How to be a fictionalist about corporate mentality

The aim of this paper is to present a plausible exposition of the broadly fictionalist intuitions that are often expressed in legal theory and economics regarding the attributions of mental states to corporations. The proposed "two-stage" version of fictionalism about corporate mentality is meant to combine insights from two approaches: abstract artifact theory and the make-believe view. Abstract artifact theory is used to explain facts about the existence of corporations and their creation, whereas the make-believe view explains the use of mentalistic vocabulary regarding corporations. The idea is that corporations, being abstract artifacts, are used in a psychological game of make-believe in order to gain some understanding of complex interactions in the social sphere. I will show how the proposed position differs from global mental fictionalism. Regarding the issue of corporate mentality, the proposed "two-stage" fictionalist view allows us to escape the trilemma between realism, reductionism and eliminativism. An important upshot of this view is that the choice between realism and fictionalism regarding corporate mentality hinges on the issue of the materiality of corporations: fictionalism, unlike realism, is based on the idea that corporations are not material entities.