Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T02:28:48.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On ‘common-sense ontology’: a comment on the paper by Frank Hindriks and Francesco Guala

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2015

ROBERT SUGDEN
ROBERT SUGDEN*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
*
*Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

This note comments on Hindriks and Guala's ‘unified theory of institutions’. One of the components that Hindriks and Guala seek to unify, and which they claim is unsatisfactory on its own, is the analysis of conventions that derives from the work of Lewis. I argue that the Lewisian approach provides simple and powerful explanations of many regularities in the social behaviour of humans and other animals. Those explanations can be seen as good social science even if, as Hindriks and Guala argue, they do not fit with common-sense ontology.

Type
Article Commentary
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 489 - 492
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cubitt, R. and Sugden, R. (2003), ‘Common Knowledge, Salience and Convention: A Reconstruction of David Lewis’ Game Theory’, Economics and Philosophy, 19: 175–210.Google Scholar
Hindriks, F. and Guala, F. (2014), ‘Institutions, Rules, and Equilibria: A Unified Theory’, Journal of Institutional Economics, published online: 16 October 2014. doi: 10.1017/S1744137414000496.Google Scholar
Hume, D. (1739–40 /1978), A Treatise of Human Nature, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1969), Convention: A Philosophical Study, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Maynard Smith, J. (1982), Evolution and the Theory of Games, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Preston, S. and de Waal, F. (2002), ‘Empathy: Its Ultimate and Proximate Bases’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25: 1–20.Google Scholar
Schelling, T. (1960), The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, A. (1759 /1976), The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugden, R. (1986), The Economics of Rights, Co-operation and Welfare, 2nd edn, 2004, Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ullmann-Margalit, E. (1977), The Emergence of Norms, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar