Abstract

Manzo (2023/2020, this volume) objects to Nathalie Bulle's article with Denis Phan “Can Analytical Sociology Do Without Methodological Individualism?” (Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 2018) that the rationality associated with the understanding interpretation of MI cannot be taken to be trans-situational. This reply argues that either (1) this is a misunderstanding resulting from a confusion between the general rational capacity of human beings, to which Bulle and Phan refer, and the specific behavioral patterns associated with given situations and models or (2) this objection supports a structural reductionism in which the structural level tends to “reduce” the individual level, so that the behavioral patterns are directly implied by the structures.