Game Theory as Social Theory : Finding Spontaneous Order

Game theory holds out the promise of transforming the core of economic theory from ascience of rational choice into a science of human interaction. While traditional gametheory does open into social interaction, it mostly neglects another central feature ofeconomic intuition: spontaneous ordering of human activity. To provide space forspontaneous ordering, we advance the concept of synecological game theory. In thismanner, social theory is conveyed not by a single, illustrative game but by interactionamong a set of interrelated and continually evolving games. By doing this, we replacethe presumption of fully coincident perceptions with the recognition that actionsinvariably operate where perceptions are fundamentally non-coincident. In other words,societal operation entails assembly of more knowledge than can be contained withinany player's mind. In this paper, we sketch the central features of importing asynecological orientation into game theory and explore how doing so expands theanalytical agenda of game theory