In the previous chapter we showed how methodological individualism can create paradoxical and contradictory situations because of a lack of system wisdom. From the perspective of system wisdom, agents are construed not as isolated or isolatable entities but as unique accumulations of interactions; here the agent is assumed to be a thoroughly socialized being, able to demonstrate awareness not just of his or her own conscious purpose but of wider system influences, by which his or her life might be enriched and enhanced as well as threatened. This chapter, therefore, continues with this discussion of how the dominant view of human agency becomes complicated by the inevitable presence and persistence of organized and organizing systems, into which an agent is born, lives and dies and which are not of her own making. This redirecting of attention away from individual agency towards an awareness of the relational complicity implied in everyday social practice enables us to see how the complexities of our social world may be made more explainable through recourse to the practice of everyday coping actions and interactions. As advocates of this system wisdom, we argue for what might be called a weak methodological individualism: an interactively constituted ‘self’ that is associated with phronesis (practical wisdom) and with praxis as a self-cultivating rather than a productive activity.