On the analytic tethering of group phenomena

Abstract This paper examines “the analytic tethering thesis”, according to which adopting a summative or non-summative approach to one group-level phenomenon rationally requires adopting the same approach to others. We argue that the strong version of this thesis is untenable, given the heterogeneity of group phenomena, and that the weak version defended by Jessica Brown fails as well. Through a formal reconstruction of Brown’s arguments, we show that they instantiate a unified argumentative strategy that faces a dilemma: the derivations are either deductively invalid or question-begging. We then identify the source of this failure and argue that analytic tethering can succeed only under highly restrictive conditions. This result preserves analytic tethering in a principled but significantly constrained form.