Communities of Dialogue Russian and Ukrainian Émigrés in Modernist Prague

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The normativity of Lewis conventions

Francesco Guala

pp. 3107-3122

Abstract

David Lewis famously proposed to model conventions as solutions to coordination games, where equilibrium selection is driven by precedence, or the history of play. A characteristic feature of Lewis Conventions is that they are intrinsically non-normative. Some philosophers have argued that for this reason they miss a crucial aspect of our folk notion of convention. It is doubtful however that Lewis was merely analysing a folk concept. I illustrate how his theory can (and must) be assessed using empirical data, and argue that it does indeed miss an important aspect of real-world conventions.

Publication details

Published in:

(2013) Synthese 190 (15).

Pages: 3107-3122

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-012-0131-x

Full citation:

Guala Francesco (2013) „The normativity of Lewis conventions“. Synthese 190 (15), 3107–3122.