Social conventions are those arbitrary rules and norms governing the countless behaviors all of us engage in every day without necessarily thinking about them, from shaking hands when greeting someone to driving on the right side of the road. In this book, Andrei Marmor offers a pathbreaking and comprehensive philosophical analysis of conventions and the roles they play in social life and practical reason, and in doing so challenges the dominant view of social conventions first laid out by David Lewis. Marmor begins by giving a general account of the nature of conventions, explaining the differences between coordinative and constitutive conventions and between deep and surface conventions. He then applies this analysis to explain how conventions work in language, morality, and law. Marmor clearly demonstrates that many important semantic and pragmatic aspects of language assumed by many theorists to be conventional are in fact not, and that the role of conventions in the moral domain is surprisingly complex, playing mostly an auxiliary and supportive role. Importantly, he casts new light on the conventional foundations of law, arguing that the distinction between deep and surface conventions can be used to answer the prevalent objections to legal conventionalism. Social Conventions is a much-needed reappraisal of the nature of the rules that regulate virtually every aspect of human conduct.

"The essays in Rules and Conventions are of extremely high quality. The concepts are central to aesthetics and the arts of interpretation, moral and political philosophy, philosophy of language, and social theory. Each contributor focuses intensely onthe concepts of rules and conventions and provides original analyses of the concepts in relation to a variety of topics. Cumulatively, they provide systematic perspectives on the cross-disciplinary importance of rules and conventions."--Douglas Kellner, University of Texas at Austin.

Provides a unified, coherent account of machine interaction at the level of the machine designers (the society of designers) and the level of the machine interaction itself (the resulting artificial society). Rules of Encounter applies the general approach and the mathematical tools of game theory in a formal analysis of rules (or protocols) governing the high-level behavior of interacting heterogeneous computer systems. It describes a theory of high-level protocol design that can be used to constrain manipulation and harness the potential of automated negotiation and coordination strategies to attain more effective interaction among machines that have been programmed by different entities to pursue different goals. While game theoretic ideas have been used to answer the question of how a computer should be programmed to act in a given specific interaction, here they are used in a new way, to address the question of how to design the rules of interaction themselves for automated agents. Rules of Encounter provides a unified, coherent account of machine interaction at the level of the machine designers (the society of designers) and the level of the machine interaction itself (the resulting artificial society). Taking into account such attributes of the artificial society as efficiency, and the self-interest of each member in the society of designers, it analyzes what kinds of rules should be instituted to govern interaction among these autonomous agents. The authors point out that adjusting the rules of public behavior--or the rules of the game--by which the programs must interact can influence the private strategies that designers set up in their machines, shaping design choices and run-time behavior, as well as social behavior. Artificial Intelligence series

The articles are based on selected presentations at International Conferences on Law, organized by the Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) held in Athens, Greece -- Introd.

The Rei(g)n of Rule is a study of rules and their role in language. Rules have dominated the philosophical arena as a fundamental philosophical concept. Little progress, however, has been made in reaching an accepted definition of rules. This fact is not coincidental. The concept of rule is expected to perform various, at times conflicting, tasks. Analyzing key debates and rule related discussions in the philosophy of language I show that typically rules are perceived and defined either as norms or as conventions. As norms, rules perform the evaluative task of distinguishing between correct and incorrect actions. As conventions, rules describe how certain actions are actually undertaken. As normative and conventional requirements do not necessarily coincide, the concept of rule cannot simultaneously accommodate both. The impossibility to consistently define ‘rule’ has gone unnoticed by philosophers, and it is in this sense that ‘rule’ has also blocked philosophical attempts to explain language in terms of rules.

Private Law in the International Arena analyzes a wide variety of effects that cross-border activities have on the operation of private law, ranging from corporate and insolvency law to labor law, property law, the law of obligations, family law, European law and lex mercatoria. Civil procedure aspects, in national courts and arbitration proceedings, are also explored. This book provides a unique source of insights into the problems encountered and their possible solutions. All contributions have been written in honor of an eminent Private International Law scholar, Prof. Dr Kurt Siehr.

International Arbitration Law Library # 61 The 1958 New York Convention is universally acclaimed as one of the most important instruments on international commercial arbitration. Although the Convention ensures that contracting States cannot justify failure to comply with their treaty obligations by reference to domestic law, the courts of different contracting States apply the Convention differently. This diverging case law arises from uncertainty as to whether certain concepts employed in the Convention must be construed autonomously or in light of domestic law. This incomparable analysis of the New York Convention as an instrument of uniform law presents insightful contributions by some of the world’s most distinguished academics and practitioners in the field of arbitration and is sure to significantly contribute to arbitral practice and jurisprudence in the Convention’s more than 160 contracting States. With extensive reference to case law from major arbitration hubs, the contributors examine the Convention with the aim of identifying the boundaries between autonomous and domestic concepts. Key elements covered include the following: the role of private international law under the Convention; notions of arbitrability and arbitral award; procedures for the enforcement of awards; nullity, invalidity, and conflict of laws under Articles II(3) and V(1)(a); the incapacity defence under Article V(1)(a); deviations from procedure; autonomous boundaries as to what falls under the issue of scope; and public policy under the Convention. The first and only resource of its kind, this book provides an invaluable clarification of the extent to which the Convention leaves room for the application of domestic law and, if so, how to determine which particular domestic law may be applicable. It will be welcomed by counsel, judges, arbitrators, and academics throughout the States that have signed the New York Convention.