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Originating in the late 19th century and becoming the subject of ongoing methodological debates in the social sciences, methodological individualism is a paradigm that focuses on understanding social phenomena through the actions and choices of individuals rather than through collective explanations. This book highlights its theoretical bases as defined and developed in the writings of its founders and early proponents in the context of the liveliest methodological battles in the social sciences. It addresses fundamental epistemological issues, including the distinction between explanation in the social sciences and natural sciences, the rational bases for understanding social actions, the relation of social wholes to their parts, and the connections between social concepts and the phenomenal world. Bringing together new English translations of foundational texts by Carl Menger, Joseph Schumpeter, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber, this book provides key insights into one of the essential methodological paradigms in the social sciences, corrects misconceptions, and advances a deeper understanding of methodological individualism as a robust and valuable approach to explaining social phenomena. It will therefore appeal to scholars and students of sociology and sociological theory with an interest in questions of social science methodology.

Chapter 1. The turmoiled emergence of methodological individualism within the social sciences landscape: a path to its understanding.Chapter 2. Carl Menger (1883). On the theoretical understanding of social phenomena that are neither the products of convention nor of positive legislation, but the unintended results of historical development.Chapter 3. Joseph Schumpeter (1908). Methodological individualism and the emergence of the marginalist school of economics.Chapter 4. Georg Simmel (1905-1907). The intrinsic conditions of historical knowledge and the mental nature of history.Chapter 5. Max Weber (1922). The basic concepts of sociology.

In contrast to dominant approaches to human reason involving essentially a logical and instrumental conception of rationality easily modeled by artificial intelligence mechanisms, I argue that the specific capacities of the human mind are meta-analytic in nature, understood as irreducible to the analytic or the logical, or else the computational. Firstly, the assumption of a meta-analytical level of rationality is derived from key insights developed in various branches of the social sciences. This meta-analytical level is then inferred from Gödel's incompleteness theorem. On these bases, and with the help of psychological approaches to consciousness, I argue that human rationality may be characterized as the capacity to make meaningful use of signs.

À partir de la mise en lumière de leurs divergences épistémologiques, trois interprétations de l'individualisme méthodologique (IM) sont distinguées : la version « constitutive », la version « minimaliste », et la version « réductionniste ». La première, originellement théorisée par Max Weber, demande que les phénomènes sociaux soient expliqués sur la base d'une interprétation « compréhensive » (en général rationnelle) du sens subjectif des actions individuelles. La seconde, fondée sur une conception vaste de l'action individuelle, s'oppose essentiellement au mauvais usage des concepts collectifs. Elle tend à ne trouver qu'une justification ontologique sans légitimité méthodologique, si ce n'est dans le parti-pris empiriste des modélisations multi-agents promues par la sociologie analytique. La version réductionniste, qui domine la philosophie anglo-saxonne contemporaine, est de son côté un pur construit philosophique, fruit de l'interprétation stratifiée de la science et du monde héritée du positivisme. Il est défendu que la version constitutive, ou wébérienne, partage des prémisses avec les épistémologies actives, mettant en jeu des capacités ou pouvoirs causaux aux propriétés transsituationnelles. L'anthropologie de la connaissance d'Émile Meyerson permet d'en offrir une justification ultimement non métaphysique.

My thesis is that liberal and progressive education models respectively refer to dual and unitary conceptions of intellectual development, and that these differences account for their pedagogical antagonisms. I test the validity of this argument by using it to account for the evolution of Western pedagogy and the fate of liberal and progressive education. I introduce the dualist epistemological premises of the major educational models that have followed one after the other in the history of Western education. Then, I account for the impact of classical empiricism, and later evolutionary doctrines, on the discredit of liberal education and the emergence of educational progressivism. Progressive educational conceptions are rooted in a representation of humankind developed under the influence of the Darwinian revolution. They justify an adaptive model of the mind within the framework of a functionalist psychology. According to alternative currents of modern educational thought, the use of auxiliary means of thought marks a rupture with human biological development. These currents underpin a dual conception of human reason according to which rational or theoretical understanding is a sui generis dimension of thought. They offer support for a modernized version of liberal education.

En explorant les théories qui fondent et motivent, fût-ce implicitement, le pédagogisme moderne, Nathalie Bulle nous rend intelligibles ses errements et ses échecs.

Inscrite dans un contexte de sécularisation de l'éducation et de démocratisation de la société, la pensée pédagogique moderne se donne comme fondamentalement libératrice. On peut lui distinguer à cet égard deux héritages, celui du rationalisme universaliste des Lumières et celui du naturalisme évolutionniste du XIXe siècle. Le premier centre son projet éducatif sur l'autonomie de la raison et le progrès intellectuel, le second sur l'autonomie de l'action et le perfectionnement moral. L'opposition de ces deux héritages constitue une contradiction théorique au sein de la pensée pédagogique qui perdure et en affaiblit le développement. Afin de l'éclairer, un examen de ses sources doctrinales et des rénovations des systèmes éducatifs engagées dans différents contextes nationaux (Italie, Allemagne, Union Soviétique, Etats-Unis) depuis le début du XXesiècle est esquissé.