Conventionalism

Conventionalism is the idea that some of the things we believe are true because we have all agreed they are true. For example, we believe that the color of the sky is blue because we have all agreed that is the case. If we had all agreed that the color of the sky was green, then we would believe that the sky is green. Conventionalism says that reality is shaped by human agreement, rather than being completely independent of us. It also recognizes that some things are true or false simply because of the way we've agreed to use language, rather than reflecting some objective fact about the world. An example of this might be the meaning of a word like "fair." What is considered fair can depend on context and cultural norms, and it is not necessarily an objective fact that can be determined by looking at the world around us. So, conventionalism suggests that some of what we take to be true is actually based on social agreement and the ways we communicate with each other.