Ebook: Individualism in Social Science: Forms and Limits of a Methodology

Bhargava carefully disentangles the different forms of methodological individualism, and then identifies the key assumptions of its most plausible version that beliefs are attitudes individuated entirely in terms of what lies within the individual mind. He argues that once this assumption is challenged, it is possible to rehabilitate a non-individuated methodology that permits a contextual study of beliefs and desires and even a study of social context relatively independent of the beliefs and desires of individuals.