Convention¶
Lewis, D. (1969). Convention: A Philosophical Study. Harvard University Press.
Cited by¶
5 citations across 5 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Arbitrariness of Symbolic Conventions
This sourceAnalyzes convention as an arbitrary, self-perpetuating solution to a recurrent coordination problem, sustained by mutual expectation, common knowledge, and salience across linguistic, social, and institutional domains.
- Coordination Problem and Equilibrium Selection
- The signature is robust across institutional and technological domains: technology standards (VHS vs. Betamax), organizational norms (formal vs. casual culture), driving conventions (left-hand vs. right-hand traffic), measurement units (metric vs. imperial), and network architectures all exhibit this same structure, as Lewis (1969) developed in his philosophical analysis of convention as the general solution to recurrent coordination problems.
This sourceDefines convention as the general solution to recurrent coordination problems; develops salience and mutual expectation as the basis of equilibrium selection across linguistic, social, and institutional domains.
- The signature is robust across institutional and technological domains: technology standards (VHS vs. Betamax), organizational norms (formal vs. casual culture), driving conventions (left-hand vs. right-hand traffic), measurement units (metric vs. imperial), and network architectures all exhibit this same structure, as Lewis (1969) developed in his philosophical analysis of convention as the general solution to recurrent coordination problems.
- Joint Attention
- … Common knowledge is the unbounded epistemic tower ("I know that you know that I know…" ad infinitum) about a proposition; joint attention is the concrete perceptual-behavioral achievement of mutually registered co-orientation, typically only second-order, and grounded in observable cues like gaze.
This sourceOriginal formal analysis of common knowledge / convention as recurrent coordination resolved against a publicly observable basis.
- … Common knowledge is the unbounded epistemic tower ("I know that you know that I know…" ad infinitum) about a proposition; joint attention is the concrete perceptual-behavioral achievement of mutually registered co-orientation, typically only second-order, and grounded in observable cues like gaze.
- Non-Zero-Sum Game
- In information theory and communication, coordinating on a shared language gains both parties, while signaling games with deception are zero-sum.
This sourceAnalyzes coordination on a shared language/convention as a non-zero-sum game in which both parties gain from a common standard.
- In information theory and communication, coordinating on a shared language gains both parties, while signaling games with deception are zero-sum.
Mechanisms¶
- Common-Knowledge Brief
- Its strength is that it solves the coordination gap that first-order distribution leaves open: people act on an anchor only when they are confident others will too, and that confidence requires knowledge to be common, not merely widespread.
This sourceExplains that coordination conventions depend on common knowledge—mutual knowledge iterated beyond the fact that each participant separately knows.
- Its strength is that it solves the coordination gap that first-order distribution leaves open: people act on an anchor only when they are confident others will too, and that confidence requires knowledge to be common, not merely widespread.
Verification¶
Does it exist? Confirmed. This work's DOI resolves to a registered record, which fixes its identity. That is all it fixes.
Does it back the claim? Not recorded. Neither this nor any other of the 5 citations of this work carries a recorded support check.
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Links previously used in the corpus¶
Before the registry existed this work was also linked 3 other ways.
- https://openlibrary.org/books/OL5681408M/Convention_a_philosophical_study ×1
- https://philpapers.org/rec/LEWCAP-4 ×1
- https://www.google.com/books/edition/Convention/GgCkLtTqBsMC ×1
Registry ID ref:ccf850846bb0 · see in the full table