ABSTRACT
Over the last few years the realism-antirealism debate has produced a few arguments (see Fine, 1986) and a somewhat larger number of epithets. The residual realist groups, while divided among themselves into competing factions, are still set against views generically labeled antirealist. These antirealist views are (sometimes) differentiated as being empiricist, constructivist, instrumentalist, verifi cationist, or one of the three ‘P’sphenomenalist, positivist, or pragmatist; and so on. When an especially derisive antirealist label is wanted, one can fall back on the term “fi ctionalist,” coupled with a dismissive reference to Vaihinger and his ridiculous philosophy of “As If.”2 But what is “fi ctionalism” or the philosophy of “As If,” and who was this Vaihinger?
