tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post3899061563342121053..comments2024-03-23T04:01:39.348-04:00Comments on Understanding Society: Do we still need microfoundations?Dan Littlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15953897221283103880noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post-88943738394109287042015-12-02T11:17:10.111-05:002015-12-02T11:17:10.111-05:00Dan, my sense is that it depends entirely on the p...Dan, my sense is that it depends entirely on the problematique in question and the relevant empirical facts – particularly whether there is significant individual variation in conduct. If there is a fire in a theater then everyone will run out, and we get no additional explanatory power from exploring individual behavior. Everyone reacts in essentially the same way. But if, as in my current work, one asks how people respond to cultural change (i.e., people from Kazakhstan who come to live in the US), and if it turns out that people vary greatly in many of their reactions, then incorporating the individual level may be necessary. I argue that in such cases we need a psychological explanation to complement meso and macro level factors, and Archer’s modes of reflexivity are useful since they supply a critical microfoundation for explaining broad patterns of outcomes. In other words, ontological individualism doesn't need to be treated merely as a philosophical assumption; in certain cases there may be a clear empirical basis for making such a claim, which then necessitates a corresponding methodological approach. <br /> <br />Doug Blumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post-51298138861767694252015-11-20T03:17:59.326-05:002015-11-20T03:17:59.326-05:00I don't think this exposition of the strong th...I don't think this exposition of the strong theory of microfoundations is correct. If people advocate it, but I think they are wrong in their descriptions of their own work. In particular, "There is no lateral or downward social causation." is ambiguous. There are certainly high level constraints on every micro-foundation explanation that I've ever seen and I pretty strongly suspect that they must be in every possible such explanation. The reason is that incentives, etc. may point the actors in a direction, but it is a high level constraint that binds their actions. These constraints usually take the form of equilibrium or maximization constraints (both in physics and social science), but I don't know if those are the only possible choices.<br /><br />Take, again, Marx's theory of capitalist crises. It involves intimately the notion that in equilibrium, only the most rapacious firms will remain in business. If other firms could remain in business, then a society of David Dale/Robert Owen utopian socialist factory owners might be stable, and these soft-hearted men would not substitute fixed for variable capital. It is the high level equilibrium constraint that forces out the New Lanarks in this model.<br /><br />The Searle and Epstein point that even properly formulated micro-foundations (and attendant macro constraints) can leave important behavior unspecified is unharmed by this.Mr. Trombleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06854144365264948518noreply@blogger.com