 The argument from the impossibility of translation takes it that the indispensability of holist explanations is a matter of these explanations being untranslatable into individualist explanations. The argument begins by observing that holist explanations contain social descriptions or concepts, and goes on to note that the meaning of social descriptions cannot be captured by specifications that contain descriptions of individuals alone. Or, put otherwise, social concepts are not reductively definable solely in terms of individualist concepts. As a result, it is impossible to translate holist explanations into individualist ones: holist explanations cannot be replaced by individualist explanations through translation. Finally, the argument concludes that since the events accounted for by holist explanations should not go unexplained holist explanations are indispensable.