The Social Ontology of Money

Abstract

Abstract Is money an object? Although paper money is naturally regarded as a material or concrete object, this characterization does not hold for electronic money. John Searle maintains that institutional statuses, such as those of money and property, are imposed on concrete objects. But he regards electronic money as an exception. He claims that, as it is realized by computer systems, the status of money is not imposed on anything. But this somewhat mysterious claim leaves us in the dark about its ontological standing. This chapter critically discusses four alternatives to the view that money is always a concrete object. It might be an abstract object. But it could also be a property of an agent. Two further possibilities are (1) it is a concrete object in some cases and an abstract object in other cases, or (2) it is a concrete object in some cases and a property of an agent in other cases. To shed light on the plausibility of these views, the nature and functions of institutions more generally are discussed.