L'INDIVIDUALISMO METODOLOGICO CONTRO IL RELATIVISMO SCIENTIFICO E L'IRRAZIONALISMO ETICO

In a recent review of the Italian edition of R. Boudon's Le juste et le vrai, A. Izzo goes right to the core of Boudon's ideas. According to Izzo, Boudon has failed in his attempt to produce «a study on the objectivity of values and knowledge»: his concept of `limited rationality' is not strong enough to counteract the radical relativism of postmodernity. Izzo's critique is directed to the very epistemological strategy adopted by Boudon during the last twenty years. This article is a reply to Izzo; also it tries elaborate on some specific aspects of Boudon's theory criticised by Izzo: a) the rationality and irrationality of actions; b) objectivity or subjectivity of actors' reasons; c) possibility to use methodological individualism as an anti-relativism device in science and as an anti-irrationality device within ethics.