Research Catalog

Title

Evolution of the social contract / Brian Skyrms, University of California, Irvine.

Author

Skyrms, Brian

Publication

Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xvi, 148 pages; 23 cm

Summary

"In this new edition of Evolution of the Social Contract, Brian Skyrms uses evolutionary game theory to analyze the genesis of social contracts and investigates social phenomena including justice, communication, altruism, and bargaining. Featuring new material on evolution and information transfer, and including recent developments in game theory and evolution literature, his book introduces and applies appropriate concepts of equilibrium and evolutionary dynamics, showing how key issues can be modelled as games and considering the ways in which evolution sometimes supports, and sometimes does not support, rational choice. He discusses topics including how bargaining with neighbours promotes sharing of resources, the diversity of behavior in ultimatum bargaining in small societies, the Prisoner's Dilemma, and an investigation into signalling games and the spontaneous emergence of meaningful communication. His book will be of great interest to readers in philosophy of science, social science, evolutionary biology, game and decision theory, and political theory"--

Subject

• Social contract
• Game theory
• SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Machine generated contents note: Preface to the second edition; Preface to the original edition; Acknowledgments; 1. Sex and justice; 2. Fairness and commitment; 3. Mutual aid; 4. Correlated convention; 5. The evolution of meaning; Postscript; Notes; References; Index.

ISBN

• 9781107077287 (hardback)
• 1107077281 (hardback)
• 9781107434288 (paperback)
• 1107434289 (paperback)

LCCN

^^2014025188

OCLC

888164995

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library