Abstract

Celano’s notion of a “pre-convention” is grounded in the opposition between two allegedly different kinds of normative behaviour: observing a “rule” and conforming to a “norm”. This opposition plays a central role in Celano’s paper, and marks a crucial point in his intellectual trajectory. Nevertheless, it remains largely implicit. In this paper, I try to make it fully explicit, giving a more precise characterisation of both kinds of normative behaviour. I also focus on the importance of distinguishing between them, express some conjectures regarding Celano’s future research, and propose a criticism.