CONCEPT
Methodological Individualism
The analytical assumption — which Kroeber and Hanson both reject — that the ultimate unit of social action is the human individual, and that all cultural phenomena must be explainable in terms of individual psychology and choice.
Methodological individualism is the doctrine that social phenomena must ultimately be explained by reference to the beliefs, preferences, and actions of individual human agents. It has been a dominant methodological commitment in economics, political theory, and large swaths of the social sciences since the Enlightenment, and it shapes the popular discourse on technology — including the discourse on AI — in ways that are rarely examined. Kroeber's superorganic thesis was a direct challenge to methodological individualism. F. Allan Hanson's 2004 extension argued that the participation of AI in social action has rendered the doctrine operationally untenable: if non-human agents participate in cultural production, then cultural phenomena cannot be reduced to human psychology.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The doctrine has deep roots in Enlightenment political philosophy. The conception of the person as the primary unit of agency, rights, and responsibility grounds arguments for democratic governance, individual liberty, and the sanctity of the person against