Neuroeconomics, Naturalism and Language

Neuroeconomics stays in the center of the ongoing naturalistic turn in economics. It portraysthe individual as a complex system of decision making mechanisms and modules. This resultsinto a conceptual tension with the standard economic notion of the unity of the actor that is asystemic property of economic coordination. I propose to supplement neuroeconomics with anaturalistic theory of social coordination. Recent neurobiological and psychological researchstrongly supports claims made by some heterodox economists that the identity of actorsemerges from social interaction, especially in the context of the use of language. Therefore, Iargue that the completion of the neuroeconomic paradigm requires a naturalistic theory oflanguage. I provide some sketches based on teleosemantics and memetics, and exemplify theargument by a naturalist account of money.