This paper discusses methodological individualism and the perceived "need" for microfoundations in economic theory. It argues that the persistent focus on microfoundations has led a large part of the field to overlook the complexity of social interactions, the relevance of historical processes,...

This paper discusses methodological individualism and the perceived "need" for microfoundations in economic theory. It argues that the persistent focus on microfoundations has led a large part of the field to overlook the complexity of social interactions, the relevance of historical processes,...

While methodological individualism is a fundamental approach within the social sciences, it is often misunderstood. This highlights the need for a discursive and up-to-date reference work analyzing this approach’s classic arguments and assumptions in the light of contemporary issues in...

While methodological individualism is a fundamental approach within the social sciences, it is often misunderstood. This highlights the need for a discursive and up-to-date reference work analyzing this approach’s classic arguments and assumptions in the light of contemporary issues in...

When building any theory in social sciences, it is important to specify the unit of analysis. Possible units could be groups such as class, race, political party, or nation. Public choice emphasizes methodological individualism, where the individual is the unit of analysis since individuals are...

Three contributions to the social capital literature are presented in this thesis: Firstly, a concept of social capital that is compatible with the individual perspective prominent in neoclassical economics is identified. Secondly, a new tool to measure individual social capital is developed and...

This paper investigates the relationship between methodological individualism (MI) and Agent-Based Simulation (ABS). We discuss and analyze a thesis defended by philosophers Caterina Marchionni and Petri Ylikoski (2013). The thesis maintains that, since MI is often considered to be a...

This article outlines relevant economic patterns in a world with artificial intelligence (AI). Five specific economic patterns influenced by AI are discussed: (1) following in the footsteps of ‘homo economicus’ a new type of agent, ‘machina economica’, enters the stage of the global...

This book examines the intellectual ideas that underpin our understanding of capitalism. Framing these debates through the work on John Stuart Mill and Joseph Schumpeter, the development of democracy and its relationship with capitalism is explored to provide insight into the rationality of...

International law, we are taught, is the law made by states to govern their relations. Unsurprisingly, international law scholarship has traditionally embraced a corresponding methodological statism. Despite common perceptions, statism remains dominant: at most, elite non-state actors are...

This article reinterprets Hayek's cognitive psychology from the standpoint of the categories employed by phenomenological hermeneutics, and notably by Gadamer. Both Hayek and Gadamer agree on the idea that consciousness is the outcome of a process of interpretation that depends on a 'shifting...

This paper investigates the systemic nature of methodological individualism. According to widespread belief, the notion of autonomy of the actor that is defended by methodological individualism is mistaken because it is incompatible with the study of society in terms of its organized structure....

Lionel Robbins' definition of economics helped to buttress the centrality that individual choice acquired after the Second World War. This, however, was an unintended consequence of his seminal work. Underlying his definition of economics, a novel approach to methodological individualism is...

Lionel Robbins’ definition of economics helped to buttress the centrality that individual choice acquired after the Second World War. This, however, was an unintended consequence of his seminal work. Underlying his definition of economics, a novel approach to methodological individualism is...

This paper investigates the relationship between methodological individualism (MI) and Agent-Based Simulation (ABS). We discuss and analyze a thesis defended by philosophers Caterina Marchionni and Petri Ylikoski (2013). The thesis maintains that, since MI is often considered to be a...

This paper investigates the relationship between methodological individualism (MI) and Agent-Based Simulation (ABS). We discuss and analyze a thesis defended by philosophers Caterina Marchionni and Petri Ylikoski (2013). The thesis maintains that, since MI is often considered to be a...

This paper suggests that personal trust is best understood is a discursively constructed social relation that arises when interaction between people is governed by the norm of reciprocity (according to which one good turn deserves another and that people should treat others as they themselves...

The distinction between methodological individualism and rational choice theory is elaborated and a simple point is argued, that seems to be systematically neglected: methodological individualism is a postulate which is part of the metalanguage about social scientific theories, whereas rational...

In this paper we revisit the case for methodological individualism for the positive analysis of political economy. We argue that the basis of methodological individualism implies neither a necessary commitment to atomistic reductionism in explaining social phenomena nor philosophical...

"Methodological individualism" (MI) was first used in English in a 1909 paper by Joseph Schumpeter. MI is often invoked as a fundamental description of the methodology both of neoclassical and Austrian economics, as well as of other approaches. However, the methodologies of those to whom the...

Hayek's theory of socio-cultural evolution is a generalization of his theory on spontaneous market order. Hayek explains both the emergence of market and social institutions serving as a social basis for that order within the framework of a unified evolutionary logic. This logic interprets the...

The purpose of this contribution is to illustrate how both Schelling and Bacharach’s methodologies can help scholars bring a new approach to behavioral game theory in which the nature of usual standard methodological individualism is insufficiently questioned. I aim to show that both Schelling...

Institutions are the rules that guide social interactions. By creating incentives or constraints, they guide human actions in the social cooperation process. Society is a reflection of social cooperation and becomes, in fact, the expression of the existing institutional frame. In this paper,...

The appeal of the 'Micro-foundations' project, which requires that all macroeconomic propositions are reduced to or derived from microeconomic ones, is strongly supported by the considerable force of what Lakatos calls the discipline's 'hard core'. This is particularly so if this project is...

Methodological individualism, coupled with radical subjectivity, leads naturally to skepticism regarding the objective theoretical value of economic aggregates. I restate the role of aggregates in the methodological individualist paradigm, focusing on the Austrian tradition, in a way consistent...