Elster's Methodological Individualism And His Philosophy Anthropology

"Analytical Marxism" was appeared in the late 1970's of last century, and it got attention of Marxist all of the world soon. If we want to develop Marxism in China, we should take a look at the new trend of the thought.Elster is one of the most important representatives and he put forward Methodological Individualism which is a new method and new view for studying Marxism. Elster says that we must get back to individuals and "microfoundations" when we research social phenomena, he thinks only by doing so can we get scientific conclusions; on the base of that, Elster sums up two important methods in Marxism—fallacy of composition and counterfinality; and he denies the functional explanation and dialectics, all above are included in the contents of Methodological Individualism.Elster applies Methodological Individualism to Marxism and arrives some new ideas. He thinks it is the reification that prevent workers from full development; the connection of spiritual alienation and labouring alienation is deep reason for exploitation; and he doubts about Marx's theory of man's full development.From Elster's new ideas, we find some of them are reasonable and are supplements for Marxism, while others are rather misunderstandings of Marxism that they should be rejected.Analytical Marxists argues Marxism by using the method of analysis, and their accomplishements embody the new spirits of old questions, which are quite worthy of introducing and drawing lessons.