 This line of response draws on a distinction between two distinct threads in the methodological individualist position: its ontological claim that all macro-level social entities are constituted by individuals; and its explanatory claim that all macro-level social entities are ultimately explicable in terms of facts about individuals. Accepting the truth of the former does not require one to endorse the distinctive “reductive” ambitions of the latter. And there might be good reasons for resisting the latter, including: the possibility of regularities at the macro-level which are not derivable from regularities at the micro-level; and (more pragmatically) in the existence of cases where, although it might in principle be possible to perform the derivation, the benefits of doing so might be extremely limited. In both cases, there are good reasons to preserve the “explanatory autonomy” of the social (Little 1991: 183–195).