An impossibility result on methodological individualism
- Author
- Hein Duijf, Allard Tamminga and Frederik Van De Putte (UGent)
- Organization
- Project
- Abstract
- Methodological individualists often claim that any social phenomenon can ultimately be explained in terms of the actions and interactions of individuals. Any Nagelian version of methodological individualism requires that there be bridge laws that translate social statements into individualistic ones. We show that Nagelian individualism can be put to logical scrutiny by making the relevant social and individualistic languages fully explicit and mathematically precise. In particular, we prove that the social statement that a group of (at least two) agents performs a deontically admissible group action cannot be expressed in a well-established deontic logic of agency that models every combination of actions, omissions, abilities, and obligations of finitely many individual agents.
- Keywords
- Methodological individualism, Impossibility result, Collective admissibility, Modal logic, Expressivity, Bisimulation, TEAM
Downloads
-
Duijf2021 Article AnImpossibilityResultOnMethodo.pdf
- full text (Published version)
- |
- open access
- |
- |
- 437.72 KB
Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-8735881
- MLA
- Duijf, Hein, et al. “An Impossibility Result on Methodological Individualism.” PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES, vol. 178, no. 12, 2021, pp. 4165–85, doi:10.1007/s11098-021-01642-z.
- APA
- Duijf, H., Tamminga, A., & Van De Putte, F. (2021). An impossibility result on methodological individualism. PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES, 178(12), 4165–4185. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-021-01642-z
- Chicago author-date
- Duijf, Hein, Allard Tamminga, and Frederik Van De Putte. 2021. “An Impossibility Result on Methodological Individualism.” PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES 178 (12): 4165–85. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-021-01642-z.
- Chicago author-date (all authors)
- Duijf, Hein, Allard Tamminga, and Frederik Van De Putte. 2021. “An Impossibility Result on Methodological Individualism.” PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES 178 (12): 4165–4185. doi:10.1007/s11098-021-01642-z.
- Vancouver
- 1.Duijf H, Tamminga A, Van De Putte F. An impossibility result on methodological individualism. PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES. 2021;178(12):4165–85.
- IEEE
- [1]H. Duijf, A. Tamminga, and F. Van De Putte, “An impossibility result on methodological individualism,” PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES, vol. 178, no. 12, pp. 4165–4185, 2021.
@article{8735881,
abstract = {{Methodological individualists often claim that any social phenomenon can ultimately be explained in terms of the actions and interactions of individuals. Any Nagelian version of methodological individualism requires that there be bridge laws that translate social statements into individualistic ones. We show that Nagelian individualism can be put to logical scrutiny by making the relevant social and individualistic languages fully explicit and mathematically precise. In particular, we prove that the social statement that a group of (at least two) agents performs a deontically admissible group action cannot be expressed in a well-established deontic logic of agency that models every combination of actions, omissions, abilities, and obligations of finitely many individual agents.}},
author = {{Duijf, Hein and Tamminga, Allard and Van De Putte, Frederik}},
issn = {{0031-8116}},
journal = {{PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES}},
keywords = {{Methodological individualism,Impossibility result,Collective admissibility,Modal logic,Expressivity,Bisimulation,TEAM}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{12}},
pages = {{4165--4185}},
title = {{An impossibility result on methodological individualism}},
url = {{http://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-021-01642-z}},
volume = {{178}},
year = {{2021}},
}
- Altmetric
- View in Altmetric
- Web of Science
- Times cited: