CFP: Games and the Social World

We invite submissions on the topic of “Games and the Social World” for a special issue of the open-access, peer-reviewed, online journal, Metaphysics, co-edited by Kathrin Koslicki and Michael Raven

The guest-editors for this issue are Alexandre Declos and Maryam Ebrahimi Dinani (University of Neuchâtel).

Submission Deadline: May 30, 2026

Description: Games are paradigmatic social practices. They are shaped by rules, sustained by conventions, and embedded in institutional, technological, and cultural contexts. They involve rich forms of individual and collective agency, ranging from casual play to competitive sport, and from tabletop cooperation to complex virtual interactions.

This special issue will be dedicated to exploring the intersection of games and social ontology. We invite contributions that address the social and action-theoretic dimensions of games, including their rule-based nature, their ontological status as artifacts or institutions, and the kinds of agency they involve or make possible. Submissions from metaphysics, philosophy of action, social ontology, philosophy of games, philosophy of sport, and related areas are welcome.

Possible questions include (but are not limited to):

• What kind of social entities are games: institutions, artifacts, conventions, or something else entirely?
• How do rules contribute to the identity of games? Are there different types of rules?
• What distinguishes constitutive rules from conventions in the context of games?
• How do games emerge, persist, or change as social practices?
• In what sense are games ontologically dependent on human activities, artifacts, or collective intentions?
• Can we make sense of a contextualist ontology of games?
• How do players represent game elements symbolically (pieces, avatars, tokens)? What is the role of make-believe in gameplay?
• What is the relationship between play and institutional frameworks?
• Are there essential features of games? What is necessary for a practice to count as a game?
• How do games illuminate broader social ontological categories such as norms, roles, or symbolic statuses?

Papers should be submitted through the journal’s online platform. Prior to submitting your paper, please consult the journal’s submission guidelines: https://metaphysicsjournal.com/about/submissions/

For any query, please email: and