Methodological Individualism
The methodological individualism is a paradigm of social science , collective phenomena that can (and be described and explained from the properties and actions of individuals and their mutual interactions (bottom). This approach is opposed to holism , whereby the properties of individuals do not understand without using the properties of the set they belong to (top-down approach).
Methodological individualism should not be confused with individualism as design moral and political : it makes no assumption or requirement concerning the motivations or actions of individuals. It merely states that individuals are the only motor organs of collective entities, and we can always reconstruct a collective ownership from individual properties.
Summary |
Definition
Methodological individualism is the idea, according to tradition nominalist , the sets of social metaphors that exist only in the human mind and have no other substance than the individuals who compose them. Lend some attributes of individuals (motivation, desire, possibility of independent action) is therefore a misnomer.
In a broad sense, can be characterized by methodological individualism three proposals that posit that:
- only individuals have aims and interests (principle of Popper , Agassi);
- the social system and its changes resulting from the actions of individuals;
- all socio-economic phenomena are ultimately explicable in terms of theories that refer only to individuals, their dispositions, beliefs, resources and relationships.
Proposition 3. is that methodological individualism that characterizes the strict sense, since the proposals 1. and 2. are of an ontological.
The term was created by Joseph Schumpeter in 1908 in order to distinguish the political individualism and methodological individualism. He was recaptured and illustrated by economists including Mises and Hayek , as well as by the epistemologist Karl Popper. This is Max Weber who introduced the field of social sciences. In France, it is driven notably by the sociologist Raymond Boudon.
As a simple rule of method, methodological individualism leaves a wide range of assumptions about individuals, it does not model their behavior, nor any particular form of representation. For example, economists of the neoclassical reduce the individual model of an economic agent who maximizes a utility function in the exchange (which allows a formalization math ): a form of methodological individualism, but different from MI sociologists who analyze a social phenomenon in terms of aggregations of individual behavior dictated by motives more complex than simply maximizing financial gain. In both cases, social phenomena do not result from external determinism but the results are, perhaps unexpected, an aggregation of individual actions.
An original approach is that of Ludwig von Mises , who does intervene in the argument that the formal characteristics of human action, irrespective of motives and circumstances of each particular action.
Economy
Methodological individualism is found used in many theories in social sciences. In economics , it is thus one of the foundations of the theory neoclassical and the Austrian School of Economics. However, its nature differs in these two theories. The Austrian school adheres to the effect of methodological individualism in its broadest definition, whereas the neoclassical theory really applies only proposals 2. and 3. Moreover, the neoclassical theory that combines methodological individualism with a particular form of rationality and perfect maximization allows reasoning in terms of representative agent : all individuals are assumed to behave according to one universal principle which is that of maximizing utility function (for consumers ) or benefit (for business ) under budget constraint. The neoclassical individualism therefore uses a particular representation of the individual (the " homo economicus ").
Altered by the game theory
The introduction of game theory in economic analysis and the birth of the new microeconomics came slightly upset the situation in accordance with the principles of game theory, reasoning in terms of methodological individualism is retained but it is now conferred on individuals a strategic rationality implies that each individual behaves according to the actions taken by other individuals. The more recent use of evolutionary game theory is still weaken the rationality of individuals while maintaining methodological individualism: the agents are supposed to be "shortsighted" and have only an adaptive rationality.
Sociology
Methodological individualism also has some importance in sociology. He opposes the one hand, theorists who do not want the economy of purpose, goals and actions of individuals in their explanation of events and social processes, to those who think that this dimension is not indispensable in sociological research. In clear and settled, and what is the Francophone area, proponents of a sociology Bourdieu insists that the individual is the product of social structures and is therefore not necessary to integrate strictly individual dimension in the theory (the intentions and policy goals of individuals are deductible from roughly their place in society).
However, the school boudonnienne sociology, much more compatible with liberal theories and neo-liberal, sees nothing in the facts and the social processes that the addition of pipes and individual representations in interaction: the individual is "the atom logical analysis "because it is the first element of any social phenomenon. Understanding the social is in this perspective, analyze the rationality of individuals, then enter their "composition effects", that is to say how all the individual actions are aggregated to create a phenomenon office. Boudon has thus demonstrated what he called "perverse", that is to say, "phenomena of composition" where the addition of rational individual actions produce unexpected and contrary to the intentions of each. Thus, the stock market panic is a typical example of such perverse effects. When a large number of individuals, for fear of falling prices, sell their assets, they cause what they fear: a fall in share prices. The school boudonnienne expanded its analysis by focusing not only on maximizing utility, but taking into account the belief in individual action, developing the concept of cognitive rationality. Methodological individualism provides better tools for thinking about change and the holism in turn, provides better tools to explain social inertia, such as the continuing over-representation of school failure in the popular classes.
Methodological individualism is particularly central to the strategic analysis in organizational sociology , including approach developed by Michel Crozier and aims to understand the actual strategies implemented by the actors within organizations, particularly through the formation of relationships and power plays. Furthermore Boudon and Crozier, Max Weber and James Coleman have also developed a sociological theory based on methodological individualism (although a special form at Weber).
From the methodological individualism individualism complex
Without addressing the objections traditionally raised against methodological individualism by proponents of the holistic approach, it is possible to identify some difficulties with methodological individualism. If we take the definition given above, it is possible to assert that the proposals (ontological) 1. and 2. present little difficulty, unless you want to undertake metaphysical considerations that have little interest here. This is especially true individualism "ontological" is not necessarily inconsistent with proposals under the ontological holism (especially the social whole is greater than the sum of the parts and the whole social influence on conduct of the parties to all). In contrast, Proposition 3. does pose a problem logically.
Insofar as the actions of agents depend on their beliefs, dispositions and resources, that indicates, in a comprehensive perspective (that is to say, is to begin translating the logic that guides individual actions), it is necessary wondering about the origins of these beliefs, dispositions and resources that are external to the individual, since they result known social system. However, according to Proposition 2., This implies to explain the actions of individuals, that is to say by their beliefs, dispositions and resources etc.. There seems to be in the presence of a regression that does not logically end.
This problem is more apparent than real. Indeed, it is clear that each individual is born and lives within existing social structures that influence its behavior, but these structures result from the actions of individuals who have preceded and coexisted with him, and his own actions contribute to shaping the structures in which his contemporaries live and live his successors. The above difficulty appears if we decide to ignore both the time dimension and talk of "individual" as an abstract essence instead of speaking of a multitude of individuals who interact with each other, which is a double fallacy.
To overcome this problem, we talk more and more " complex methodological individualism "(BMI, a term due in particular to Jean-Pierre Dupuy ) even if other names are also used (eg Agassi speaks of institutional individualism ). The idea of this posture is to consider that the social world (as opposed to the natural world) is shared between dual because the action (in English "agency") and social structures. BMI assumes that each part is an emergent property of another, individual actions, guided by social structures, aggregate and produce unexpected results that change the social structures in turn produce social structures cognitive effects on individuals and partly determine their actions etc.. Social change is the result of this dialectic between agency and structure, the idea being that it is impossible to reduce to one another, even if they are strongly interdependent.
The emergence of this new " paradigm "is not independent of the progress of cognitive science and in particular the pioneering work of Herbert Simon , the cybernetics and systems theory. In economics, the current French of the economics of conventions , notably through the means of interpreting the economies of scale takes this new route which can be considered to have been opened by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. The work of Douglass North are also in the same vein.
Quotes
- "Methodological individualism is the doctrine altogether unassailable that we must reduce all phenomena to collective actions, interactions, goals, hopes and thoughts of individuals and traditions created and preserved by individuals" ( Karl Popper , The Poverty of the historicism)
- "Men do not change, when they gathered in another kind of substance with different properties (...) Human beings in society have no properties other than those that derive from the nature of the individual man and can solve them. "( John Stuart Mill , System of Logic)
- "Nobody disputes that in the sphere of human action social entities have real existence. Nobody ventures to deny that nations, states, municipalities, political parties, religious communities, are real factors that determine the course of human events. Methodological individualism, far from contesting the significance of such collective, considered one of its main tasks to describe and analyze their becoming and their disappearing, their changing structures and functioning. And he chooses the only method that solves this problem in an acceptable manner. "( Ludwig von Mises , Human Action )
Bibliography
- Alain Laurent , methodological individualism, What do I know? No. 2906
Loading ...