David Gore, University of Minnesota Duluth Attitudes toward the
pecuniary are peculiar. One reason we misunderstand money is
because it defines and answers to both our animal nature
(necessity) and our symbolic nature (property). In this paper I
trace the genealogy of Kenneth Burke’s attitudes toward money in
the “Epilogue: Prologue in Heaven” to show how Burke’s
logological approach toward money is original and in tension
with claims offered by competing, economic attitudes toward
money. Money sits forever at the nexus of our animal and
symbolic nature because it simultaneously holds the place of
value and signifies what we value. By stressing animal limits
and symbolic infinity, Burke invites us to ponder the extent of
human cooperation and the boundaries of human strivings. As
attitudes, these invitations reveal that Burke wanted to re-
appropriate the money symbol to the realm of logology and
religion – away from capitalism – to exhibit the potential
justice at the heart of human experience. That justice,