Intentional Apple-choice Behaviors: When Amartya Sen Meets John Searle

This paper suggests that Amartya Sen's conception of rationality could benefit from insights borrowed to John Searle's philosophy of mind. More precisely, I argue that the work of Searle on intentionality provides a relevant conceptual apparatus to strengthen Sen's conceptualization of context-dependent preferences in a way that suggests further analytical contributions to the latter’s line of research. The arguments developed in the paper are relevant for three interrelated issues on economic rationality that are currently discussed in economic methodology: (1) methodological dualism and intentionalitic explanations in economics, (2) the relationships between economics and philosophy, and (3) the recent rise of behavioral economics within the mainstream of economic theory.