  Vaihinger’s emphasis on the deep connection between cognition and action have led many interpreters to liken his views to those of the American pragmatists (e.g., Appiah 2017, 4; Koridze 2014; Fine 1993, 4; and esp. Ceynowa 1993). Others have disputed this connection (Bouriau 2016). Vaihinger himself tells us that fictionalism and pragmatism share important similarities, but nevertheless are distinguished by the fact that pragmatism accepts, whereas fictionalism rejects, the principle that “an idea which is found to be useful in practice proves thereby that it is also true in theory” (PAO viii). So, if one defines a pragmatist narrowly as someone who endorses this Jamesian definition of truth, Vaihinger is no pragmatist; his core contention is that “we may not argue from the utility of a psychical and logical construct that it is right” (PAO 51). Nevertheless, given Vaihinger’s emphasis on the inseparability of practical and theoretical thought, his view that the use of a concept can be justified on purely practical grounds, and so forth, it does not seem unfair to liken him to the pragmatist tradition in a wider sense. 