The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Science - The Department ...

Harold Kincaid
made simply by sorting out the relevant issues, particular with the help of debates
over reductionism in philosophy of psychology and biology. It is useful to distinguish
between claims about ontology, theory reduction, explanation, and confirmation.
Within these categories, there are diverse claims as well. Some of the more
central individualist claims by category are:
• Ontological
Societies are composed of individuals.
Societies do not act independently of individuals.
Social entities do not exist.
• Theory reduction
Any social theory is, in principle, reducible to a theory referring entirely to
individuals.
• Explanation
Theories referring only to individuals can fully explain all social phenomena.
Individualist mechanisms are a necessary condition for social explanation.
• Confirmation
No social theory without individualist mechanisms can be well confirmed.
Searching for individualist theories is the best route to successful social science.
All these theses have their past and current defenders. The reductionist version
of individualism was asserted by Watkins and is currently advocated at times by
Elster (1985, p. 5). The first two ontological claims are frequently cited in support.
Claims about mechanisms have been urged by Elster (1989), Little (1989) and
numerous others. Contemporary holists similarly deny some or all of these claims.
Ruben (1985) and Gilbert (1992), for example, deny the ontological claims that
social entities do not exist and ground their arguments at least in part in denying
that individual theories can explain.
Let’s begin with the reductionist version of individualism which, as we will see
below, plays an important role in evaluating other individualist theses. Reasonable
requirements for reduction are a set of bridge laws providing a lawlike connection
between terms of the theory to be reduced and the reducing theory such that the
explanations of the reducing or more fundamental theory can explain everything
that the reduced theory can. Connections between terms need not be semantic
or definitional truths. Connections between terms that presuppose the theory to
be reduced (as would be the case if we equated “anger” with “anger expressing
behavior” in reduction of the mental to the behavioral) are not sufficient.
The most common argument given in support of the reductionist version of
individualism appeals to the metaphysical facts Watkins’ cites. Societies are made
up of individuals and do not act independently of them. Thus, surely, any theory
of social phenomena is reducible to some theory of individual behavior (in
principle – actually having the theory on the books may be too much to ask).
This argument fails. One main reason has been discussed not only in the philosophy
of social science literature but in the philosophy of psychology and biology
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