Individualistic and Holistic Models of Collective Beliefs and the Role of Rhetoric and Argumentation

Abstract

The specific problem I address in this paper is the following: as numerous sociologists and anthropologists have noticed (notably Bourdieu), most people, in general, are not very much interested in the specific content of the collective beliefs of their group and do not spend much time evaluating the logical or empirical rationality of, or engaging in discussion about them. These data seem to limit the relevance of any research program focused either on the reconstruction of plausible reasons or on the effective role of reasoning, argumentation and rhetoric in the emergence, transformation and disappearance of collective beliefs (e.g. Raymond Boudon’s and Jon Elster’s programs). Of course, these latter programs have been adapted in order to grasp the complexity of collective beliefs. However, they remain individualistic: they may introduce relations of interaction (or of interdependence) among individuals as well as system of relations or social structures, but they do not take groups in themselves into account (except in cases groups can be viewed as acting as individual units of action). Currently, new holistic and allegedly holistic models of collective beliefs are the center of many debates, especially in social philosophy but also increasingly in social psychology, political sciences and economics, in continuity, in particular, with the work of Raimo Tuomela, Philip Pettit and Margaret Gilbert. I will argue a) that certain recent allegedly holistic models – distinct from the classical models of interiorized social pressure – provide fruitful hypotheses for the understanding of collective beliefs because they are focused on the specific properties of groups; and b) that they are nevertheless compatible with individualist assumptions in Max Weber’s – or Vilfredo Pareto’s – sense and that they should be used in conjunction with a range of various individualistic models. I will also argue that all these models make sense as long as one focuses on effective argumentative and rhetoric procedures as Vilfredo Pareto did one century ago. 1