Individualism andHolism, Reduction and Pluralism: AComment on Keith Sawyer and Julie Zahle  

Oleh:

Bouwel, Jeroen Van

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Philosophy of the Social Sciences vol. 34 no. 4 (Des. 2004), page 527-535.
Topik: methodological individualism; nonreductive materialism; pluralism; pragmatics of explanation
Fulltext: 527PSS344.pdf (57.61KB)

Isi artikel

Commenting on recent articles by Keith Sawyer and Julie Zahle, the author questions the way in which the debate between methodological individualists and holists has been presented and contends that too much weight has been given to metaphysical and ontological debates at the expense of giving attention to methodological debates and analysis of good explanatory practice. Giving more attention to successful explanatory practice in the social sciences and the different underlying epistemic interests and motivations for providing explanations or reducing theories (which ask for different kinds of explanatory information to be found on the social or on the individual level) might lead to real progress in the debate on methodological individualism, and away from the unending battles of (metaphysical) intuitions.

Opini Anda

Klik untuk menuliskan opini Anda tentang koleksi ini!

Kembali