Hans Vaihinger’s Hume: Real Fictions and Semi-Fictions in the Treatise

Abstract

Hans Vaihinger prefaces the English edition of his seminal text, The Philosophy of As If, by drawing attention to his philosophical predecessors. While Hobbes and Berkeley are afforded due credit in the development of philosophical fictionalism, Hume is conspicuously absent as a notable influence. I argue that Hume’s early theory of fiction, which he broadly abandoned after publishing the Treatise, prefigures Vaihinger’s central distinction between two types of fiction: real fictions and semi-fictions. In so doing, I situate Hume between Hobbes and Kant as a significant figure in the history of philosophical fictionalism, a movement that has now become a standard alternative to various forms of philosophical realism.