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The Coin as Blazon or Talisman: Paramonetary Functions of Money

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Giovanni Gorini

Extract

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Magic and religion are at the origin of the concept of money as a unit for measuring value. Actually, they determined the first forms money took: precious objects, engraved stones, amulets and talismans which conferred a special power, within a social group, on the one who possessed them. In time, this power came to include the power of acquisition in commercial terms, but its original ties with magic were never lost. Aristotle clearly saw the relationship between a certain concept of money (in Politica) and a new ethical concept as a corrective for the imbalances within a social community (in Ethica Nicomachea). If we look closely, we see that this ethical concept is not in opposition to the former but emphasizes the double aspect of the idea of money in antiquity, an idea which has survived, with some modifications, in Christianity and the modern era.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 26 , Issue 101-102 , March 1978 , pp. 70 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 Will, Ed., "Fonctions de la monnaie dans les cités grecques de l'époque classique," in Numismatique antique, problèmes et méthodes, Nancy-Louvain, 1975.

2 G. Gurvitch, La vocation actuelle de la sociologie, Paris, 1963, Vol. I.

3 M. Mauss, Sociologie et anthropologie, with introduction by Lévi-Strauss, Paris, 1966.

4 E. De Martino, Magia e civiltà, Milan, 1962.