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Methodological Individualism in Ecology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

James Justus
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Abstract

Methodological individualism has a long, successful, and controversial track record in the social sciences. Its record in ecology is much shorter but proving as successful and controversial with so-called individual-based models. Distinctions and debates about methodological individualism in social sciences clarify the commitments of this general, individualistic approach to modeling ecological phenomena and show that there is a lot recommending it. In particular, a representational priority on individual organisms yields a cogent albeit deflationary account of ecological emergence and helps reveal how quite disparate models and theories in ecology might be unified.

Type
Biological Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 81 , Issue 5 , December 2014 , pp. 770 - 784
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

For helpful feedback, thanks to Terrence Hill, Jay Odenbaugh, Joan Roughgarden, Carl Salk, Paul Teller, Michael Weisberg, Eric Winsberg, and audiences at “Values and Norms in Modeling” in Eindhoven (June 2012); the PSA meeting in San Diego (November 2012); joint Institut D ’ Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques–Florida State University philosophy of biology workshop in Paris (July 2013); and the meeting of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology in Montpellier (July 2013).

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