The Philosophy of 'As if'

The Philosophy of 'As if': A System of the Theoretical, Practical and Religious Fictions of Mankind (German: Die Philosophie des Als Ob) is a 1911 book by the German philosopher Hans Vaihinger, based on his dissertation of 1877.[1] The work for which Vaihinger is best known, it was published in an English translation by C. K. Ogden in 1924.[2] 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.[3]

The Philosophy of 'As if': A System of the Theoretical, Practical and Religious Fictions of Mankind
Title page of the German edition
AuthorHans Vaihinger
Original titleDie Philosophie des Als Ob
CountryGermany
LanguageGerman
SubjectsEpistemology
Immanuel Kant
Published
  • 1911 (Reuther & Reichard, in German)
  • 1924 (Harcourt Brace, in English)
Media typePrint (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages368 (1968 Routledge edition)
ISBN978-1508663751

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."[4]

Reception
See also: Metapsychology § Freud and the als ob problem

The Philosophy of 'As if' influenced both Sigmund Freud since his 1913 letter to Sándor Ferenczi,[5] and Alfred Adler in his 1912 book Über den nervösen Charakter. Grundzüge einer vergleichenden Individualpsychologie und Psychotherapie (English translation: The Neurotic Constitution. Outlines of a Comparative Individualistic Psychology and Psychotherapy).[6][7] Though it contained the first use of the term "logical positivism", the logical positivists were generally dismissive of the work.[1] The philosopher Moritz Schlick wrote that Vaihinger's description of his philosophy as a form of "idealist positivism" was one of its many contradictions.[8]

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".[9] 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.[10]

See also

References
  1. Fine, A. (1993). Fictionalism. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 18 (1):1-18.
  2. Kuehn, Manfred (1999). Audi, Robert (ed.). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 947. ISBN 0-521-63722-8.
  3. Ogden, C. K.; Vaihinger, Hans (1968). The Philosophy of 'As if'. London: Routledge. p. v.
  4. Vaihinger, Hans (1968). The Philosophy of 'As If'. Fakenham: Cox & Wyman, Ltd. pp. xxiii-xlviii.
  5. Freud, Sigmund; Ferenczi, Sándor; Brabant, Eva (1993). Brabant, Eva; Falzeder, Ernst; Giampieri-Deutsch, Patrizia (eds.). The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi. Volume 1, 1908-1914. Harvard University Press. p. 498. ISBN 978-0-674-17418-4.CS1 maint: uses editors parameter (link)
  6. Adler, Alfred (2013) [1912]. The Neurotic Constitution. Outlines of a Comparative Individualistic Psychology and Psychotherapy. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-33037-7. passim.
  7. Szasz, Thomas S. (1977). The Myth of Mental Illness. Frogmore: Paladin Books. p. 225.
  8. Schlick, Moritz (1981). Hanfling, Oswald (ed.). Essential Readings in Logical Positivism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 87. ISBN 0-63112566-3.
  9. Mencken, H. L. (1924) Philosophers as Liars. The American Mercury, October, Vol III, No.10, pp. 253-255. Quote (p. 255).
  10. Inwood, M. J. (2005). Honderich, Ted (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 941. ISBN 0-19926479-1.


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