Dal denaro alla moneta. Oggetti sociali e linguaggio

Abstract

There is a close link between money and language, but there are two acceptations of money. The first is a social object, the second is a concept. In the absence of this distinction, John Searle’s theory on social object is weak. It’s necessary to go back to Kant and Hegel to search for the key of this dissimilarity. Space and time can be the parameters that allow to distinguish the social object “money” from the concept “money”, and it’s essential to separate the historic origin from logic origin of money. The social object “money” owns two characteristics: a specific sign and the social intentionality. Furthermore, concepts such as money, currency, debt, financial products, and derivatives seem to belong to the same field, whereas on the contrary the economic crises that succeed one another are prompting us to reflect on the kind of anthropology and cultural horizon within which such concepts have emerged and solidified. Whereas economy is a set of social relations that unfolds in the three fields of production, circulation, and distribution of goods, the definition of finance and the nature and typology of financial products are less clear.