Individualism versus Holism.

Is methodological individualism a plausible thesis?

Adriana Bañares Camacho

2012

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

Aristotle

This paper aims to answer the question “Is methodological individualism a plausible thesis?”

To do this, I will take as a basis the theories of Max Weber, Harold Kincaid and Ernest Gellner, in

order to approach their ideas about individualism and holism and reach a clear conclusion on how

society must be studied.

I

Max Weber formulated his own sociological theory from the perspective of methodological

individualism. From his perspective, the main objective of the social sciences is in the interpretation

of subjective sense of actions.

According to Weber, the social sciences try to understand social phenomena in terms of categories

provided a sense of individual human experience: all significant human behavior is an expression of

physhic states motivated. According to Weber, the social researcher can't be satisfied just studying

the social processes as externally related events, but he must build ideal types in terms of which to

understand social behavior.

Ultimately: all scientific explanations of the social world should relate to the meaning conferred by

men's ations, because all overt behavior has its origin in certain mental states intentional or

motivational.

However, although scientific explanations of the social world should refer to the subjective meaning

of the actions of humans where social reality is originated, we must consider that the behavior of an

individual can only be understood in respect of a situation is conditioned by social variables.

Is also necessary consider:

How structures limit the actions.

The way in which actors are linked to become collective social actors.

How to renew, modify or disrup social structures from particular actions.

But ultimately, according to Individualism, the structures are fixed, passive. This means that those

who move and act, who are active, are individuals, so we must focus on them.

In opposition to individualism we finde holism: It's the idea that defends that all properties of a

system can't be determinated or explained by the component parts alone. The system as a whole

determines how the parts behave.

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. Aristotle.

According to Harold Kincaid -about who I'll speak later in more detail-, the greatest representative

and radical of the holist (metaphysians, in this case) is Hegel.

Hegel claims history is the necessary progression of human civilization towards greater human

freedom and self awareness.

Another big supporter of holism was Thomas S. Khun. According to Khun, the terms of a theory,

theory and results can only be explained by membership in a particular paradigm.

For holism, society is understood as a set of individuals whose nature is not independent to the

totally they belong. What we call society can't be understood as a sum of individual subjects, buth

these are ones that are participants in a defined structure.

As we saw before, according to Individualism, social consequences emerge as individual

interactions: the structures are fixed, passive, so those who move and act, who are active, are

individuals, so we must focus on them. According to Holism, change of structures produces changes

in the individuals acts.

II

Now we have defined what is Individualism and what is Holism, we're gonna go into the essay of

Harold Kincaid “Reduction, Explanation an Individualism” with the aim of contributing to the

debate we're interested in.

In this essay, Harold Kincaid lists seven purposes that capture most variants of Methodological

Individualism:

1. Social theories are reductible to individualist theories.

2. Any explanaton of social phenomena must refer solely to individuals, their relations,

dispositions, etc.

3. Any fully adequate explanation of social phenomena must refer solely to individuals, their

relations, dispositions, etc.

4. Individualist theory sufficies to fully explain social phenomena.

5. Individualist theory sufficies to partially explain social phenomena.

6. Some reference to invidivuals is a necessary condition for any explanation of social

phenomena.

7. Some reference to individuals is a necessary condition for any full explanation of social

phenomena.

According to Kincaid, statments 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 are implausible; 5 is an open question and 7 “is

both plausible and much more interesting than is initially apparent”.

The main problem that Kincaid finds in Methodolic Individualism, is that MI considers that

sociological laws refering to social entities are reducible to theories refering only individuals.

“all sociological laws are bound to be such as can ultimately be reduced to laws of individual

behavior”.

According to Harold Kincaid, social theory is not reducible.

But one thing:

Reductionism to which we find is an individualistic reductionism. I mean:

The reductionism of methodological individualism is a rational reductionism: as the goal to science

is to explain reality thorugh legislation, is necessary to summarize the chain of causes and effects.

This reductionism, from this perspective, isn't an end in itself, but a way to give a more detailed

explanation, to understand better what happens when we move from macro to micro and from

shorter periods to longer ones.

Methodological individualism is therefore a reductionst theory: His general thesis asserts that

the only objects (conceptual or actual, whichever is applicable) that exist or interest are individuals

and what we call totalities or systems are merely aggregates of individuals, without structure or

organization of their own. For the individualist, the properties of a system are not real as

individuals, but are merely properties or those individuals or averages; I mean: conceptualizations

relating to aggregates.

Harold Kincaid is against this reductionist version of methodological individualism:

“Individualist have thought social theory to be obviosly reducible in principle because reduction

appears guaranteed by several indeniable truths about social events”.

According to Mario Bunge, holism could be seen as a reductionism too, because he argues that, as

indentification or inclusion of one object into another of a different organization level, the sense of

the reduction can be up-down (micro-reduction) and down-up (macroreduction). Thus, according to

Bunge, there be only a reductionism, but two, one originating from individuals (or

microredectionism) and another originating from holism (macroreductionism), although this is

commonly known as “antireductionism”.

III

Turning back to individualism, John W. N. Watkins cites two methaphysical commonplaces

supporting reductibility:

1. The ultimate constituents of the social world are individuals.

2. Social events are brought about by people. It's people who determine the history.

This methodological injuctions presupposes that reduction is possible, but Kincaid proposes three

reasons that would destroy the idea that reductionism is applicable to the social sciences:

1. Multiple realizations of social events are likely.

2. Individual actions have indefinitely many social descriptions depending on context.

3. Any workable individualist social theory will in all likelihood presuppose social facts.

Are individuals shape society or is society that determines individuals? Which came first: the

chicken or the egg? I think we have a snake biting its tail.

Ernest Gellner gives special importance to the context.

Ernest Gellner considers as a matter of causal fact, our dispositions aren't even logically

independent because the can't be described without reference to its social context. For example: we

can't identify the provisions of the people who vote without referring to the elections, nor can we

refer to cash machines without referring to banks, etc.

Kincaid also attaches significant importance to the context. According to him, the relevant context

for describing an individual action often refers to a social role; two identical acts of physical

violence may nonentheless be differentiated by the kinds of individuals involved.

On the other hand, Gellner doesn't agree with that individualism was a necessary protection against

holism: while individualism protected against reified spectrum, he clearly believes that isolating

important features of the case containing diferent things that “geists” and “colective minds”.

According to Gellner, the patterns we can isolate our environment, and to those we react, aren't “just

abstracted” or are simply mental constructs. He invites us to consider that for each individual,

customs, institutions, tacit assumptions, and so on, of their society, are independent facts, external

as well as the natural environment, and usually much more important. And if this is the case for

every individual, it follows that is the same for all individuals in society.

Gellner draws the following conclusion: groups and sets can certainly exists only if there are

parts, but their set's fates can not be the initial conditions, or the end of the causal sequence.

This may suggest something like a mixed theory.

Davidson holds a mixed theory of content where the individualization of the contents of beliefs

depends at least on two factors:

1. The inferential role of belief within its own network and

2. its causal connection to the external circumstances of the environment.

First, inference relations that determine the identity of beliefs can be deductive and indictuve.

Moreover, Davidson claims that the inferential links are not the only criterion for identification of

the contents of beliefs. The causal relationships with the environment also fulfill an important role.

Althought Davidson speaks from the philosophy of language and mind, I think for the philosophy

of social sciences is also necessary a mixed theory that equates to the same level individuals and

society, because, as we have seen, It seems like It can't be hold/sustained one whithout the other.

Anyway, Harold Kincaid is strongly positioned against Methodological Individualism. He repeats

throughout his essay that Methodological Individualism is highly implausible. “It likewise fails

when It restricts all explanation to the individualist level or even makes such reference only

necessary for explanation”. Even so, there is still some hope for other kind of individualism:

individualist intuition.

“Much more plausible is the Individualist Intuition that explanation that refer only to social entities

remain incomplete”.

In his book “Social Theory of International Politics”, Alexander Wendt dedicates a section to this

topic:

“In the story so far I have emphatisized holist objections to individualism, but I do not want to leave

intentionally or agency behind. By way of looking for a via media, to conclude my discussion of the

effects of culture I turn around and defend the individualist intuition that mental states have an

independent explanatory status (a “rump” individualism), and therefore that culture has causal

effects on agents”.

The fundamental individualist intuition considers that mental states should have a privileged status

in social explanation. There is an important corollary:

The relationship between agents and culture can't be causal. If agents are constituted by culture all

the way down, then there is no sense in which they are independent of it, which is necessary for

them to stand in a causal basis for th “I”, and angent's sense of itself as a distinct locus of thought,

choice, and activity. Without this selfconstitutive substrate, culture would have no raw material to

exert its constitutive effects upon, nor could agents resist those effects. According to Alexander

Wendt, the intuitions that sustain individualism are rooted in this aspect of individuality.

The terms of individuality refer to those properties of an agent's constitution that are intrinsically

dependent on culture, on the generalized Other. Hegemons and priests only exist as such when

they are culturally recognized. While this recognition is partly external, out of the understanding

of Others, it is also internal in “Me”: the meanings an actor attributes to itself as a social object.

This willingness to define the Self by reference to how Others see it is “a key link in the chain” by

which culture constitutes agents , since unless actors appropiate culture as their own it cannot get

into their heads and move them, but through this very willingness the terms of their individuality

become an intrinsically cultural phenomenom. The intuitions that sustain holims, Wendt

concludes, are rooted in this inherently social aspect of individuality.

I refer to this text because I want to show the importance of taking into account the individuals as

individuals, independents and thoughgufuls.

It's impossible that society represents all the human beings that comprise it, because humans are not

the same between them, and taking them as equals is a banality.

IV

For Kincaid, and according to individualism, there are two different principles in this theory:

1. Exhaustion

2. Determination

For the first principle, individuals exhaust the social world in that every entity of social realm is

either an individual or a sum of such individuals.

For the second principle, individuals determine the social world in the intuitive sense that once all

the relevant facts about individuals are set, then so too are all the facts about social entities, events,

etc.

According to methodological individualism, the social consequences emerge from the individuals

interactions, but, How do we explain the transit from individual decisions to collective effects?

This transit not always occurs in the desired way, resulting in two different situations:

The individual interests are not sufficient to trigger collective action, because in many

situations, individuals have the desire to make a colective action, but they finally do nothing.

This is what it happens in Spain, where every particular person seems to want a change, but

they only fight sitting in their chairs, writting their desires in Twitter but don't going out in

the streets to fight against the system.

The individual acts but the interaction of all subjects determines a unintended social effect

(effect emerging). When the emergent effect generates a state of stuff which is contrary to

the will of the agent involved, is called perverse effect. Spain is again a good example.

When people wen out to the streets in the 15M “Spanish Revolution” movement, I seemed

like everybody wanted a change in democracy, but few months later the conservative

political party (Partido Popular) won an absolute majority in the elections. Outrageous.

V

Turning to the issue of how to study sociology: as a whole or considering people as complex beings

and individuals, there are two modes of methodological techniques: Qualitative strategies and

quantitative strategies. Both currents are different in that they involve a different definition of the

object of study.

The quantitatives believe that social facts are things external to individuals, that can be

explained by other social facts. Lazarsfeld developed a language with elements such as unit of

analysis, variables, etc ... and involves a set of rules. This kind of analysis it's only possible when

social phenomena are defined as external to the subject, defines the variables under study and

hypothetical acts deductively. So:

1 - Scientists can achieve an objective understanding of reality through the study of social and

natural world

2 - The natural and social sciences share a methodology that is semante because they use the same

logic and procedures similar research.

3 - They conceive the social order as natural and mechanistic.

The qualitatives define their object of study as processes and forces that produce it and searching

for meaning in these processes that can only be analyzed with qualitative methodological strategies.

The reality is not presented as something external and given to all, but is under construction.

The language used by the interpretation, interaction,etc. And appropriate methods are open-ended

interviews, life histories, etc.

The assumptions of those who leave are:

1 - They see social life as a creative shared by the subjects in their lifes.

2 - Individuals are active agents in the construction of realities where they interact, they modify

them but they also modify them.

3 - Their theories are based on data for which the structure is inductive methodological and

interpretative work with meanings.

In short, qualitative methods are appropriate for the study of social processes in which social actors

construct the meanings of its action and seek to draw conclusions from quantitative social facts seen

as results of social action.

At present, combine both strategies. This is called methodological triangulation.

VI

In conclusion, I will say what I anticipated before, to answer the initial question. I believe that

studying the social sciences from the Individualism seem right to me, because I think that the most

important of the society are the individuals who make above the vas collective. However, just as

society is defined by its individuals, individuals are defined by the society they're living in, so It's

necessary a reconciliation between holism and individualism in order to achieve a perfect study of

the social science.