Francesco Guala (2016), Princeton University Press (hardcover ISBN 9780691171784, 12 July 2016, 256 pp.) — DOI-10.1515/9781400880911
Standing in the record
Filed on 2026-10-02 at the owner’s request, as part of filling out the
record’s coverage of social-ontology (ADR-017), which names Guala among
the authors the record lacked.
Deferred because the full text is not lawfully readable online, so it
is not read and no NOTE is filed. The publisher’s free sample (contents,
chapter 1, index) was read, and is reported below as that.
What the publisher says. The book “proposes a new unified theory of social institutions that combines the best insights of philosophers and social scientists”. It combines “three influential views of institutions: as equilibria of strategic games, as regulative rules, and as constitutive rules”, and explains money, private property and marriage with it. It takes up reflexivity, realism, Verstehen and fallibilism. It “critically analyses the theory of ‘looping effects’ and ‘interactive kinds’ defended by Ian Hacking”. It asks whether causal and ontological dependence can draw a line between social and natural science. It ends with current debates about the definition of marriage.
Contents (from the sample):
- Preface (vii); Analytical Table of Contents (xiii); Introduction (xvii)
- Part I, Unification: 1 Rules (3); 2 Games (20); 3 Money (33); 4 Correlation (44); 5 Constitution (57); 6 Normativity (70)
- Interlude: 7 Mindreading (89); 8 Collectivity (102)
- Part II, Application: 9 Reflexivity (119); 10 Interaction (132); 11 Dependence (146); 12 Realism (163); 13 Meaning (177); 14 Reform (194)
- Bibliography (207); Index (219)
What chapter 1 says (read). It opens with North’s definition (LIT-489, from North’s 1990 book) and argues, as Hindriks & Guala’s §2 does with the same examples (the French trousers law, the 65 and 75 mph limits, marriage), that rules alone cannot say why some rules are followed. An effective rule is an equilibrium. It then introduces coordination, Schelling’s focal points and Lewis’s account of precedence as a source of salience (LIT-473), and quotes Lewis on conventions as “a species of norms” (Lewis 1969: 98). It closes by saying that institutions should be represented as equilibrium states, using game theory in the next chapter.
What the index shows. Chapter 5 likely carries Hindriks & Guala’s transformation of constitutive rules: the index lists base rules and status rules (p. 64), “institutional term” (pp. 64–67, 73) and Hindriks (pp. 58, 62–69). Searle is indexed on 33–34, 57–66, 68, 71, 73, 76, 82, 104–5, 108–9, 154–55, 159, 165–67 and 171. Hacking, looping effects, interactive kinds and homeostatic property clusters are indexed mostly to pages in chapters 9–11. Epstein is not in the index. These are inferences from the index, not readings.
Topic. social-ontology first: the book’s subject is what
institutions are. social-science holds its game theory and its
treatment of social kinds in science. philosophy-of-science holds
Part II (reflexivity, realism, Verstehen, demarcation).
philosophy-of-language holds chapter 13, Meaning, on the extension
of “marriage”. society-and-governance holds chapter 14 on marriage law
and reform.
Neighbours. It is the book-length form of Hindriks & Guala (LIT-481, read). The SEP entry (LIT-487) places it among convention theories (§4.2.2) and in new institutional economics (§5.3). Its Part II on Hacking’s looping kinds bears on the pattern theories of social kinds that the SEP entry surveys (§4.3).
No instruction for machine-learning practice appears in what was seen, so nothing here points to the Anthology of the SOTA.
What a reading should check. Whether chapter 5 extends the transformation view beyond the one toy institution of the 2014 paper. How chapter 6 treats normativity, which the paper left out. Whether chapter 8, Collectivity, takes a side on collective intentionality, where the paper stayed neutral. Whether chapter 11’s dependence criteria say anything about groups as bearers of mental states.