Abstract
One issue of dispute between methodological individualists and methodological holists is whether holist explanations are dispensable in the sense that individualist explanations are able to do their explanatory job. Methodological individualists say they are, whereas methodological holists deny this. In the first part of the paper, I discuss Elder-Vass’ version of an influential argument in support of methodological holism, the argument from emergence. I argue that methodological individualists should reject it: The argument relies on a distinction between individualist and holist explanations that they find unacceptable and Elder-Vass’ reasons in support of his way of drawing this distinction are not good ones. In the second part, I examine what, if anything, would be good reasons in support of a particular way of differentiating between individualist and holist explanations. I propose that a good reason is one which shows, in an acceptable manner, that the distinction, drawn in the same way in all contexts, is useful from the perspective of offering explanations of the social world. I show that if this criterion is adopted, it will result in a fruitful reorientation of the debate between methodological individualists and methodological holists.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
See, e.g., Archer (1995, 2000), Bhaskar (1982, 2000[1979]), Collier (1989, 1994), Elder-Vass (2007, 2010, 2012), Lawson (1997), and Sayer (2010) for critical realist discussions of the argument from emergence. It should be stressed that, very often, critical realists do not themselves present their arguments of emergence as arguments in favor of methodological holism. This is because they use the term in a different sense than I do. In view of the definition stated above, their arguments are straightforward arguments in support of methodological holism.
- 2.
For the sake of simplicity, I shall often talk about those properties which parts may have in isolation. Thus, I shall leave out the second part “or as an element in an unstructured collection of parts.”
- 3.
This understanding of emergent properties is one among many. For different understandings of the notion of emergence, see, e.g. Beckermann et al. (1992), Bedau and Humphreys (2008), Bunge (2003), Corradini and O’Connor (2010), Kim (1999), and O’Connor and Wong (2012). For an overview of the appeal to emergence within sociology, see Sawyer (2005).
- 4.
At one point, Elder-Vass notes that social entities may also have material things as their parts (ibid.: 157). Still, he does not make much of this insight and hence I shall also ignore this possible way of spelling out parts of social entities.
- 5.
- 6.
Note that as soon as individuals are regarded not as parts but as wholes, their non-emergent properties may instead qualify as emergent ones, that is, properties which are the result, synchronically speaking, of individuals being themselves composed of parts standing in certain relations to each other. Unless otherwise noted, I have in mind individuals’ non-emergent properties as parts when talking about these properties.
- 7.
Elder-Vass works with two different notions of explanation: Explanations in the above causal sense and what may be called reductive explanations. I shall not be concerned with reductive explanations and hence I use “explanation” to refer to his causal notion of explanation only. On reductive explanations, see, e.g., Elder-Vass (2010: 24).
- 8.
Perhaps there are a few exceptions this trend. However, for ease of exposition and simplicity, I shall ignore these exceptions in the following. I take current methodological individualism to cover defenses of the position going back to the 1950s at least.
- 9.
For the record, King does not regard his own position as methodological individualist (see his (2007)). Still, this is irrelevant in the present context: What matters is that Sawyer takes the position to be a clear cut example of methodological individualism.
- 10.
This is for instance made clear by Steven Lukes in his classic paper “Methodological Individualism Reconsidered” (Lukes 1995[1968]). Here, Lukes refers to explanations containing descriptions of individuals as voting, hiring, etc. as explanations which contain type (iv) predicates while noticing that the use of these explanations is “extremely widespread” among methodological individualists (ibid.: 455). In the paper, Lukes opposes the use of these predicates by methodological individualists. In another famous paper, Mandelbaum did the same (1973[1955]). Particularly, the latter paper sparkled a lot of debate on this issue. See, e.g., Bhargava (1992), Danto (1973[1962]), Gellner (1968), Goldstein (1973[1958], 1959), James (2009[1984]), Lesnoff (1974), Little (1991), Kincaid (1994, 1997), Martin (1972), Quinton (1975), and Zahle (2003, 2007).
- 11.
Notice that it really matters to current methodological individualists whether these explanations are classified as individualist ones: It is only if they are regarded as individualist explanations that current methodological individualists maintain that it is possible to defend their position that all holist explanations are dispensable.
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
Thanks to Elder-Vass (personal communication) for pointing me to this reading of his view.
- 15.
This point is also made by Kim in relation to distinctions into levels (Kim 2002).
- 16.
Ylikoski, too, notices in relation to individualist explanations that it is assumed that they should be specified in the same manner in all relevant contexts (Ylikoski 2012: 26). He opposes this presupposition from a different perspective than I do below.
- 17.
I would like to thank Dave Elder-Vass as well as Jeroen van Bouwel, Finn Collin, Tuukka Kaidesoja, Klemens Kappel, Andras Szigeti, and Petri Ylikoski for their very helpful comments. Also, I have given versions of this paper as a talk at the workshop Individualism, Holism, Emergence and Explanations, at University of Copenhagen in 2012, and at the Philosophy of Science (POS) Seminar, Finnish Centre of Excellence in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, at University of Helsinki in 2013. In both cases, I have benefitted greatly from the questions and remarks made by the audiences. Work on this essay was supported by The Danish Council for Independent Research | Humanities (FKK).
References
Archer, M. S. (1995). Realist social theory: The morphogenetic approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M. S. (2000). For structure: Its reality, properties, and powers: A reply to Anthony King. The Sociological Review, 48, 464–472.
Beckermann, A., Flohr, H., & Kim, J. (Eds.). (1992). Emergence or reduction? Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Bedau, M. A., & Humphreys, P. (Eds.). (2008). Emergence. Contemporary readings in philosophy and science. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Bermúdez, J. L. (2005). Philosophy of psychology. New York: Routledge.
Bhargava, R. (1992). Individualism in social science. Oxford: Clarendon.
Bhaskar, R. (1982). Emergence, explanation, and emancipation. In P. F. Secord (Ed.), Explaining human behavior (pp. 275–310). Beverly Hills: Sage.
Bhaskar, R. (2000[1979]). The possibility of naturalism (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
Bunge, M. (2003). Emergence and convergence. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Collier, A. (1989). Scientific realism and socialist thought. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Collier, A. (1994). Critical realism. An introduction to Roy Bhaskar’s philosophy. London: Verso.
Corradini, A., & O’Connor, T. (Eds.). (2010). Emergence in science and philosophy. New York: Routledge.
Craver, C. F. (2007). Explaining the brain. Oxford: Clarendon.
Danto, A. C. (1973[1962]). Methodological individualism and methodological socialism. In J. O’Neill (Ed.), Modes of individualism and collectivism (pp. 312–338). London: Heinemann.
Elder-Vass, D. (2007). For emergence: Refining Archer’s account of social structure. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 37(1), 25–44.
Elder-Vass, D. (2010). The causal power of social structures. Emergence, structure and agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Elder-Vass, D. (2012). The reality of social construction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gellner, E. (1968). Holism versus individualism. In M. Brodbeck (Ed.), Readings in the philosophy of the social sciences (pp. 254–268). New York: Macmillan.
Goldstein, L. J. (1959). Mr. Watkins on the two theses. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 10(39), 240–241.
Goldstein, L. J. (1973[1958]). Two theses of methodological individualism. In J. O’Neill (Ed.), Modes of individualism and collectivism (pp. 277–286). London: Heinemann.
Hodgson, G. M. (2007). Meanings of methodological individualism. Journal of Economic Methodology, 14(2), 211–226.
James, S. J. (2009[1984]). The content of social explanation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kim, J. (1999). Making sense of emergence. Philosophical Studies, 95, 3–36.
Kim, J. (2002). The layered model: Metaphysical considerations. Philosophical Explorations, V(1), 2–20.
Kincaid, H. (1994). Reduction, explanation and individualism. In M. Martin & L. C. McIntyre (Eds.), Readings in the philosophy of social science (pp. 497–513). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Kincaid, H. (1997). Individualism and the unity of science. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
King, A. (1999). The impossibility of naturalism: The antinomies of Bhaskar's realism. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 29, 267–288.
King, A. (2007). Why I am not an individualist. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 37(2), 211–219.
Lawson, T. (1997). Economics and reality. London: Routledge.
Lesnoff, M. H. (1974). The structure of social science: A philosophical introduction. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Little, D. (1991). Varieties of social explanation. Boulder: Westview Press.
Lukes, S. (1995[1968]). Methodological individualism reconsidered. In M. Martin & L. C. McIntyre (Eds.), Readings in the philosophy of social science. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Mäki, U. (2002). Explanatory ecumenism and economics imperialism. Economics and Philosophy, 18, 235–257.
Mandelbaum, M. (1973[1955]). Societal facts. In J. O’Neill (Ed.), Modes of individualism and collectivism (pp. 221–234). London: Heinemann.
Martin, M. (1972). Explanation in social science: Some recent work. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 2(1), 61–81.
O’Connor, Y., & Wong, H. Y. (2012). Emergent properties. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/properties-emergent/
Oppenheim, P., & Putnam, H. (1958). Unity of science as a working hypothesis. In H. Feigl, M. Scriven, & G. Maxwell (Eds.), Concepts, theories, and the mind-body problem, Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science II (pp. 3–36). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Quinton, A. (1975). Social objects. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 75, 1–27.
Sawyer, R. K. (2005). Social emergence. Societies as complex systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sayer, A. (2010). Method in social science. A realist approach. London: Routledge.
Udehn, L. (2002). The changing face of methodological individualism. Annual Review of Sociology, 28, 479–507.
Watkins, J. W. N. (1973a[1952]). Ideal types and historical explanation. In J. O’Neill (Ed.), Modes of individualism and collectivism (pp. 143–165). London: Heinemann.
Watkins, J. W. N. (1973b[1957]). Historical explanation in the social sciences. In J. O’Neill (Ed.), Modes of individualism and collectivism (pp. 166–178). London: Heinemann.
Watkins, J. W. N. (1973c[1955]). Methodological individualism: A reply. In J. O’Neill (Ed.), Modes of individualism and collectivism (pp. 179–184). London: Heinemann.
Wimsatt, W. C. (1994). The ontology of complex systems: Levels, perspectives, and causal thickets. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 20(Suppl.), 207–274.
Ylikoski, P. (2012). Micro, macro, and mechanisms. In H. Kincaid (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of social science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zahle, J. (2003). The individualism-holism debate on intertheoretic reduction and the argument from multiple realization. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 33(1), 77–99.
Zahle, J. (2007). Holism and supervenience. In S. P. Turner & M. Risjord (Eds.), Handbook of the philosophy of science. Philosophy of anthropology and sociology (pp. 311–341). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zahle, J. (2014). Holism, Emergence, and the Crucial Distinction. In: Zahle, J., Collin, F. (eds) Rethinking the Individualism-Holism Debate. Synthese Library, vol 372. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05344-8_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05344-8_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-05343-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05344-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)