While methodological individualism is a fundamental approach within the social sciences, it is often misunderstood. This highlights the need for a discursive and up-to-date reference work analyzing this approach’s classic arguments and assumptions in the light of contemporary issues in sociology, economics and philosophy. This two-volume handbook presents the first comprehensive overview of methodological individualism. Chapters discuss historical and contemporary debates surrounding this central approach within the social sciences, as well as cutting edge developments related to the individualist tradition with philosophical and scientific implications. Bringing together multiple contributions from the world’s leading experts on this important tradition of theorizing, this collective endeavor provides teachers, researchers and students in sociology, economics, and philosophy with a reliable and critical understanding of the founding principles, key thinkers and intellectual development of MI since the late 19^th century.

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Part I. The Founding Principles of MI.- 1. The Scottish Enlightenment and MI; Jeremy Shearmur.- 2. Weber /MI and sociological explanation; Wolfgang Schluchter.- 3. MI/ interpretative sociology; Stephen Turner.- 4. MI and the Austrian School of Economics; Peter Boettke.- 5. Actuality of the Weberian paradigm /MI; Thomas Schwinn.- 6. Holism and Individualism; Raymond Boudon.- Part II. MI and the Rationality Principle.- 7. IM, Rationality and Sociological Thought; Hartmut Esser.- 8. MI/Beliefs/rationality; Ian Jarvie.- 9. MI and Psychology (Emotions/Cognitive science); Paul Dumouchel.- 10. Cognitive Economy/Decisional Processes/Nudge Theory/MI; Riccardo Viale.- 11. Reasoning/beliefs/MI; Gérald Bronner.- 12. Axiological Rationality/MI; Sylvie Mesure.- Part III. MI and the Micro-Macro Link.- 13. MI/Micro–Macro Relationship in Social Science; Gustav Ramström.- 14. MI, Interpretivism and Unintended Consequences; Key Yoshida.- 15. MI/social structures; Pierre Demeulenaere.- 16.  MI/micro-macro/ontology; Robert Sugden.- 17. MI/Complexity; Jean Petitot.- 18. MI/Stratification; Mohamed Cherkaoui.- Part IV. MI and Some Major Traditions of Social Science Research.- 19. MI/Marx; Jon Elster.- 21. MI/Durkheim; Massimo Borlandi.- 22. MI/ Weber/ Parsons/Schutz; Nasu Hisashi.- 23. MI/Hermeneutics/interpretative sociology; Enzo Di Nuoscio.- 24. Evolutionary Approach/Behavioral Sciences/Non-Atomistic MI; Herbert Gintis.- 25. Analytical Sociology/MI; José Antonio Noguera Ferrer.