where what is real exists "in the world", and what is imaginary is "in the head" (note, both are part of reality). — hypericin

Right, but why not revise what we understand of the real, rather than create new categories because they do not fit tradition? We made up what we understand by the real. We can make it up differently in response to what we know of the world.

Or maybe I can put it differently: if these distinctions are to be more than nominal, is there something at stake is excluding money from the real?

See Searle's collective intentionality in The Construction of Social Reality.

The fact that a ten dollar note is money is not a property of the physical paper. In 5000 years whatever nation backs it will have long since collapsed, the piece of paper will only have the historical curiosity of once having been money. No matter how well preserved it is. — hypericin

It will be a historical curiosity, and interesting, not because it is a piece of paper but because it was money. What significance would it have then, or would it have had in the past, as a piece of paper? Imagine the museum exhibit: "Piece of paper."

Money is not a fiction. It is a natuarlly emerging, labor saving device used by actors in markets to exchange goods, labor, and value. Money will always emerge anywhere that markets exist. Money belongs in the category of existing in reality as a result of creation, predicated upon practical use among market participants.

In summation, reality is for us usefully split into four categories: The Imaginary Real, The Unknown Real, The Real Imaginary, and The Purely Imaginary. When discussing things in a philosophical way, asking "what is" this or that, a good start would be, "to which category does it belong?" — hypericin

The agreed upon value of a piece of paper we label as money is a cultural artifact. Taking a step back, are cultures real or imaginary? Most would say “real” though not in the sense of that which is physically real.

I’ll suggest the sometimes derided term of “intersubjectivity”, such that money is an intersubjective reality - else, is intersubjectively real - this just as much as cultures are. In contrast, the printed paper itself is a physical reality: an aspect of the physical reality at large upon which all subjectivities and intersubjectivities to a significant extent depend.

The “collective intentionality” which @Banno addresses would then be an aspect of intersubjectivity.

A caveat, however: When reality is taken to be the sum of all real givens, so classifying would require a stanch rethinking of reality categories. For one example, that which is imaginary and strictly applicable to one subject - such as one’s immediate experience of an REM dream - would then be an intra-subjective reality (as in, “that dream I told you about was real rather than a fictitious fabrication”). Even more cumbersome to classify become intersubjectively held fictions, like unicorns, which are not intersubjective realities in the same sense that moneys and cultures are - yet are still actual/real as culturally present fictions: unicorns then being a real, rather than an untrue, fictional notion within the cultures we partake of (in contrast to not being a real/actual fictional notion within cultures that never entertained the concept, such as that of some Inuit tribe), e.g. “unicorns (as fictional animals) are a real aspect of my culture”.

it seems as if our existence occurs fundamentally in the encounter between the two. Everything else becomes objectification of that universal reality. — Melanie

Even if this were so, the components of this synthesis seem worthy of discussion.

Plato — bongo fury

This seems to be your favorite rhetorical gun, too bad you can't seem to hit anything with it.

Right, but why not revise what we understand of the real, rather than create new categories because they do not fit tradition? — StreetlightX

is there something at stake is excluding money from the real? — StreetlightX

I am not excluding them from the real. I am refining the overbroad category of real: things that are ontologically real, vs. things that are ontologically imaginary but manifest as real. If categories are useful, it is because they pick apart relevant qualitative differences. If we lump these differences under the same term, these differences become obscured, and our thinking becomes muddled as a result, and you get money as simultaneously real and imaginary. In my opinion, there are few things that have muddled philosophy more than the real vs. imaginary divide.

It will be a historical curiosity, and interesting, not because it is a piece of paper but because it was money. What significance would it have then, or would it have had in the past, as a piece of paper? Imagine the museum exhibit: "Piece of paper." — Ciceronianus

The point is, it was money, but no longer is, despite being physically identical at both times. The money is not the paper.

Even more cumbersome to classify become intersubjectively held fictions, like unicorns, which are not intersubjective realities in the same sense that moneys and cultures are - yet are still actual/real as culturally present fictions: unicorns then being a real, rather than an untrue, fictional notion within the cultures we partake of — javra

I would still classify unicorns as imaginary. It is just that they are intersubjectively imaginary. But they are not forces in the world, in the same sense that money nations and religions are. The latter is what interests me: things which are imaginary in their nature, but take on a kind of reality as quasi objective entities.

I would follow Dennett’s view that money is a real pattern that has causal and explanatory power.

Also, just because something something is socially constructed doesn’t require it to be metaphysically unreal of certain views like Sally Haslanger and Elizabeth Barnes views.

Money once was the substitute for goods and services in barter practice. Instead of giving you a chicken in exchange for 10 dozen of eggs (you could have kept the chicken to wait for the eggs, though when eggs are needed urgently that might take too long). I give you a warranted piece of metal. This evolved into modern-day money, which probably is turned into 1's and 0's completely in the future, economy and gold backing up it's value.

The capitalist aim is to accumulate as much as possible of the stuff. Which introduces the strange situation that some have billions of coins and others just enough to get a piece of chicken for it.

When there was no money yet you actually had to deliver good or service, and this aspect has disappeared. You deliver a good or service and get money for it. Goods and services offered are owned by people or groups of people. They offer money to you and other people if you produce goods for them or offer services in their name. They ask people to pay for the goods you produce for them and the services you offer in their name. You can produce goods and offer services yourself and get money for it which you can use to swap for goods produced or services offered by others. So there is an indirect swap. I swap my chicken for a tenner and swap the tenner for ten dozen of eggs. Money is the intermediary. You don't have to take your chicken everywhere but take the money instead. You have to swap it for money first though. Instead of looking for eggs with your chicken in a basket, you sell your your chicken to whom wants a chicken and then go look for eggs. The egg seller then looks around for the pig she desires. Money stands for all goods and services and as such makes life easy. "I take them eggs! Here's a tenner. I have chickens only. But with this tenner you can get what you want!"

Then money transforms. It stands for all one desires. A closet full, a safe at the bank, and nowadays zeroes and ones at the bank. We want money. We produce goods and offer services to get it. The employers own the production lines, the employees keep production running. Money becomes an icon, an emblem, a symbol for goods to own and services to get.