ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the atomistic individual conception, tracing its evolution from the neoclassical subjectivist conception of the individual to the current mainstream view of the individual as a bearer of strategies in contemporary game theory. The argument of the chapter is that neoclassical economics began with a Lockean understanding of the individual as a being defined in terms of a private psychology, but subsequently gave up this foundation in psychology for a purely formalist conception that I label the abstract individual conception of mainstream economics. Indeed, I differentiate mainstream economics from neoclassical
economics in terms of their two respective conceptions of the atomistic individual. I argue, moreover, that, because this evolution was driven by only a vague awareness of the problematic nature of Locke’s subjectivist view of the individual, the mainstream’s resulting abstract individual conception constituted a largely unintended outcome. Since Locke operated in a dualist framework, giving up the subjective side of that framework meant-in the absence of an alternative substantive way of reconceptualizing the individual-that mainstream economics ended up giving an explanation of the individual “from a maximally objective standpoint” (Nagel 1986: 7). This raises the question, is mainstream economics still about human individuals? I argue that it has no systematic way of saying that it is.
