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FRANCIS GOLFFIN6
symbol "because that
to
which it refers is symbolized not only
through
it but
in
it."
Whatever its uses, this concept does not differ radically from
those employed by other critics, and one fails to see how
Mr.
Vivas's "constitutive symbol" helps us any more than, say, F.
R.
Leavis's notion of a "charged scene." For apart from any reluc–
tance to clutter further the already cluttered terminology of criti–
cism, all that the "constitutive symbol" does is direct us to a par–
ticular scene without substantially illuminating the work as a whole.
His book has the defects of its virtues. Often right, rarely
wrong, but just as rarely exciting or brilliant,
The Failure and the
Triumph of Art
is an example of American criticism in its current
phase of academic retrospection.
Edzia Weisberg
AN IMPOSSIBLE DOCTRINE
EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF ECONOMICS. By Ludwi9
von Mises. Tr. by George Reisman. D. Van Nostrand and Co. $5.50.
Epistemological Problems of Economics
is the English
version of von Mises' first and most famous statement on praxeology
(originally published in 1933) , whose implications he later devel–
oped, at great length and with considerable stridency, in
Human
Action
(1949). Since the author's line of reasoning has not ap–
precia:bly changed during the past three decades, and since many
of his arguments are put forward with greater force and clarity
in
the epistemological section of the larger work, my presentation of
his
economic philosophy will be based on both these texts. That
procedure derives its authority from Professor von Mises himself,
who in his new preface to
Epistemological Problems
writes: "They
(these essays) represent, as it were, the necessary preliminary study
for the thorough scrutiny of the problems involved such as I tried
to provide
in
my book,
Human Action."
Economics is for von Mises the exemplary mode of action of
men living in a free society.
It
is
only in the open market that their
powers
(and essential limitations) can find significant expression.
