Hans Vaihinger

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Hans Vaihinger

Hans Vaihinger (born September 25, 1852 in Nehren near Tübingen, † December 18, 1933 in Halle (Saale) ) was a German philosopher and Kant researcher. In general , Vaihinger's philosophy is treated as “idealistic-pragmatic positivism” under its own rubric , separated from neo-Kantianism .

Live and act

Vaihinger was the son of the Protestant pastor Johann Georg Vaihinger (1802–1879) and his wife Sophie geb. Haug (also Hauck), a great-granddaughter of Balthasar Haug . After attending high school in Stuttgart, he first studied theology, but then switched to philosophy. The study locations were Tübingen, where he joined the Corps Borussia Tübingen , then Leipzig and Berlin. In 1874 he received his doctorate in Tübingen and became a repetiteur at the Tübingen monastery . In 1877 he was able to work with Ernst Laas Strasbourg with logical investigations. Part 1: Habilitation in the teaching of scientific fiction . The writing is now considered lost, but according to Vaihinger himself it should have entered his main work, the philosophy of Als Ob . Vaihinger was appointed associate professor in Strasbourg in 1883. In 1884 he followed a call to Halle, where he was appointed full professor in 1894.

Vaihinger had been married since 1889 to Elisabeth Alwine Schweigger (born 1865), the daughter of the Berlin court book dealer Ernst Schweigger, who came from a family of scholars. The son Richard was born in 1892, the daughter Erna in 1895.

Vaihinger suffered from an eye disease that led to total blindness; Because of her, he retired in 1906.

The focus of his work was Kant research. Vaihinger wrote a commentary on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1881/92). In addition, he put Kant research on secure organizational ground by founding the Kant Studies (since 1897) and the Kant Society , the latter in 1904, in the centenary of Kant's death. Together with his student Raymund Schmidt , he published the Annals of Philosophy from 1919 to 1930, and from 1922 to 1932 the building blocks for a philosophy of Als Ob .

Vaihinger was considered to be a pupil and follower of the work of the Kantian FA Lange , from whom he, however, distinguished himself by emphasizing that criticism should be understood more as a method than as a teaching structure. Vaihinger was also one of the first academic philosophers to grapple with Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy . From its inception until his death, he was a board member of the Nietzsche Archive Foundation . Vaihinger's grave was in the Gertraudenfriedhof in Halle / Saale (abandoned).

He received an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Dresden .

Philosophy of the as-if

Not only in his independent main work, the Philosophy of Als Ob , which he wrote from 1876 ​​to 1878 but was only published in 1911 , there are tendencies that seek life practice. Contrary to the prevailing opinion of both the idealistic and the realistic wings of Neo-Kantianism that truth should be understood as the correspondence between knowledge and reality, the goal of knowledge with Vaihinger is the mastery of the outside world through the subject. Correspondence between thoughts and beliefs and reality plays a subordinate role in the success of the action. Vaihinger's stance approaches positions of Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche , and Charles Darwin is also an important influence .

The starting point of his philosophy of as- if is how the right (successful action, problem solving) can be achieved with wrong assumptions. For Vaihinger, to recognize means to compare the unknown with the known; Vaihinger sees the end of knowledge in the fact that the unknown can no longer be reduced to the known.

Vaihinger explains that atoms, like God and soul, are useful fictions . They acquire meaning "as if" they were true, even if they consciously contradict the construction of thought. Useful fictions are legitimized by their practical purpose. On the detour of the as if one reaches "the given" until a shorter path is found through a new model of reality. However, this is an unfinished process. In this respect, there is a similarity or comparability to the American pragmatism that was emerging at the same time .

Impact history

Vaihinger's main work, which is over eight hundred pages long, was translated into twelve languages, including Japanese, and was published in German in 10 editions by 1928, including two shortened popular editions and a school edition for Prussian grammar schools initiated by Education Minister Adolf Grimme .

Fonts

"Philosophy of the as-if"

expenditure
Translations
  • English: The Philosophy of "As If". A System of the Theoretical, Practical and Religious Fictions of Mankind. From the German by CK Ogden . Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., London 1924; 2nd edition 1935 (reprinted among others in Routledge, London 2002, ISBN 0-415-22529-9 ).
  • Italian: La filosofia del "come se". Sistema delle finzioni scientifiche, etico-pratiche e religose del genere umano. From the German by Franco Voltaggio. Ubaldini, Rome 1967.
  • French: La philosophie du comme si (= Philosophia scientiae. Volume 8). From the German by Christophe Bouriau. Éditions Kimé, Paris 2008, ISBN 978-2-84174-462-6 .
  • Portuguese: A filosofia do como se. Sistema das ficções teóricas, práticas e religiosas da humanidade, na base de um positivismo idealista; com um anexo sobre Kant e Nietzsche (= Grandes temas. Volume 15). From the German by Johannes Kretschmer. Argos, Chapecó 2011, ISBN 978-85-7897-036-9 .
Vaihinger on his work and his person

Other works

  • The more recent theories of consciousness. Diss. Tübingen 1874 (not published in print).
  • Goethe as the ideal of universal education. Ceremonial address given at the first joint meeting of the "United Scientific Associations" at the University of Leipzig, 1875.
  • Hartmann , Dühring and Lange . On the history of German philosophy in the XIX. Century. A critical essay . J. Baedeker , Iserlohn 1876. ULB Münster
  • The three phases of Czolbe naturalism. In: Philosophical monthly books, Volume XII, 1876.
  • The concept of the absolute (with regard to H. Spencer). In: Quarterly journal for scientific philosophy 2. (1878), 188–221.
  • The law of development of ideas about the real, in: Vierteljahresschrift für scientific philosophy 2 (1878), 298–313, 415–448.
  • Commentary on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Published for the 100th anniversary of the same . Volume I : 1881 / Volume 2: 1892 (second edition, volume 1, 2 and supplementary volume, edited by Raymund. Schmidt, 1922; reprint of the second edition: 1970).
  • On Kant's refutation of idealism. In: Strasbourg Treatises on Philosophy. Eduard Zeller on his 70th birthday, 1884, 85–164.
  • Messages from the Kantian estate. In: Journal for Philosophy and Philosophical Criticism NF, Volume 96 (1888), 1–26.
  • * 1889 nature research and school. A rejection of Preyer's attacks on the grammar school from the standpoint of development theory. Lecture , 1889.
  • Queen Luise as an educator. A memorial address , 1894.
  • To introduce [the Kant studies]. In: Kant Studies, Volume 1 (1897), 1–8.
  • Seventy text-critical marginal glosses on analysis [Kant's]. In: Kant studies, Volume 4 (1900), 452–463.
  • Kant - a Metaphysician? In: Philosophical Treatises. Dedicated to Christoph Sigwart by a number of colleagues on his 70th birthday, 1900, 133–158.
  • Nietzsche als Philosopher , 1902 (Second edition 1902; Third edition 1905; Fourth edition 1916; Fifth edition 1930 = building blocks for a philosophy of Als Ob. NFH 1).
  • Annals of Philosophy. [together with Raymund Schmidt] Leipzig, Felix Meiner, 1919 ff; Vol. I-VIII.

literature

  • Klaus Ceynowa: Between Pragmatism and Fictionalism. Hans Vaihinger's “Philosophy of As If”. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1993, ISBN 3-88479-751-4 .
  • Matthias Neuber (Ed.): Fiction and Fictionalism. Contributions to Hans Vaihinger's "Philosophy of As If". Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2014 (Studies and Materials on Neo-Kantianism, Volume 33), ISBN 978-3-8260-5440-2 .
  • Werner Raupp :  Hans Vaihinger. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 12, Bautz, Herzberg 1997, ISBN 3-88309-068-9 , Sp. 1018-1026.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive ) (with detailed bibliography).
  • Richard Remmy: Is the reality of God called into question by Kant's as-if consideration? Dissertation . Erlangen 1920.
  • Otto Ritschl: The twofold truth in the philosophy of the as if. With a friendly initial letter to Privy Councilor Vaihinger. 1925.
  • Heinrich Scholz : The religious philosophy of the as if. A review of Kant and idealistic positivism. 1921.
  • Johannes Sperl: The cultural significance of the as-if problem. Building blocks for a philosophy of as if. Issue 2, Langensalza 1922.
  • August Seidel (Ed.): The Philosophy of As If and Life. Festschrift for Hans Vaihinger's 80th birthday. Reuther & Reichard, Berlin 1932.
  • August Seidel: How the philosophy of the as if came about. In: The German philosophy of the present in self-portrayals. Volume 2, Meiner, Leipzig 1921, pp. 175-203.
  • Andrea Wels: The fiction of understanding and the understanding of fiction. Dimensions and deficits of the theory of fictions in Hans Vaihinger's philosophy of the as if. Lang, Frankfurt et al. 1997, ISBN 3-631-32103-1 .
  • Stephanie Willrodt: Semi-fictions and full fictions in Vaihinger's philosophy of the as if. Hirzel, Leipzig 1934.
  • Yannik Behme: The correspondence of Hans Vaihinger to Bahr . In: Martin Anton Müller, Claus Pias, Gottfried Schnödl (eds.): Hermann Bahr - Austrian critic of European avant-garde. In: Yearbook for international German studies: Congress reports. Peter Lang, Bern et al. 2014, pp. 151–164.
  • Traugott Konstantin Austria: Friedrich Ueberwegs outline of the history of philosophy. 4th part. 12th edition, Mittler, Berlin 1923, pp. 411-415, 712. archive.org

See also

Web links

Wikisource: Hans Vaihinger  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich Ueberweg , Traugott Konstantin Oesterreich: Outline of the history of philosophy. 4th part. 12th edition, Mittler, Berlin 1923, pp. 411-415, 712 410  - Internet Archive
  2. ^ Dt Wirtschaftsverlag (Ed.): Reichs Handbuch der dt Gesellschaft. Volume 2, Berlin 1931, cf. Reprinted in Gerd Simon et al.: Chronologie Vaihinger, Hans. Status 2013 (online) , p. 337.
  3. ↑ Gerd Simon "White Jews" are still ostracized , (online)
  4. ↑ Cf. Traugott Oesterreich, Friedrich Ueberwegs Outline of the History of Philosophy , Part 4, 12th Edition, p. 411. Mittler & Sohn Berlin 1923.
  5. ↑ Honorary doctoral students of the TH / TU Dresden. Technical University of Dresden, accessed on January 28, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Vaihinger, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH September 25, 1852
PLACE OF BIRTH Nehren near Tübingen
DATE OF DEATH December 18, 1933
Place of death Halle (Saale)