Georg Meggle (Ed.), Social Facts & Collective Intentionality, Dr. Hänsel-Hohenhausen AG, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 103-123 (Numbers in square brackets refer to this publication) HOLISTIC ARGUMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALISM Boris HENNIG 1 Leipzig Summary In this essay, I will sketch my view of the connections between some methodological assumptions in social philosophy, namely those of individualism, holism, and collectivism. My interest in doing so is to outline a rough conceptual landscape, into which an approach of collective actions and intentions can be placed. The main result, which may seem somewhat surprising, is that the need for individualism can best be shown by a holistic argumentation. In order to show this, I argue that moral responsibility can only be undertaken by individual persons, and not by groups as such. This leads to an argument for individualism, which, however, has a holistic assumption as one of ist premises. In order to act intentionally, it reads, a person must already have certain joint intentions and social attitudes, that she must be willing to eventually justify herself publicly for what she intends. In the following, I will present two claims regarding the relation between holism and individualism. First, I will show that in a certain sense of these terms, it is possible to be both a holist and an individualist. In order to do this, I will introduce some rather formal and methodological distinctions. The [104] second claim concerns the soundness of being both a holist and an individualist. I will show that a certain kind of holism even implies individualism, given a further ethical demand. 1. Holism need not be anti-individualistic 1.1 Two kinds of holism I begin with some remarks about the possibility of reducing collective agents to individuals or sets of individuals. Individualism in social sciences is usually contrasted with holism and collectivism, which often seem to be understood as being roughly the same. However, I will soon draw a distinction between holism and collectivism, so that individualism can be better understood as the opposite of collectivism only. Collectivism usually is associated with the following claim. Collectivism. Collectives and collective attitudes neither are nor are reducible to sets of individuals or individual attitudes. Holding the opposite of this stance, an individualist will maintain: 1. Thanks to Jesko Krispin Hennig, who contributed his very own part to this essay. Typoscript