ABSTRACT
Methodological individualism was until quite recently – before the renaissance of Austrian Economics – most often associated with the name of Karl Popper. This, as we have seen, is not because he was its inventor. Nor is it, as we shall see, because he has very much to say about it that is entirely new. Popper did bring about a major change in methodological individualism by advocating institutionalism, but he did not integrate this element in methodological individualism, himself. One reason methodological individualism used to be more often associated with Popper than with the Austrians, is that, being a philosopher himself, Popper was more widely read among philosophers. Another reason is that, in the decades after the Second World War, he was probably also more widely read by social scientists, than were Weber, Mises and Hayek, whose influence was largely confined to their own disciplines of economics and sociology. Today this is no longer true. Interest in the philosophy of Karl Popper has been on the wane among social scientists for some time, while interest in Austrian Economics has increased. My conjecture is, however, that we will soon see a revival of interest also in the philosophy of Karl Popper.
