On convention

Synthese 107 (3):349 - 371 (1996)
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Abstract

Following the pioneering work of David Lewis, many philosophers believe that the rationale of following a convention consists in the fact that conventions are solutions to recurrent coordination problems. Margaret Gilbert has criticised this view, offering an alternative account of the nature of conventions and their normative aspect. In this paper I argue that Gilbert's criticism of Lewis and her alternative suggestions rest on serious misunderstandings. As between these two opposed views, Lewis's is closer to the truth, but I argue only with respect to one type of convention. There is another, important type of conventions, whose normativity does not consist in the solution of coordination problems. The validity of conventions constituting (what I call) autonomous practices can only be derived from the values inherent in the practices they constitute and those values cannot be specified independently of the conventions themselves

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Andrei Marmor
Cornell University

Citations of this work

Norms and conventions.Nicholas Southwood & Lina Eriksson - 2011 - Philosophical Explorations 14 (2):195 - 217.
Convention.Michael Rescorla - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Deep Conventions.Andrei Marmor - 2007 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (3):586-610.

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References found in this work

Convention: A Philosophical Study.David Kellogg Lewis - 1969 - Cambridge, MA, USA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Meaning.Stephen R. Schiffer - 1972 - Oxford,: Clarendon Press.
Languages and language.David K. Lewis - 2010 - In Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel, Arguing about language. New York: Routledge. pp. 3-35.

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