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    A methodological individualist can coherently employ Habe... — Carmelics
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    A methodological individualist can coherently employ Habermas's theory of communicative action rather than rational choice theory as the model of rational action.

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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Methodological individualism only requires explanation at the level of individual action, not commitment to rational choice theory specifically.
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    • 2.Habermas's theory of communicative action is a theory of rational action.
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    • 3.There is no logical incompatibility between methodological individualism and communicative action theory.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Habermas's communicative rationality is constitutively intersubjective, meaning it cannot be reduced to or instantiated by individual actors in isolation.
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    • 2.Methodological individualism requires that social phenomena be fully explicable via properties and relations of individuals as the base ontological unit.
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    • 3.A theory whose rational norms are only realized through irreducibly collective speech situations cannot serve as a model within a strictly individualist explanatory framework.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Habermas explicitly grounds communicative action in the lifeworld, a pre-individual background structure that conditions all individual rationality.
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    • 2.If the lifeworld is a genuinely supra-individual condition of possibility for action, then communicative action theory presupposes a non-individualist ontology.
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    • 3.A theoretical model that smuggles in supra-individual ontological commitments cannot be coherently adopted by a strict methodological individualist without abandoning those commitments.
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    Related

    A theoretical model that smuggles in supra-individual ontological commitments ca...A theory whose rational norms are only realized through irreducibly collective s...Habermas explicitly grounds communicative action in the lifeworld, a pre-individ...Habermas's communicative rationality is constitutively intersubjective, meaning ...
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    Habermas's theory of communicative action is a theory of rational action.If the lifeworld is a genuinely supra-individual condition of possibility for ac...Methodological individualism only requires explanation at the level of individua...Methodological individualism requires that social phenomena be fully explicable ...There is no logical incompatibility between methodological individualism and com...

    Similar

    Rational choice theory is only one possible model of rational action t...90%There is no logical incompatibility between methodological individuali...89%The equation of methodological individualism with rational choice theo...87%Equating methodological individualism with rational choice theory fail...87%

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    SEP: methodological-individualism
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    Nevertheless, as a result of Elster’s arguments, methodological individualism became synonymous in many quarters with the commitment to rational choice theory. Such an equation generally fails to distinguish what were for Weber two distinct methodological issues: the commitment to providing explanations at an action-theoretic level, and the specific model of rational action that one proposes to use at that level (i.e., the ideal type). There are multiple permutations. For instance, there is no r
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    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit