SOURCE: "Philosophers as Liars," in The American Mercury, Vol. 111, No. 10, October, 1924, pp. 253-55.

The following review offers a negative opinion of The Philosophy of "As If," finding Vaihinger to be a "dull" writer and his ideas "obvious."

This is a work that has had a great popular success in Germany, and is now gradually penetrating to foreign parts. It was first published in 1911 and is at present in its sixth edition; there is also a somewhat shorter Volksausgabe. Havelock Ellis, always alert for intellectual novelties, wrote an article about it four or five years ago, and there is already a small but active body of Vaihingeristas in England.

Like his master, Kant, and most other German philosophical writers (let us not forget the brilliant exceptions, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche!), Vaihinger is an extremely dull author, much given to long and complex phrases and to laborious repetitions. Nor has his...