  Jon Elster’s contribution to the history of methodological individualism must be understood against this background. He presents the doctrine as part of a friendly yet trenchant critique of the use of functionalist explanations in the Marxist tradition; particularly those that seek to explain events as ones that “serve the interests of capital.” The problem with these explanations, Elster argues, is that they “postulate a purpose without a purposive actor” (1982, 452), and therefore (he claims) entail a commitment to some form of objective teleology. In itself, there is very little new in this criticism. As G.A. Cohen argued, in his response to Elster, there is no reason that the Marxian functionalist cannot provide “elaborations” (Cohen 1982, 131) of these explanations, ones that specify how the benefit produced evokes the phenomenon, without reference to any objective teleology. This could be done either by appealing to an intentional mechanism at the action-theoretic level or else a Darwinian “selection” mechanism (Cohen 1982, 132).  In such cases, Elster’s critique of functional explanation becomes just another version of Watkins’s demand for “rock-bottom” rather than “half-way” explanations.