Abstract
Abstract The suggestions outlined here include the following. Money is a bundle of institutionally sustained causal powers. Money is an institutional universal instantiated in generic currencies and particular money tokens. John Searle’s account of institutional facts is not helpful for understanding the nature of money as an institution (while it may help to illuminate aspects of the nature of currencies and money particulars). The money universal is not a social convention in David Lewis’s sense (while currencies and money particulars are characterized by high degrees of conventionality). The existence of the money universal is dependent on a larger institutional structure and cannot be understood in terms of collective belief or acceptance or agreement separately focusing on money. These claims have important implications for realism about money.
Highlights
What is money? What does money consist of? Does money have an essence? What larger worldviews are revealed by different conceptions of money? How does money originate, and how does it persist? Is money an institution or a convention? What is the precise relationship between the material and the social in money? How do particular items of money relate to money as an institution? Why are certain things that are mistaken for money, not money? How does money exist? Is money real, and if so, in what sense? Does money exist just in virtue of people believing that it does, or is more involved? These are questions about the ontology of money.Naturally, asking and answering these questions is a multi-disciplinary challenge
The money universal is not a social convention in David Lewis’s sense
The existence of the money universal is dependent on a larger institutional structure and cannot be understood in terms of collective belief or acceptance or agreement separately focusing on money
Summary
What is money? What does money consist of? Does money have an essence? What larger worldviews are revealed by different conceptions of money? How does money originate, and how does it persist? Is money an institution or a convention? What is the precise relationship between the material and the social in money? How do particular items of money relate to money as an institution? Why are certain things that are mistaken for money, not money? How does money exist? Is money real, and if so, in what sense? Does money exist just in virtue of people believing that it does, or is more involved? These are questions about the ontology of money. The reflections to follow in the present essay seek to go further by inserting additional philosophical detail to the endeavour of disclosing money’s secrets These selective notes seek to provide some novel illumination on some of the questions above without, aspiring to offer anything close to a full systematic account of the ontology of money. Another body of literature that has discussed money as a paradigmatic component of institutional reality is social ontology done by philosophers. The existence of the money universal is dependent on a larger institutional structure and cannot be understood in terms of collective belief or acceptance or agreement separately focusing on money
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