[Rezension zu Armand de Diffret: Gedanken über Nationalökonomie, Politik, Philosophie]

Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk: Review of Armand de Diffret (1888)

Böhm-Bawerk’s brief review assesses a posthumous collection of aphorisms on economics, politics, and philosophy, concentrating on its economic section. He presents Diffret as an intelligent amateur whose superficial knowledge and preconceived social outlook limit his judgments. His central distinction is between personal originality and a contribution to expert knowledge:

Von seinen aphoristischen Bemerkungen sind manche treffend, viele seicht und nichtssagend, einzelne geradezu kompromittierend; aber auch die treffenden enthalten, obwohl sie subjektiv originell gewesen sein mögen, für den Fachmann nichts neues.

English translation: Of his aphoristic remarks some are apt, many shallow and vacuous, a few positively compromising; but even the apt ones contain, however subjectively original they may have been, nothing new for the specialist.

The review then separates the author’s character from the scholarly value of publication. Diffret’s non-economic reflections reveal a refined and noble disposition; moreover, he had left these occasional notes unpublished. Böhm-Bawerk therefore absolves him of blame while insisting that editorial publication subjects private reflections to public standards:

Nachdem sie aber einmal an das anspruchsvolle Licht der Öffentlichkeit gezogen worden sind, muß der objektive Kritiker konstatieren, daß die nationalökonomische Wissenschaft durch ihre Nichtveröffentlichung nichts verloren hätte.

English translation: But now that they have once been drawn into the exacting light of publicity, the objective critic must state that the science of political economy would have lost nothing by their non-publication.

The review’s significance lies in this boundary: sympathy for an author and appreciation of isolated insights cannot establish a work’s scientific value.