Handbook on Contemporary Austrian Economics

12 <strong>Handbook</strong> on contemporary Austrian economics
we can only attribute meaning to social phenomena through the lens of
an institutionally contingent form of methodological individualism. Only
individuals choose ... and we do so through institutions.
Notes
• I appreciate the constructive comments of Perri 6, Paul Dragos Aligica, Andre
Azevedo Alves, Peter Boettke, Andy Denis, T. Clark Durant, Geoffrey Hodgson, lohn
Meadowcroft, Ioana Negru and Nikolai Wenzel. All errors of content and delivery are
my own.
I. This quote is from Quetelet's most influential book, Sur I'homme et Ie developpement de
sesfacultes, essai d'une physique sociale, published in 1835.
2. Note that Mises uses the term "praxeology" to mean what we understand as sociology.
3. The myriad of cultural traditions, social relationships, legal rules, the norms of epistemic
communities are what constitute "society". II is precisely to understand how these
emerge and develop that the Austrians stress the primacy of the individual, since it is
only at this level that meaning can be attributed to social phenomena. "Methodological
individualism, far from contesting the significance of such collective wholes, considers it
as one of its main tasks to describe and to analyze their becoming and their disappearing,
their changing structure, and their operation. And it chooses the only method fitted to
solve this problem satisfactorily" (Mises, 1949, p. 42).
4. If this attention to institutions is pursued even further, we can investigate the role of
social structures. This structural form of institutional individualism (stemming from the
likes of Reinhard Wippler or James Coleman) is beyond the scope of this chapter, but
note that a relaxation of the strict/atomistic form of methodological individualism is a
prerequisite for a discussion concerning these issues.
5. This chapter does not intend to delve into the subtleties (and possible conflictions)
between these scholars. However, it is written with an attempt to be compatible with such
discussions.
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