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The demarcation criterion of methodological individualism is not defined in relation to entities ultimately involved in explanation – individuals to the exclusion of structures – as supposed by its reductionist interpretations. It introduces an epistemological approach that distinguishes between causal powers representing driving forces – they arise from individual (trans-situational) rational capacities – and structural properties which do not exert a causal power but have nevertheless a crucial causal role – they define the situational properties on the basis of which individuals’ rational capacities are developed. Whereas the forces in action in society are governed by the subjective meaning of/the reasons for individual actions, social structures have an explanatory or causal role insofar as they affect the subjective meaning of/the reasons for individual actions.

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The explanatory power of structures in analytical sociologists’ agent-based models brings into question methodological individualism. We defend that (a) from an explanatory point of view, the syntactic properties of models require semantic conditions of interpretation drawn from a conceptual research framework; (b) in such a framework, social/relational structures have only partial, explanatory power (counterfactual); and (c) taking the explanation further through generative mechanism modeling necessitates calling upon methodological individualism’s generic framework of interpretation that relies on social actors’ rational capacity. According to this interpretive framework, forces in action in society are governed by the subjective meaning of/the reasons for individual actions.