The Philosophy of 'As if'


The Philosophy of 'As if': A System of the Theoretical, Practical and Religious Fictions of Mankind is a 1911 book by the German philosopher Hans Vaihinger, based on his dissertation of 1877. The work for which Vaihinger is best known, it was published in an English translation by C. K. Ogden in 1924. In 1935, a revised and abbreviated English translation by Ogden was published. The revised translation was based on the sixth German edition of the original work.

Summary

Vaihinger begins with an autobiography, discussing the origins of his philosophical ideas. He writes that he chose the title The Philosophy of 'As If because "it seemed to me to express more convincingly than any other possible title" his view that, "appearance, the consciously-false, plays an enormous part in science, in world-philosophies and in life."

Reception

The Philosophy of 'As if' influenced both Sigmund Freud since his 1913 letter to Sándor Ferenczi, and Alfred Adler in his 1912 book Über den nervösen Charakter. Grundzüge einer vergleichenden Individualpsychologie und Psychotherapie. Though it contained the first use of the term "logical positivism", the logical positivists were generally dismissive of the work. The philosopher Moritz Schlick wrote that Vaihinger's description of his philosophy as a form of "idealist positivism" was one of its many contradictions.
The American journalist H. L. Mencken was scathing in his criticism of the book, which he dismissed as an unimportant "foot-note to all existing systems". Michael J. Inwood writes that Vaihinger's theory "involves familiar, though not necessarily insurmountable, difficulties". He finds it open to criticism on the grounds that it involves a covert appeal to a non-pragmatic concept of truth. He also notes that the theory implies that claims about the utility of holding doctrines and even the theory itself are no more than useful fictions.