The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social StructureBrian Skyrms' study of ideas of cooperation and collective action explores the implications of a prototypical story found in Rousseau's A Discourse on Inequality. It is therein that Rousseau contrasts the pay-off of hunting hare (where the risk of non-cooperation is small and the reward equally small) against the pay-off of hunting the stag (where maximum cooperation is required but the reward is much greater.) Thus, rational agents are pulled in one direction by considerations of risk and in another by considerations of mutual benefit. Written with Skyrms' characteristic clarity and verve, The Stage Hunt will be eagerly sought by readers who enjoyed his earlier work Evolution of the Social Contract. Brian Skyrms, distinguished Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science and Economics at the University of California at Irvine and director of its interdisciplinary program in history and philosophy of science, has published widely in the areas of inductive logic, decision theory, rational deliberation and causality. Seminal works include Evolution of the Social Contract (Cambridge, 1996), The Dynamics of Rational Deliberation (Harvard, 1990), Pragmatics and Empiricism (Yale, 1984), and Causal Necessity (Yale, 1980). |
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alarm calls aspiration level average payoff bacteria bargaining game BARGAINING WITH NEIGHBORS basin of attraction best-response dynamics chapter cheap talk consider conventions convergence correlation Defect defectors demand demand-5 divide-the-dollar division of labor Economic Behavior evolutionarily stable strategy evolutionary dynamics evolve experimental fair division game theory Games and Economic Handicap Principle hare hunters haystack Hobbes Hume hunt hare imitate-the-best imitation dynamics imitation neighborhood individual initial interac interaction structure kind learn to visit linear stag hunt meet mutant namics Nash equilibria Pemantle percent play players poisoners polymorphism population proportions prisoner's dilemma probability problem random encounters Receiver's Strategy reinforcement learning replicator dynamics secret handshake send signal Sender sender-receiver game Sender's Strategy signaling games signaling system simulations Skyrms slow imitation social contract specialists stag hunt game stag hunters stag hunting equilibrium strategy revision Suppose teraction three-in-a-boat three-person tion total payoff trail trials weakest-link stag hunt weights