The methodological individualism is an applicable rule of method in Social sciences, according to which the collective phenomena must be described and explained starting from the properties and of the actions of the Individu S and their mutual interactions (ascending approach).
This rule is opposed to the Holisme according to which the properties of the individuals result from the properties of the unit to which they belong (downward approach).
Definition
In the broad sense, one can characterize methodological individualism by three proposals which postulate that:
- only the Individu S have goals and interests (principle of Popper - Agassi);
- the social system, and its changes, result from the action of the individuals;
- all the socio-economic phenomena are explainable ultimement in the terms of theories which refer only to the individuals, with their provisions, beliefs, resources and relations.
Term creates by Joseph Schumpeter, the term was taken again and illustrate in particular by the economists Mises and Hayek, the epistemologist Karl Popper and in France by the sociologist Raymond Boudon.
The individuals work towards ends on the bases of “good reason” but encounter constraints which result either from their interactions or of the social context.
The Social sciences have then as an aim to describe the choices carried out under constraints by the social individuals and their effects, on the basis of the principle which the individual behaviors are never the exclusive consequence of these constraints but always result from a choice between several possible actions.
It is necessary for that to rebuild the motivations of the individuals concerned with the phenomenon in question and to apprehend this phenomenon as the result of the aggregation of individual behaviors dictated by these motivations.= the social phenomena thus do not result from external determinisms but are not awaited results of this aggregation of individual actions
Refusal of “general laws” of the social behaviors and preference for a statistical modeling of the behaviors
Approaches which is related to a certain idea of the “Liberté” of the individual and his Rationalité
Methodological individualism should not be confused with the Individualisme as a design Morale and Politique.
Economy
Methodological individualism is adopted by a great number of theories in Social sciences. In economy, it is thus one of the bases of the theory Néoclassique as well as Austrian École of economy. It should however be noted that its nature differs in these two theories. The Austrian school adheres indeed to methodological individualism in its broadest definition, while the neo-classic theory applies really only proposals 2. and 3. Moreover, the neo-classic theory combines this methodological individualism with a particular form of perfect Rationalité and maximisatrice which allows a reasoning in term of representative Agent: all the individuals are supposed to behave according to the same universal principle which is that of the maximization of the Fonction of utility (for the Consommateur) or of Profit (for the Entreprise) under budgetary constraint. Neo-classic individualism thus uses a particular representation of the individual (l'" Homo œconomicus ").
Deterioration by the Game theory
The introduction of the Game theory into the economic analysis and the birth of the Nouvelle microeconomy slightly came to upset the situation: in accordance with the principles of the game theory, the reasoning in methodological term of individualism is preserved, but it is henceforth conferred to the individuals a strategic rationality which implies that each individual behaves according to the actions undertaken by the other individuals. The more recent use of the Game theory évolutionnaire S still comes to weaken the rationality of the individuals while preserving methodological individualism: the agents are supposed to be “short-sighted” and to have only one rationality adaptative.
Sociology
Methodological individualism also has a certain importance in Sociologie. He opposes on the one hand the theorists who do not want to make the economy of the intentions, the objectives and the actions of the individuals in their explanation of the facts and the social processes, to those which think that this dimension is not impossible to circumvent in sociological research. In clear and sliced terms, and as regards the French-speaking field, them holding of a sociology bourdieusienne insist on the fact that the individual is the product of the social structures and that it is thus not necessary to integrate properly individual dimension in the theory (the intentions and the objectives of action of the individuals are roughly speaking deductible from the place which they occupy in the company).
On the other hand, the school boudonnienne of sociology, much more compatible with the liberal and néo-liberal theories, sees in the social facts and processes only the addition of conduits and individual representations in interaction: the individual is “the logical atom of the analysis” because it constitutes the element first of any social phenomenon. To include/understand the social one, it is, from this point of view, to analyze rationalities of the individuals, then to seize their “effects of composition”, i.e. the way in which the whole of the individual actions are incorporated to create a social phenomenon. Boudon thus highlighted what it names of the “perverse effect”, i.e. “phenomena of composition” where the addition of rational individual actions produces unexpected and contrary effects for each one. Thus, stock exchange panics constitute a typical example such perverse effects. When a great number of individuals, by fear of a fall of the courses, sell their credits, they cause what they feared: a fall of the price of the actions. The school boudonnienne widened its analysis, by concentrating it either only on the maximization of the utilities, but by taking of account the beliefs in the individual action, developing the concept of cognitive rationality. Methodological individualism gives better tools to think the change; the Holisme as for him, provides better tools to explain social inertia, for example the persistence of on-representation of school failure in the classes populaires.
Methodological individualism is in particular in the center of the strategic analysis in Sociologie of the organizations, approach in particular developed by Michel Crozier and which aims at including/understanding the real strategies installation by the actors within the organizations, with through in particular of the formation of relations and sets of capacities. In addition to Boudon and Crozier, max Weber and James Coleman also developed a sociological theory on the basis of methodological individualism (though in a particular form at Weber).
Methodological individualism with complex individualism
Without to approach the objections traditionally emitted against methodological individualism by holding of the step holist, it is possible to locate certain difficulties raised by methodological individualism. If one takes again the definition given higher, it is possible to affirm that the proposals (ontological) 1. and 2. hardly raise difficulties, except wanting to undertake considerations metaphysics which have only little interest here. That is all the more true as “ontological” individualism is not inevitably incompatible with proposals concerned with the holism on the ontological level (in particular that the social whole would be higher than the sum of the parts and that the social whole would influence the behavior of the parts to this whole). On the other hand, proposal 3. is not without posing a logical problem.
Insofar as actions of agents are function of their beliefs, provisions and resources, that indicates, in optics understanding (i.e. consisting in retranscribing logic which guides the individual actions), that it is necessary to wonder about the origins of these beliefs, provisions and resources which are external with the individual since they result known social system. However, in accordance with proposal 2. , that implies to explain them by the actions of the individuals, i.e. by their beliefs, provisions and resources etc One thus seems to be in the presence of a regression which does not have logically end.
To exceed this problem, one speaks more and more about “methodological Individualisme complexes” (IMC, expression due in particular to Jean-Pierre Dupuy) even if other names are also used (Agassi speaks for example about institutional Individualisme). The idea of this posture is to consider that the social world (in opposition to the natural world) dual because is divided between the action (of English “ agency ”) and the structures social. The IMC postulate that each one of its parts is an emergent property of the other: the individual actions, guided by the social structures, incorporate and produce not awaited results which modify the social structures; in return the social structures produce cognitive effects on the individuals and determine partly their actions etc the social evolution is thus the result of this dialectical between action and structure, the idea being which it is impossible to reduce one to the other, even if they are strongly interdependent.
The emergence of this new “Paradigme” is not independent of progress of the cognitive Sciences and in particular of precursory work of Herbert Simon, of the Cybernétique and the Théorie of the systems. In economy, the French current of the economy of conventions, from through in particular of the grid of reading of the economies of the size borrows this new way which one can consider that it was opened by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. Work of Douglass North is also of the same vein.
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