An Ontology of Economic Objects: An Application of Carl Menger's Ideas.

Economic reality is constituted by economic objects such as goods, commodities, money, value, price, and exchange which together give rise to the complex entity known as the market. Each of these categories 15 governed by exact laws that provide the conditions for settling objectively whether individuals' views about an instance of any category indeed correspond to that category. This paper describes these laws as an ontological application of Carl Menger's 1871 contribution. This paper employs Carl Menger's framework from his 1871 contribution as the basis for advancing such conditions for each category of economic objects. The aim of this paper is to lay the groundwork for an ontological description of economic reality. This paper, then, can be conceived as a project in social ontology of the sort defended by John Scant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]