Philosophische Grundprobleme Der Psychoanalytischen Psychologie: Eine Dialektische Studie: By Alexander Szalai. (Zürich, Octava Verlag, 1936. Pp. 63.)

The structure of this book is of a simple kind: Dr. Szalai makes a list of the important concepts that can be used in describing the phenomena of psycho-analysis; to most of these he devotes a chapter by way of

exposition and clarification, while indicating now and then the view he is concerned to unfold; and finally he gathers these into a system of categories connected by Hegelian dialectic.

So far as psycho-analysis goes, the author certainly deals with all the important concepts of a certain class, such as the Unconscious, the Symbol, etc., and in his exposition brings out the important elements of these, taking pains whenever possible to remove misconceptions. With another class of concepts, such as those denoting some of the main features of the Oedipus complex, he does not deal at all. This is somewhat surprising, since one would have thought that Sexuality and Aggression would find places in a chain of dialectic just as satisfactorily as would Substantiality and Imagery. Psycho-analysts would not find in the more expository passages any unfamiliar material, and most philosophers—who, it may be assumed, are scarcely familiar with the detailed structure of psycho-analysis—would find the exposition over-condensed. It is possible, too, that the small portion of the book devoted to the dialectic of the psycho-analytical categories is over-brief: in fact it would probably present insuperable difficulty to a reader that was not well versed in Hegel's dialectic. An expansion of these portions would not, however, have been justified, in view of the immense Hegel literature—it would indeed have been out of place to give a fresh exposition of Hegel, especially when the author had no modification of Hegel's dialectic to introduce. Having assembled his categories and described their dialectical relations, Dr. Szalai sets them out in diagrams that are undeniably illuminating; and so the book ends.

It would be well to give some brief illustrations of Dr. Szalai's d