ABSTRACT
The simple answer to this question is that most methodological individualists adopt this doctrine because they believe it is good social science; indeed, that it is the best guarantee that our knowledge of society will grow. But why do they believe this? Isn’t it for social science itself to tell which methodology is best? Well, things are not that simple. All scientists have ideas about what is good science. These ideas are based, partly on experience and partly on a priori images of science. It is obvious, for instance, that methodological individualism is based on epistemological and ontological views about the nature of knowledge and of society; views which are not so much the result, as the precondition of research.
