The paper focuses on the issue of compatibility of social institution and convention. At first, it introduces the modest account of conventionality building on five distinctive features – interdependence, arbitrariness, mind-independence, spontaneity, and normative-neutrality – which constitute conventional behaviour, then it presents the two major theories of social institutions that explain them in terms of rules, or equilibria. The argument is that conventions cover a wide-ranging area and cannot be identified with the category of institutions because it would be too (...) restrictive and contradictory to the initial modest account. (shrink)

I introduce an extension of the Lewis-Skyrms signaling game, analysed from a dynamical perspective via simple reinforcement learning. In Lewis’ (Convention, Blackwell, Oxford, 1969) conception of a signaling game, salience is offered as an explanation for how individuals may come to agree upon a linguistic convention. Skyrms (Signals: evolution, learning & information, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010a) offers a dynamic explanation of how signaling conventions might arise presupposing no salience whatsoever. The extension of the atomic signaling game examined here—which I (...) will refer to as a salience game—introduces a variable parameter into the atomic signaling game which allows for degrees of salience, thus filling in the continuum between Skyrms’ and Lewis’ models. The model does not presuppose any salience at the outset, but illustrates a process by which accidentally evolved salience is amplified, to the benefit of the players. It is shown that increasing degrees of salience allow populations to avoid sub-optimal pooling equilibria and to coordinate upon conventions more quickly. (shrink)

In this paper we use an experimental approach to investigate how linguistic conventions can emerge in a society without explicit agreement. As a starting point we consider the signaling game introduced by Lewis. We find that in experimental settings, small groups can quickly develop conventions of signal meaning in these games. We also investigate versions of the game where the theoretical literature indicates that meaning will be less likely to arise—when there are more than two states for actors to transfer (...) meaning about and when some states are more likely than others. In these cases, we find that actors are less likely to arrive at strategies where signals have clear conventional meaning. We conclude with a proposal for extending the use of the methodology of experimental economics in experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Understanding more about how the brain functionsshouldhelp us understand economic behaviour. But some would have us believe that it has done this already, and that insights from neuroscience have already provided insights in economics that we would not otherwise have. Much of this is just academic marketing hype, and to get down to substantive issues we need to identify that fluff for what it is. After we clear away the distractions, what is left? The answer is that a lot is (...) left, but it is still all potential. That is not a bad thing, or a reason to stop the effort, but it does point to the need for a serious reconsideration of what neuroeconomics is and what passes for explanation in this literature. I argue that neuroeconomics can be a valuable field, but not the way it is being developed and “sold” now. The same is true more generally of behavioural economics, which shares many of the methodological flaws of neuroeconomics. (shrink)

David Lewis’ Convention has been a major source of inspiration for philosophers and social scientists alike for the analysis of norms. In this essay, I demonstrate its usefulness for the analysis of some moral norms. At the same time, conventionalism with regards to moral norms has attracted sustained criticism. I discuss three major strands of criticism and propose how these can be met. First, I discuss the criticism that Lewis conventions analyze norms in situations with no conflict of interest, whereas (...) most, if not all, moral norms deal with situations with conflicting interests. This criticism can be answered by showing that conventions can emerge in those contexts as well. Secondly, I discuss the objection that this type of conventionalism, inspired by Lewis, presents moral norms as fundamentally contingent, whereas most, if not all, moral norms are not. However, such critics fail to appreciate that conventions are not radically contingent. Moreover, if one distinguishes the question as to why an individual should comply with a norm from the question whether the norm in question itself can be justified, a core element of the complaint of contingency disappears. The third objection to conventionalism concerns the way in which conventionalists justify norms. I argue that reflection upon the way in which according to Lewis norms are justified reveals a fundamental tension in his theory. Possible solutions to this tension all have in common that the complaint of contingency returns in some form. Therefore, this third complaint cannot be avoided altogether. (shrink)

Conventions are regularities in social behaviour of the past that enable us to coordinate our actions. Some conventions are lawlike: they are expected to be observed always or nearly always. However, in order to coordinate our actions, it may suffice that a precedent has occurred often enough, and sometimes even a single precedent will do. So, in general, conventions merely enable us to solve our coordination problems; lawlike conventions are a special case. Grammatical conventions are often lawlike; sense conventions are (...) typically enabling. In order to resolve the indeterminacies that sense conventions give rise to, interlocutors must rely on the common ground. In this and other ways, common ground is a prerequisite for convention‐based communication. (shrink)

This article presents a community-based account of salience as an alternative and a complement to the ‘natural salience’ approach which is endorsed by almost all game theorists who use this concept. While in the naturalistic approach, salience is understood as an objective and natural property of some entities, the community-based account claims that salience is a function of community membership. Building on David Lewis’s theory of common knowledge and on some of its recent refined accounts, I suggest that salience acts (...) as a correlating device in a correlated equilibrium. What is constitutive of salience is common understanding, the fact that agents have common knowledge that they share the same modes of reasoning with respect to a well-identified set of events. I argue that the basis for common understanding is community membership. The relevance of this account stems from the fact that it answers the objection that salience is either unnecessary or unable to account for coordination between rational agents. (shrink)

How do people solve coordination problems? One possibility is that they use ‘ Theory of Mind’ to generate expectations about others’ behaviour. To test this, we investigate whether the ability to solve interpersonal coordination problems is associated with individual differences in ‘ Theory of Mind’, as measured by a questionnaire addressing autistic-spectrum personality traits. The results suggest that successful coordination is associated with Theory-of-Mind function, but not with the non-social components of autistic personality (e.g., pattern detection, imagination). We discuss the (...) implications of this finding for future research, and the assessment of autistic-spectrum presentations in adult populations. (shrink)

Work was conducted among traditional, subsistence whale hunters in Lamalera, Indonesia, in order to test if strict biological kinship or lineage membership is more important for explaining the organization of cooperative hunting parties ranging in size from 8 to 14 men. Crew identifications were collected for all 853 hunts that occurred between May 3 and August 5, 1999. Lineage identity and genetic relatedness were determined for a sample of 189 hunters. Results of matrix regression show that genetic kinship explains little (...) of the hunters’ affiliations independent of lineage identity. Crew members are much more closely related to each other than expected by chance, but this is due to the correlation between lineage membership and genetic kinship. Lineage members are much more likely to affiliate in crews, but kin with r<0.5 are just as likely not to affiliate. The results are discussed vis-à-vis the evolution of cooperation and group identity. (shrink)

Philosophers and economists write about collective action from distinct but related points of view. This paper aims to bridge these perspectives. Economists have been concerned with rationality in a strategic context. There, problems posed by “coordination games” seem to point to a form of rational action, “team thinking,” which is not individualistic. Philosophers’ analyses of collective intention, however, sometimes reduce collective action to a set of individually instrumental actions. They do not, therefore, capture the first person plural perspective characteristic of (...) team thinking. Other analyses, problematically, depict intentions ranging over others’ actions. I offer an analysis of collective intention which avoids these problems. A collective intention aims only at causing an individual action, but its propositional content stipulates its mirroring in other minds. (shrink)

The thesis of this essay is that social conventions of the kind Lewis modeled are generated and maintained by a form of practical reasoning which is essentially common. This thesis is defended indirectly by arguing for an interpretation of the role of salience in Lewis’s account of conventions. The remarkable ability of people to identify salient options and appreciate their practical significance in contexts of social interaction, it is argued, is best explained in terms of their exercise of what I (...) call “salience reasoning,” a form of common practical reasoning. The more widely accepted understanding of salience competence, the “natural salience” understanding, fails as an interpretation of the notion at work in Lewis and Schelling (on whom Lewis relied) and is inadequate as an explanation of salience competence. (shrink)

Cet article se propose d’examiner les hypothèses de la théorie des jeux à cadre variable et leurs implications sur la représentation de l’agent économique en soulignant que i.) le raisonnement en équipe repose sur une internalisation des problèmes décisionnels et que ii.) la prise en considération des représentations subjectives de ces problèmes implique une redéfinition de l’identité de l’agent économique c’est-à-dire de son agentivité.

This article presents a new proposal for understanding the establishment and maintenance of cooperation: the cooperation afforder with framing hypothesis, producing what can be called cooperation from afforder-framing . Three key moves are present. First, a special variety of the Stag Hunt game, the Cooperation Afforder game, will reliably produce mutualistic cooperation through an evolutionary process. Second, cognitive framing is a credible candidate mechanism to meet the special conditions and requirements of the Cooperation Afforder game. Third, once mutualistic cooperation is (...) established in this way, it will plausibly lead to broader forms of cooperation, even to limited forms of altruism. (shrink)

En 1975, David Gauthier a discuté la question desjeux de coordination purede Schelling et desjeux Hi-Lode Hodgson. Tout en proposant une analyse originale de la façon dont les joueurs rationnels se coordonnent sur des «points focaux», Gauthier a soutenu contre Schelling et Hodgson que dans ces jeux, une coordination réussie ne dépend pas de déviations par rapport aux principes conventionnels du choix rationnel individuel. J’avance que l’analyse de la maximisation contrainte proposée par Gauthier dansMorals by Agreement, qui s’éloigne de façon (...) notoire de la théorie des jeux conventionnelle, présente d’importantes similarités avec les analyses de la coordination de Schelling et Hodgson. La maximisation contrainte peut être envisagée comme une variante pragmatique et contractualiste de l’approche du raisonnement par équipe introduite par Hodgson. (shrink)

Here, we present some experiments of non-cooperative games of network formation based on Bala and Goyal (Econometrica 68:1181–1229, 2000 ). We have looked at the one-way and the two-way flow models, each for high and low link costs. The models come up with both multiple equilibria and coordination problems. We conducted the experiments under various conditions which allowed for repeated interactions between subjects. We found that coordination on non-empty Strict Nash equilibria was not an easy task to achieve, even in (...) the one-way model where the Strict Nash equilibria are wheels. We found some evidence of convergence to equilibrium networks through learning dynamics, while we found no effect of salient labels to help coordination. The evidence on learning behavior provides support for subjects that were choosing strategies in line with various learning rules, principally Reinforcement and Fictitious Play. (shrink)

One might expect that, in pure coordination games, coordination would become less frequent as the number of options increases. Contrary to this expectation, we report an experiment which found more frequent coordination when the option set was unrestricted than when it was restricted. To try to explain this result, we develop a method for eliciting the general rules that subjects use to identify salient options in restricted and unrestricted sets. We find that each such rule, if used by all subjects, (...) would generate greater coordination in restricted sets. However, subjects tend to apply different rules to restricted and unrestricted sets. (shrink)

Behavior in one-shot coordination games with common knowledge labels can be described by theories of salience and focal points. Behavior in repeated games, including coordination games, can be explained by theories of learning. This paper considers games in which both theories apply, repeated coordination games with common knowledge labels. The research question asks how players combine the two sources of information—salience and the history of play—when making their choices. We specifically ask whether salience, normally considered as a one-shot strategy, continues (...) to influence players’ actions beyond the first round, even while the player might learn from the history of play. We explore two possible mechanisms for such a continuing effect of salience: via an influence on prior beliefs, and/or via a bias, given beliefs. Regression analysis of individual-level choices shows that salience, normally considered only in the context of one-shot games, does exert a lasting effect, with the precise mechanism depending on the details of the game. (shrink)