• In §I, after citing some examples of methodological individualism, Lukes offers a characterization of it (at the middle of p. 121) followed by five numbered positions that he takes to be different. Assuming he is right that they are not methodological individualism, they play little role in the rest of his paper, but they are positions regarding the study of society that are of interest in their own right, and you should think about them.

• §II has two parts. The first (pp. 123-125) gives a list of four sorts of facts about individuals, which is followed by a corresponding list of examples of attempts to explain social facts in terms of each of these four sorts. The heart of Lukes’ argument is in part (2), in which he considers two ways of explaining, arguing that neither sort of explanation (even when pursued to the “rock-bottom”) provides grounds for thinking that social facts can be in any significant sense all be reduced to facts about individuals. Think whether he is right about this, but think also about the various approaches to reduction he considers in course of his argument. Even if all fail, which do you think would come closest to succeeding?