Barry Smith & David Mark 
The Mystery of Capital and the Construction of Social Reality 

John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality and Hernando de Soto’s The Mystery of Capital shifted the focus of current thought on capital and economic development to the cultural and conceptual ideas that underpin market economies and that are taken for granted in developed nations. This collection of essays assembles 21 philosophers, economists, and political scientists to help readers understand these exciting new theories.

About the author

Editor Barry Smith is Julian Park Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Buffalo and editor of The Monist: An International Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry.Editor David Mark is Professor of Geography at SUNY Buffalo and Director of the Buffalo site of the the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis.Editor Isaac Ehrlich is Distinguished UB Professor, Melvin H. Baker Professor of American Enterprise, and Chair of the Economics Department at SUNY Buffalo.Contributor John Searle is Mills Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the University of California at Berkeley and one of the most influential philosophers alive today.Contributor Hernando de Soto is President of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Lima, Peru, and has served as advisor to more than 100 governments throughout the world on policies designed to encourage economic development through legal and institutional reform.