Institutions, distributed cognition and agency: rule-following as performative action

Carsten Herrmann-Pillath

No 157, Frankfurt School - Working Paper Series from Frankfurt School of Finance and Management

Abstract: Recently, Aoki proposed the concept of substantive institutions which relates outcomes of strategic interaction with public representations of equilibrium states of games. I argue that the Aoki model can be grounded in theories of distributed cognition and performativity, which I put into the context of Searle's philosophical account of institutions. Substantive institutions build on regularized causal interactions between internal neuronal mechanisms and external facts, which are shared in a population of agents. Following Searle's proposal to conceive rule following as a neuronally anchored behavioral disposition, I show that his corresponding notion of collective intentionality can be grounded in recent neuroscience theories about imitation as the primordial process in human learning. I relate this with Searle's concept of status function and the neuronal theory of metaphors, resulting in a precise definition of rule-following as performative action. I present two empirical examples, the institution of money and status hierarchies in markets.

Keywords: Aoki's concept of substantive institutions; Searle; collective intentionality; emotions; imitation; performativity; sign systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B52 D02 D87 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-neu
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Journal Article: Institutions, distributed cognition and agency: rule-following as performative action (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:fsfmwp:157

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