ABSTRACT
As this Handbook suggests, the topics that fall under the heading of collective intentionality are diverse, ranging from ontological, to epistemological, to ethical. However, because collective intentionality studies social phenomena, the disputes that have arisen regarding its methodology are often viewed as similar, to some extent, to the disputes that occurred during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century over the proper methodology of the social sciences. I refer here to well-worn debates between methodological individualism and methodological holism. In the first section, Methodological Individualism and Methodological Holism, I discuss the extent to which philosophers within the field of collective intentionality have adopted an individualistic approach to explaining social phenomena. Along the way, I make a number of different distinctions in the hope of clarifying and categorizing positions. In the second section, Naturalizing Collective Intentionality, I consider a more recent methodological trend.
