The Missing Piece in Rational Choice Theory

Abstract

James Coleman’s project was to resocialize rational choice while keeping micro-macro connections as operational as they are in economics. His general model in Foundations of sociological theory either accounts for norms while effacing social organization, or brings social organization to the fore (in the reduced form of social capital distribution) while failing to generate sufficient norms. A parallel simulation study suggests that the problem lies in the type of rationality itself: Coleman’s rationality is merely calculative; only interpretive rationality can take collective entities into consideration. This change would require the rational actor to accede to a less cursory type of language, intensional rather than extensional.