Individualism versus Holism: An Attempt to Overcome Theoretical Dualism

The article deals with one of the key theoretical dilemmas of contemporary sociology: the dualism of the individualistic and holistic approaches. One of the most famous attempts to overcome this dualism is Anthony Giddens’ structuring theory, alongside with the conception of critical realism of Roy Bhaskar and Margaret Archer. Their efforts are focused on bringing together the individualistic and holistic approaches, as well as on the alternation of both perspectives within a single explanatory model. The author of this article believes that this problem can be solved exclusively if both perspectives are “blended” in their theoretical explanation demonstrating that the concepts which we use in sociological theory — the actor, action, and structure — are inherently dualistic, in other words, they are “duplexes”.

sociological theory, individualism, holism, a theoretical dilemma, dualism, the theory of structuring, critical realism