The Philosophy of 'As If'

Widely acknowledged today as a philosophical masterwork, this Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Michael Rosenthal, which provides fascinating and important background to Vaihinger's life and the legacy of The Philosophy of 'As If'.

Hans Vaihinger (1852-1933) was born near Tübingen in Germany. He made important contributions to epistemology, the philosophy of science and mathematics, and to the historiography of philosophy. Vaihinger produced groundbreaking work on Kant's philosophy, as well as one of the first serious philosophical commentaries on Nietzsche. He is best known as the father of the philosophical theory of fictionalism, which he sets out in his most famous book, The Philosophy of 'As If', and his work also influenced the philosophical movement of pragmatism.