Frames, reasoning, and the emergence of conventions

Nicola Campigotto

Economics and Philosophy, 2020, vol. 36, issue 3, 383-400

Abstract: This paper examines the perceptual and reasoning processes that underpin regularities in behaviour. A distinction is made between situations as they are, or as described by an omniscient external observer, and situations as agents see or frame them. Different frames can stem from differences in culture, experience and personality, as well as from other context-specific factors. Drawing upon David Lewis’s Convention (1969), I show that consistency between reasoning and experience does not preclude individuals from understanding the same state of affairs differently, and that agents’ beliefs about others’ beliefs may well be wrong. As a result, cases may occur in which conventions are sustained by false but mutually consistent and self-confirming beliefs.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:36:y:2020:i:3:p:383-400_4

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economics and Philosophy from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().