Binding: Paperback
Description: Hans Vaihinger (1852 1933) was an important and fascinating figure in German philosophy in the early twentieth century founding the well - known journal Kant - Studien. Yet he was overshadowed by the burgeoning movements of phenomenology and analytical philosophy as well as hostility towards his work because of his defense of Jewish scholars in a Germany controlled by Nazism. However it is widely acknowledged today that The Philosophy of As If is a philosophical masterwork. Vaihinger argues that in the face of an overwhelmingly complex world we produce a simpler set of ideas or idealizations that help us negotiate it. When cast as fictions such ideas provide an easier and more useful way to think about certain subjects from mathematics and physics to law and morality than would the truth in all its complexity. Even in science he wrote we must proceed "as if " a material world exists independently of perceiving subjects; in behaviour we must act "as if " ethical certainty were possible; in religion we must believe "as if" there were a God. He also explores the role of fictions in the history of philosophy going back to the ancient Greeks and the work of Leibniz Adam Smith and Bentham. The Philosophy of As If was a powerful influence on the emerging philosophical movement of pragmatism and was groundbreaking in its anticipation of the central role that model - building and simulation would come to play in the human sciences. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Michael A. Rosenthal which provides a fascinating and important background to Vaihinger's life and the legacy of The Philosophy of As If .
Title: The Philosophy Of As If'
Author(s): Vaihinger Hans
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Barcode: 9780367549947
Pages: 354 Pages
Publication Date: 5/31/2021
Series: Routledge Classics
Category: Philosophy Of Science