Abstract

Social scientists must continually deal with collective concepts (Kollktivbegriffe) such as “society,” “nation,” “class,” “state,” and so on. Historically, there have been two opposite currents of thought on the interpretation of these concepts: methodological individualism and methodological collectivism. Their opposition involves two problems: ontological and methodological. The ontological problem can be summarized as follows: What do collective concepts really refer to? Methodological individualists (e.g., Menger, Mises, Hayek, and Popper) reply that they refer only to individuals. Only individuals exist and only individuals reason and act. The methodological problem can be summarized as follows: Where does social research, which aims at explaining social events and institutions, begin? Since methodological individualists believe that only individuals exist, they maintain that any inquiry into the origins and changes in social events and institutions necessarily must start from the actions of individuals (these actions must be studied in order to explore their unintentional consequences).