VAIHINGER, HANS. - Philosopher, b. at Nehren (Württemberg) on 25 Sept. 1852, d. at Halle on 12 Dec. 1933. He taught philosophy at the University of Strasbourg (from 1884), then at the University of Halle (from 1894); in 1906, owing to an eye disease, he withdrew from teaching.
His doctrine, which presents evident analogies with pragmatism, is defined by V. himself as a positivistic idealism or an idealistic irrationalism. At its basis is a radical sensualism, but various influences can be traced in it; first of all the influence of Kantian philosophy, to which V. devoted one of his most important works (Commentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1881-1892; 2nd ed. 1922), and of the neo-criticism of F. A. Lange, V.'s teacher (Hartmann, Dühring und Lange, 1876). On the other hand, the emphasis on decidedly irrationalistic elements in V.'s doctrine can be traced in part to Schopenhauer, Nietzsche (Nietzsche als Philosoph, 1902; 5th ed. 1930) and Bergson. With R. Schmidt he founded the journal Annalen der Philosophie (Leipzig 1919), which, later taken over by the "Vienna Circle", assumed the title Erkenntnis in 1930.
V. denies that science can and should answer the purpose of objectively knowing the true; it has only a function of utility, it is an instrument that facilitates man's adaptation to his environment. From the purely theoretical and logical point of view, science presents a series of internal contradictions, which nevertheless do not invalidate its functionality. All human knowledge is made up of "fictions", which cannot be considered as hypotheses, capable of verification in reality. The fundamental categories (thing, property, causality, etc.) answer the need to order the mass of perceptions, but they do not have the power to represent reality; they allow only of considering experience "as if" it were composed of things, endowed with properties, connected by causal relations, etc. Other general concepts, such as unity, multiplicity, existence, have instead a purely sensible origin, they are simple judgments of perception. In his principal work (Die Philosophie des "als ob". System der theoretischen, praktischen und religiösen Fiktionen der Menschheit auf Grund eines idealistischen Positivismus, Berlin 1911; 7th and 8th ed. 1922) V. sets out to bring into relief, in the various sciences, the concepts which, although having a high pragmatic value, present a logical contradiction; thus in mathematics the concepts of the extended atom, of the infinitely small, negative, rational, imaginary numbers. Economics is based on the function of "Homo oeconomicus", that is, a subject of solely material interests. Similarly metaphysics and religion reveal a purely vital value. The task of philosophy is for V. that of making possible the clear recognition of fictions as such and of their practical value; philosophy itself must answer the needs of adaptation and preservation of human nature, without claiming any theoretical validity.
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M. Elena Reina