Nonreductive individualism: Part I—supervenience and wild disjunction

Philosophy of the Social Sciences 32 (4):537-559 (2002)
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Abstract

The author draws on arguments from contemporary philosophy of mind to provide an argument for sociological collectivism. This argument for nonreductive individualism accepts that only individuals exist but rejects methodological individualism. In Part I, the author presents the argument for nonreductive individualism by working through the implications of supervenience, multiple realizability, and wild disjunction in some detail. In Part II, he extends the argument to provide a defense for social causal laws, and this account of social causation does not require any commitment to intentionality or agency on the part of individuals.

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Citations of this work

Social Ontology.Brian Epstein - 2018 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
A Framework for Social Ontology.Brian Epstein - 2015 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 46 (2):147-167.
Three Kinds of Collective Attitudes.Christian List - 2014 - Erkenntnis 79 (S9):1601-1622.

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Conjectures and Refutations.K. Popper - 1962 - Les Etudes Philosophiques 21 (3):431-434.
Sensations and brain processes.Jjc Smart - 1959 - Philosophical Review 68 (April):141-56.
The Structure of Science.Ernest Nagel - 1961 - Les Etudes Philosophiques 17 (2):275-275.
Mental causation.Stephen Yablo - 1992 - Philosophical Review 101 (2):245-280.

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