Amazon.com description: Product Description: Written in the analytical tradition of Quine, Chisholm, Putnam and Popper, this study applies the techniques of general metaphysics to an analysis of the social world. David-Hillel Ruben bases his book on four main propositions: that metaphysical individualism concerning social objects is false; that social objects are not wholes whose parts are human individuals; that social properties are not reducible to mental properties; and that methodological individualism gives a false view of explanation in the social sciences. Dr Ruben makes the distinction between individualism as a metaphysical and as a methodological doctrine; he considers individualism as a metaphysical doctrine about the nature and structure of social reality, before going on to assess it from the point of view of the methodology of the social sciences. His arguments criticize both metaphysical and methodological individualism in social science and support a non-reductive approach to social entities and explanation in the social sciences.