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Individualism and collectivism in history and sociology - In the philosophy of the social sciences methodological individualism and collectivism are considered opposing strategies for acquiring knowledge. Philosophers of history regularly claim that these methodological strategies induce two different modes of historical research, the type of ’hermeneutic-historicist’ one and the ’structuralist’ type of historiography. In this paper it is demonstrated that the way philosophers of history have interpreted the methodological individualism versus methodological collectivism debate is often inadequate. A correct reconstruction of the debate shows that this primarily socio-scientific dilemma does not underlie the historiographical antagonism. ’Structuralist’ history is not the historiographical counterpart of methodological-collectivist sociology. It is rather a kind of ’structural methodological individualism’, as it is sometimes called. The conflict between narrativist historicism and structuralist historiography must be understood in terms of voluntarism versus structural determinism. The circumstance that the ’methodological individualism’ versus ’methodological collectivism’ polarity does not play as important a part in historiography as in sociology has to do with the differences between the cognitive structures of both disciplines.
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How to Cite: Blom, T. & Nijhuis, T. (1989) “Individualisme en collectivisme in geschiedenis en sociologie”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen. 34(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tvsw.95000