Call for Abstracts: “Rule-constituted entities : From Games and Institutions to Artworks and Artifacts.” 
10-12 November 2025, University of Genoa 

This conference is organized in collaboration with the Institute of Philosophy at

the University of Neuchâtel

In recent years, the notion of rules has garnered significant attention across several domains, including the ontology of art, social ontology, and the ontology of artifacts. Within social ontology, a foundational distinction has been drawn between constitutive rules—which define or create the possibility of certain social phenomena—and regulative rules, which govern behaviors within already established frameworks. This distinction has been instrumental in theorizing institutions, money, and other complex social constructs.

Rules have also played a central role in the study of games, from coordination games to video games, where they shape both the structure and experience of gameplay. More recently, discussions of rules have extended into the fields of aesthetics and the ontology of artifacts, particularly in relation to contemporary art. In such contexts, artists often sanction rules that constitute the artwork and guide how audiences are meant to engage with and interpret it. These rules, whether implicit or explicitly sanctioned by the artist, inform our aesthetic appreciation and are often integral to the identity of the work itself.

This conference seeks to explore entities that are described as rule-constituted across various domains: in the social realm (e.g., institutions: money, marriage, museums), in the artistic realm (e.g., conceptual and contemporary artworks), and in the technological realm (e.g., video games). Special attention will be given to the ways in which rules contribute to the constitution of artworks and influence our aesthetic engagement with them.

Research questions for papers may include but are not limited to: 

·      What does it mean for an entity to be constituted by rules, and how does this differ across social institutions, artworks, and technological artifacts?

·      What impact does rule change have on the identity of the entity it constitutes?

·      What are games and how are they constituted by rules?

·      How do artworks ontologically compare to games?

·      How do artworks ontologically compare to institutions?

·      Are there important philosophical differences between rules that constitute social institutions and those that constitute artifacts and artworks?

·      What roles do rules play in social reality?

·      How do rules exercise their power in the domain of art?

·      Can museum policies be considered rules and how do they compare to rules sanctioned by artists?

·      How do rules guide our appreciation of conceptual artworks?

·      How do rules govern our appreciation and experience of games?

Invited speakers: 

-       Catharine Abell (University of Oxford)

-       Alexandre Declos (University of Neuchâtel)

-       Maryam Ebrahimi Dinani (University of Neuchâtel)

-       Francesco Guala (University of Milan)

-       Sherri Irvin (University of Oklahoma)

-       Olivier Massin (University of Neuchâtel)

-       Indrek Reiland (University of Vienna)

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS 

Please submit proposals by writing to: pea@unige.it 

Submissions should be done as PDF files prepared for blind review. 

Please submit abstracts between 500 and 1000 words (references excluded) together with a title and 3 keywords. 

The deadline for receipt is 24 August 2025. 

Speakers will be notified of decisions by 7 September 2025.  

There will be no conference fees. It will be possible to apply for bursaries. 

 The PEA Research Team has another conference planned for 25-27 November on mental artifacts and artifactual events. For those who may be interested, here is the call for abstracts : https://pea.unige.it/node/281.