Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Social Ontology as Convention

  • Published:
Topoi Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

I will argue that social ontology is constituted as hierarchical and interlocking conventions of multifarious kinds. Convention, in turn, is modeled in a manner derived from that of David K. Lewis. Convention is usually held to be inadequate for models of social ontologies, with one primary reason being that there seems to be no place for normativity. I argue that two related changes are required in the basic modeling framework in order to address this (and other) issue(s): (1) a shift to an intentional model—among other reasons, in order to account for normativity—and (2) moving away from the belief-desire, propositional attitude, framework for understanding the intentional realm toward an interactive, pragmatic model of intentionality. These shifts provide natural approaches to: (1) understanding the normativities of social realities; (2) the sense in which social ontology is often constituted in implicit relations among the participants rather than elaborated and iterated explicit beliefs and desires; (3) and language.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Following Bennett, Lewis (1975) shifts to an explication of convention that admits beliefs (and, potentially, other propositional attitudes). This solves some problems that stem from Lewis’ earlier restriction to behavioral regularities, but he is then faced with the problems I discuss above regarding the hierarchies of, for example, beliefs about beliefs about …—with resultant problems both of the unboundedness of such hierarchies and of accounting for the range of normativities involved in conventions. Also, he stays focused on what I call institutionalized conventions—missing the possibility of one-time-only situation conventions.

  2. Such considerations open into the realm of motivation (Bickhard 2000).

  3. Note that what is represented here (in this model) is the potentiality for tongue flicking followed by eating, not (necessarily) the fly itself at all: detections or differentiations (e.g., of flies) do not in themselves constitute representations of that which has been detected or differentiated.

  4. This normativity, in turn, derives from a normativity of biological function. I will not develop that part of the model here (see Bickhard 1993, 2004, forthcoming, in preparation; Christensen and Bickhard 2002).

  5. For a discussion of Gibson’s model of perception, see Bickhard and Richie (1983).

  6. Note that an informational relationship, in the sense of a factual covariance, might exist even though no one knows about it, and, therefore, there is no encoding relationship (see, e.g., Fodor and Pylyshyn 1981; Fodor 1987a).

  7. Causal, informational, and so on. For more extensive criticisms of, for example, Fodor (1987b, 1990a, b, 1998, 2003), Dretske (1988), Millikan (1984, 1993), and Cummins (1996), see Bickhard (Bickhard 1993, 2003, 2004, forthcoming, in preparation; Bickhard and Terveen 1995).

  8. Millikan’s model is not subject directly to this problem, but does encounter other problems. In different senses, both Dretske’s and Cummins’ models could be argued to escape this problem as well, but, again, they fall to other considerations (Bickhard 2003, 2004, forthcoming, in preparation). The argument above applies to models in which the content of the representation is determined by that which is to be represented—this category includes, for example, information semantic approaches.

  9. A much more developed discussion of these issues can be found in (Bickhard and Terveen 1995; Bickhard 2001).

  10. For a recent partial convergence with these notions, see De Jaegher and Di Paolo (forthcoming).

  11. A more detailed discussion can be found in Bickhard (in preparation).

  12. Gilbert (1989) develops detailed and strong arguments against Lewis’ invocation of rationality in a game theoretic framework as grounds for such precedent and habituation origins of conventions. See the Appendix for some notes on the relevance of these criticisms to the model outlined here.

  13. This raises interesting questions about how reference is accomplished, questions that I will not pursue here (see, e.g., Bickhard 1980, 1987, 2003, in preparation; Bickhard and Campbell 1992; Bickhard and Terveen 1995).

  14. There is an interesting convergence on this point with Alterman (this issue).

  15. This realm of issues is hinted at in Lewis (1969, pp. 97–100), especially when he refers to others’ “poor opinions” or “distrust” of me if I violate a convention. But his attempt to model such phenomena are limited to instrumental considerations of meeting or failing to meet others preferences, and meeting or failing to meet one’s own preferences. Issues of “distrust”, for example, are not just a matter of preferences, and certainly not of explicit preferences.

  16. It is no wonder, then, that the social ontology literature is replete with such hierarchies.

  17. However much information in the strictly factual sense of covariation might exist, it does not and can not in itself constitute representation (Bickhard 1993, 2004, forthcoming, in preparation).

  18. Note that not only is language conventional in this model, but the object of language as a form of interaction is itself convention.

  19. Elsewhere I argue that the differentiation of transformations of utterances into types of sub-utterances (and their lexical instances)—out of which, in turn, the possibility emerges of productively constructing new utterances, frames the likely evolution of language, and also, with different details, the acquisition of language (Bickhard 1980, 1987, in preparation; Bickhard and Campbell 1992; Bickhard and Terveen 1995; see also, for example, Tomasello 2003; Tomasello and Bates 2001).

  20. This requirement for non-repeated socially common understandings of a situation was one of the motivations for the original development of the situation convention model (Bickhard 1980).

References

  • Alterman R Activity and convention. Topoi. doi:10.1007/s11245-008-9039-y

  • Berger PL, Luckmann T (1966) The social construction of reality. Doubleday, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Bickhard MH (1980) Cognition, convention, and communication. Praeger Publishers, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Bickhard MH (1987) The social nature of the functional nature of language. In: Hickmann M (ed) Social and functional approaches to language and thought. Academic Press, New York, pp 39–65

    Google Scholar 

  • Bickhard MH (1993) Representational content in humans and machines. J Exp Theor Artif Intell 5:285–333

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bickhard MH (2000) Motivation and emotion: an interactive process model. In: Ellis RD, Newton N (eds) The caldron of consciousness. J. Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp 161–178

    Google Scholar 

  • Bickhard MH (2001) Why children don’t have to solve the frame problems: cognitive representations are not encodings. Dev Rev 21:224–262

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bickhard MH (2002) Critical principles: on the negative side of rationality. New Ideas Psychol 20:1–34

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bickhard MH (2003) Some notes on internal and external relations and representation. Conscious & Emot 4(1):101–110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bickhard MH (2004) Process and emergence: normative function and representation. Axiomathes—Int J Ontol Cogn Syst 14:135–169. Reprinted from Bickhard MH (2003) Process and emergence: normative function and representation. In: Seibt J (ed) Process theories: crossdisciplinary studies in dynamic categories. Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, pp 121–155

  • Bickhard MH The interactivist model. Synthese (forthcoming)

  • Bickhard MH The whole person: toward a naturalism of persons—contributions to an ontological psychology (in preparation)

  • Bickhard MH, Campbell RL (1989) Interactivism and genetic epistemology. Arch Psychol 57(221):99–121

    Google Scholar 

  • Bickhard MH, Campbell RL (1992) Some foundational questions concerning language studies: with a focus on categorial grammars and model theoretic possible worlds semantics. J Pragmat 17(5/6):401–433

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bickhard MH, Richie DM (1983) On the nature of representation: a case study of James Gibson’s theory of perception. Praeger Publishers, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Bickhard MH, Terveen L (1995) Foundational issues in artificial intelligence and cognitive science: impasse and solution. Elsevier Scientific, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • Christensen WD, Bickhard MH (2002) The process dynamics of normative function. Monist 85(1):3–28

    Google Scholar 

  • Cummins R (1996) Representations, targets, and attitudes. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • De Jaegher H, Di Paolo E Participatory sense-making: an enactive approach to social cognition. Phenomenol Cogn Sci (forthcoming)

  • Dewey J (1960/1929) The quest for certainty. Capricorn Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Dretske FI (1988) Explaining behavior. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Fodor JA (1987a) A situated grandmother? Mind Lang 2:64–81

    Google Scholar 

  • Fodor JA (1987b) Psychosemantics. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Fodor JA (1990a) Theory of mental content and other essays. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Fodor JA (1990b) Information and representation. In: Hanson PP (ed) Information, language, and cognition. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, pp 175–190

  • Fodor JA (1998) Concepts: where cognitive science went wrong. Oxford University Press, Oxford

  • Fodor JA (2003) Hume variations. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Fodor JA, Pylyshyn Z (1981) How direct is visual perception? Some reflections on Gibson’s ecological approach. Cognition 9:139–196

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert M (1989) On social facts. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis DK (1969) Convention. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis DK (1975) Languages and language. In: Gunderson K (ed) Language, mind, and knowledge. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp 3–35. Reprinted in Lewis DK (1983) Languages and language. In: Lewis D (ed) Philosophical papers, vol I. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 163–188

  • Millikan RG (1984) Language, thought, and other biological categories. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Millikan RG (1993) White queen psychology and other essays for Alice. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Piaget J (1954) The construction of reality in the child. Basic, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Schelling TC (1963) The strategy of conflict. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Schiffer SR (1972) Meaning. Oxford University Press, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmitt FF (2003) Socializing metaphysics. Rowman, Littlefield

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle JR (1983) Intentionality. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle JR (1997) The construction of social reality. Free Press, New York

  • Tiles JE (1990) Dewey. Routledge, London

  • Tomasello M (2003) Constructing a language. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M, Bates E (2001) Language development: the essential readings. Blackwell, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to two anonymous reviewers and to the editor for helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Lehigh University, 15 University Drive, Bethlehem, PA, 18015, USA

    Mark H. Bickhard

Authors
  1. Mark H. Bickhard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark H. Bickhard.

Appendix

Appendix

1.1 On the Applicability of Gilbert’s Criticisms of Lewis to the Interactive Model

Gilbert (1989) develops detailed and strong arguments against Lewis’ invocation of rationality in a game theoretic framework as grounds for the possibility of precedent and habituation origins of conventions, but her arguments turn on, among other things, an equating of rationality with strict deduction, a dismissal of psychological assumptions as premises in such deductions, and other austere notions.

I will not examine the issues involved in these arguments as against Lewis’ model, but simply point out that none of them address considerations of rational warrant that are not tied to strict deduction with maximum skepticism about premises. In general, invocation of a convention is necessarily presumptive, and there can be no guarantee that a presumptive gestural interaction will be understood or accepted. Establishing conventions is fallibilistic, and, even when apparently successful, there may be some failure of detail that may or may not be encountered in later interactions within the framework of that supposed convention. Maintenance of convention is an ongoing process, with invocation, maintenance, and repair always either involved or potential (Bickhard 1980, in preparation).

This is contrary to the kind of assumptions about rationality made by Gilbert’s criticisms. So, Lewis may (or may not) have made (or be committed to) the assumptions that Gilbert criticizes, but those criticisms should have little weight against a more natural conception of rational warrant for and defeasible presumptiveness of conventional interacting.

So, I take no stand on whether or not Gilbert’s criticisms are valid against Lewis per se. My central points concerning such criticisms are: (1) the general conceptual framework of solutions to coordination problems has often been taken as defeated by her and others’ arguments of these sorts against Lewis’ rendition of this conceptual framework, but I argue that a different development of that core notion can capture social ontology, including crucial normativities, and (2) this different development of that notion is not vulnerable to the formalist kinds of criticisms offered against Lewis.

These points are based, in part, on some other aspects of the general interactive model that are not (and cannot be) developed here—so I will just mention two of them: One important part of the reason why this model is not vulnerable to criticisms based on formalist conceptions of rationality is that, elsewhere, I offer an interactivism-based model of the nature of rationality that admits of piece-wise formalization, but that is not formal per se (Bickhard 2002, in preparation). In fact, the processes of formalization are, or can be, themselves rational, but are not themselves formal.

This model of rationality is based on the interactivist model of representation as an emergent kind of phenomena in agentive organisms. This commitment to normative emergence entails that I do not agree with standard dichotomizations of reasons versus causes, facts versus norms, and so on, nor correspondingly with notions of naturalism that presuppose such metaphysical splits (Bickhard 2004, in preparation).

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bickhard, M.H. Social Ontology as Convention. Topoi 27, 139–149 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-008-9036-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-008-9036-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation