An alternative to the Lewisian view of conventions
Keywords:
conventions, Lewis, rules
Abstract
Lewis (1969) characterises conventions as regularities that arise from recurrent coordination games. I argue, contra Lewis, that conventions are rules that promote a relevant goal in virtue of coordinating our behaviour. I demonstrate the virtues of this view by showing that it provides an elegant way of dealing with four basic objections to Lewis’s view, namely that Lewis requires agents to understand their own situation too well, that his view robs conventions of explanatory force, that it mischaracterises cases where someone has non-prudential reasons to follow a convention, and that it mischaracterises situations where the relevant behaviour is non-uniform.Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
Published
2016-12-20
Issue
Section
Articles
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).