Event Detail

The notions of common belief and common knowledge are routinely invoked in explanations of coordinated action, both in the social sciences and in the philosophy of group-level agency. But it is usual to treat the difference between the two as explanatorily insignificant. The prevailing view is that whether common belief rises to the level of genuine common knowledge is very often not especially important to the overall power of the state to explain a group’s success in coordinating. Against this, I’ll argue that notions differ significantly in explanatory power. Common knowledge explains coordinated action with a depth that common belief cannot match. Indeed, I’ll provide reason to doubt that genuine coordination is even possible in the absence of common knowledge.