Two Concepts of Attachment to Rules

In this paper, we discuss some implications of John Rawls’ paper ‘Two Concepts of Rules’ (1955) for social science. We argue that Rawls’ notion of ‘practice’ is not a straightforward contribution to sociological theory, but rather re-orients the idea of what understanding social actions might be. We explicate how Rawls’ distinction between ‘summary’ and ‘practice’ views of rules might play out in approaching mathematical practice and mathematical expressions. We argue that social constructivists like Bloor hold on to a ‘summary’ conception of rules while Wittgenstein adopts the more radical ‘practice’ conception.