivially true. Professor Bhargava questions this view. He begins by carefully disentangling the various formulations of the doctrine, identifies its most plausible version, and finally locates the principal assumption underlying it, namely that beliefs are attitudes individuated entirely in terms of what lies within the individual mind. Bhargava argues that once this individualist assumption is challenged it is possible to rehabilitate a non-individualist methodology which permits a contextual study of beliefs and actions, and even a study of social context relatively independent of the beliefs and actions of individuals.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Part 1. Methodological individualism
  • Forms of methodological individualism
  • Part 2. The limits of explanatory individualism
  • Methodological individualism as a form of reductionism
  • Methodological individualism and the D-N model
  • Methodological individualism : intentionalism
  • Part 3. The limits of ontological individualism
  • The social dimension of meaning
  • The non-individualist challenge: contextualism

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