Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 288 views

    Methodological Holism and Individualism

    Uploaded by

    ANURAG JOSEPH
    Methodological holism focuses on understanding social phenomena from a macro, contextual perspective by emphasizing the relationships between individuals and social structures like culture, society, and institutions. It views social phenomena as greater than the sum of individual parts. Methodological individualism, conversely, stresses understanding social phenomena through the actions and experiences of constituent individuals. It views social entities like religions or economic systems as collections of individuals rather than impersonal forces. Both approaches provide different but valuable perspectives for analyzing society and human behavior.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Methodological Holism and Individualism

    Uploaded by

    ANURAG JOSEPH
    288 views3 pages
    Methodological holism focuses on understanding social phenomena from a macro, contextual perspective by emphasizing the relationships between individuals and social structures like culture, society, and institutions. It views social phenomena as greater than the sum of individual parts. Methodological individualism, conversely, stresses understanding social phenomena through the actions and experiences of constituent individuals. It views social entities like religions or economic systems as collections of individuals rather than impersonal forces. Both approaches provide different but valuable perspectives for analyzing society and human behavior.

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Methodological holism focuses on understanding social phenomena from a macro, contextual perspective by emphasizing the relationships between individuals and social structures like culture, society, and institutions. It views social phenomena as greater than the sum of individual parts. Methodological individualism, conversely, stresses understanding social phenomena through the actions and experiences of constituent individuals. It views social entities like religions or economic systems as collections of individuals rather than impersonal forces. Both approaches provide different but valuable perspectives for analyzing society and human behavior.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    288 views3 pages

    Methodological Holism and Individualism

    Uploaded by

    ANURAG JOSEPH
    Methodological holism focuses on understanding social phenomena from a macro, contextual perspective by emphasizing the relationships between individuals and social structures like culture, society, and institutions. It views social phenomena as greater than the sum of individual parts. Methodological individualism, conversely, stresses understanding social phenomena through the actions and experiences of constituent individuals. It views social entities like religions or economic systems as collections of individuals rather than impersonal forces. Both approaches provide different but valuable perspectives for analyzing society and human behavior.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    You are on page 1of 3

    METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM AND HOLISM | ANURAG JOSEPH

    METHODOLOGICAL HOLISM AND INDIVIDUALISM

    Methodological holism:

    • Durkheim: when a social fact is reduced to an individual that explanation is wrong


    • In simple terms methodological holism or collectivism focuses on holistic approach to
    understand social phenomenon.
    • Social structure is responsible for individual actions.
    • Understanding individuals with context to the whole.
    • More of an impersonal approach that abstracts the intricacies forming a general
    contextualization.
    • The approach offers macro level explanations.
    • Invokes social phenomenon such as Culture, society, institutions

    For example:

    The unions protested because the government wanted to lower the national minimum wage

    The rise in unemployment led to a higher crime rate

    The recent protest in our country unites different communities and cultures under a common
    umbrella cause.

    • A socio-cultural phenomenon is greater than the sum of its constituent parts.


    • Explaining the individual and actual by contextualizing it within the general, the collective,
    the impersonal.
    • It blurs the complexities of individuals while focus on a more homogenous approach where
    the whole comes first and parts in context to it.

    Methodological individualism:

    • Max Webber: If a general sociological concept cannot be illuminated in terms of chance that
    individuals would act in a certain way, that concept should be abandoned
    • The social phenomenon is formed by human individuals.
    • The social entities like Protestantism, Capitalism , Socialism etc. are ideological while what is
    real and can be felt and touch is the individuals.
    • A state is nothing but individuals who act at certain levels of authorities
    • An investigation of or society or collective unit must be through the actions and experiences
    of the individuals.
    • Study of whole is posterior to study of individuals.
    • A collective operates through intermediary of one or several individuals whose actions are
    related to collective as secondary source.

    1 |CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
    METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM AND HOLISM | ANURAG JOSEPH

    Example:

    1. To understand a car, we first understand its functioning and parts.


    2. The hangman not the state executes the criminal.

    Here’s another example to understand both the concepts better:

    When you see this image everything appears uniform and all the heads appear black,uniforms white
    thus forming a strong generalisation lets say

    “class is in white uniform and all have black hair”

    This a more holistic view

    Now when I look from a different angle everyone has their own indvidual
    features,expressions,bodylanguage and action.

    2 |CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
    METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM AND HOLISM | ANURAG JOSEPH

    “Amongst the class student Rahul is laughing,ridhi is fiddling with her hair,Dev is praying and so
    on…”

    Thus understanding class from an individualistic perspective.

    Image 1 Image 2

    REFLECTION:

    I associate to the individualistic approach more because even though it has complex intricacies that
    might be hard to decipher but they can’t be neglected. The individualistic approach provides a more
    personal insight and variation in perspective. The differences thus can be appreciated and observed
    to form a more dynamic social structure.

    3 |CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

    You might also like