ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines rival positions on the ontology of social groups, ontological individualism and realism. A social group is a type of object over which we quantify in our folk and formal social scientific discourses. It explains two key points of dispute between individualism and holism. The chapter considers whether shared or collective intentions are necessary for individuals to constitute a social group and present reasons to show that they are not. Individualism holds that there is no need to quantify over a social group composed of those individuals in our best description or explanation of the social world. Individuals can constitute a social group only when each believes or understands himself to be linked in some salient way with the others, or when each conceives of himself as a member of the group.
