Agent-based models and methodological individualism: are they fundamentally linked?

Abstract

The article discusses recent scholarship on whether or not the association between agent-based computational models and methodological individualism is justified. It is argued that these analyses are problematic because they start with a specific understanding of methodological individualism, which makes their conclusion contingent on the chosen view of what this perspective either is or is not. To overcome this problem, the paper proposes to think of both agent-based models and methodological individualism as “generic instruments,” i.e. devices with properties that are transversal to explanatory problems, fields, and disciplines. Within this framework, it appears that agent-based models and methodological individualism share some basic principles irrespective of the entities and levels of analysis involved by the explanatory problem under examination. In this sense, this study claims, they are essentially linked.