Alexius Meinong
Encyclopedia
Alexius Meinong was an Austria
n philosopher, a realist
known for his unique ontology
. He also made contributions to philosophy of mind and theory of value.
and later the University of Vienna
, where he read history
and philosophy as a pupil of Franz Brentano
. He was professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Graz
, where he founded the Graz psychological institute (in 1894) and the Graz School
of experimental psychology. Meinong supervised the promotion of Christian von Ehrenfels
(founder of Gestalt psychology
), as well as the habilitation of Alois Höfler and Anton Oelzelt-Newin.
, the first dealing with his theory of abstraction, the second with his theory of relations, and was relatively strongly influenced by British empiricism. He is most noted, however, for his Theory of Objects (Über Gegenstandstheorie, 1904), which grew out of his work on intentionality and his belief in the possibility of intending
nonexistent objects. The theory is based around the purported empirical observation that it is possible to think about something, such as a golden mountain, even though that object does not exist. Since we can refer to such things, they must have some sort of being. Meinong thus distinguishes the "being" of a thing, in virtue of which it may be an object of thought, from a thing's "existence", which is the substantive ontological status ascribed, for example, to horses but denied to unicorns. Meinong called such nonexistent objects "homeless"; others have nicknamed their place of residence "Meinong's jungle
" because of their great number and exotic nature.
Historically, Meinong has been treated as an eccentric whose theory of objects was dealt a death blow in Bertrand Russell
's famous essay "On Denoting", especially by Gilbert Ryle
. However, Russell himself thought highly of the vast majority of Meinong's work and, until formulating his theory of descriptions
, held similar views about non-existent objects. Further, recent Meinongians such as Terence Parsons
and Roderick Chisholm
have established the consistency of a Meinongian theory of objects, while others (e.g., Karel Lambert
) have defended the usefulness of such a theory.
Meinong is also seen to be controversial in the field of philosophy of language
for holding the view that "existence
" is merely a property of an object, just as color or mass might be a property. Closer readers of his work, however, accept that Meinong held the view that objects are "indifferent to being" and that they stand "beyond being and non-being". On this view Meinong is expressly denying that existence is a property of an object. For Meinong, what an object is, its real essence, depends on the properties of the object. These properties are genuinely possessed whether the object exists or not, and so existence cannot be a mere property of an object.
Certain objects can exist (mountains, birds, etc.); others cannot in principle ever exist, such as the objects of mathematics (numbers, theorems, etc.): such objects simply subsist. Finally, a third class of objects cannot even subsist, such as impossible objects (e.g. square circle, wooden iron, etc.). Being-given is not a minimal mode of being, because it is not a mode of being at all. Rather, to be "given" is just to be an object. Being-given, termed "absistence" by J.N. Findlay, is better thought of as a mode of non-being than as a mode of being. Absistence, unlike existence and subsistence, does not have a negation; everything absists. (Note that all objects absist, while some subset of these subsist, of which a yet-smaller subset exist.) The result that everything absists allows Meinong to deal with our ability to affirm the non-being (Nichtsein) of an object. It absistence is evidenced by our act of intending it, which is logically prior to our denying that it has being.
To these four classes of objects correspond four classes of psychological acts:
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n philosopher, a realist
Philosophical realism
Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality, or some aspect of it, is ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc....
known for his unique ontology
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
. He also made contributions to philosophy of mind and theory of value.
Life
He studied at the Akademisches Gymnasium, ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and later the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
, where he read history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and philosophy as a pupil of Franz Brentano
Franz Brentano
Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano was an influential German philosopher and psychologist whose influence was felt by other such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, Edmund Husserl, Kazimierz Twardowski and Alexius Meinong, who followed and adapted his views.-Life:Brentano was born at Marienberg am...
. He was professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Graz
University of Graz
The University of Graz , a university located in Graz, Austria, is the second-largest and second-oldest university in Austria....
, where he founded the Graz psychological institute (in 1894) and the Graz School
Graz School
The Graz School of experimental psychology and object theory was headed by Alexius Meinong, who was professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Graz where he founded the Graz psychological institute ....
of experimental psychology. Meinong supervised the promotion of Christian von Ehrenfels
Christian von Ehrenfels
Christian von Ehrenfels was an Austrian philosopher, and is known as one of the founders and precursors of Gestalt psychology.- Life :...
(founder of Gestalt psychology
Gestalt psychology
Gestalt psychology or gestaltism is a theory of mind and brain of the Berlin School; the operational principle of gestalt psychology is that the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies...
), as well as the habilitation of Alois Höfler and Anton Oelzelt-Newin.
Ontology
Meinong wrote two early essays on David HumeDavid Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
, the first dealing with his theory of abstraction, the second with his theory of relations, and was relatively strongly influenced by British empiricism. He is most noted, however, for his Theory of Objects (Über Gegenstandstheorie, 1904), which grew out of his work on intentionality and his belief in the possibility of intending
Intentionality
The term intentionality was introduced by Jeremy Bentham as a principle of utility in his doctrine of consciousness for the purpose of distinguishing acts that are intentional and acts that are not...
nonexistent objects. The theory is based around the purported empirical observation that it is possible to think about something, such as a golden mountain, even though that object does not exist. Since we can refer to such things, they must have some sort of being. Meinong thus distinguishes the "being" of a thing, in virtue of which it may be an object of thought, from a thing's "existence", which is the substantive ontological status ascribed, for example, to horses but denied to unicorns. Meinong called such nonexistent objects "homeless"; others have nicknamed their place of residence "Meinong's jungle
Meinong's jungle
Meinong's jungle is the name given to the repository of non-existent entities in the ontology of Alexius Meinong.Meinong, an Austrian philosopher active at the turn of the 20th century, believed that since non-existent things could apparently be referred to, they must have some sort of being, which...
" because of their great number and exotic nature.
Historically, Meinong has been treated as an eccentric whose theory of objects was dealt a death blow in Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
's famous essay "On Denoting", especially by Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle , was a British philosopher, a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers that shared Wittgenstein's approach to philosophical problems, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "the ghost in the...
. However, Russell himself thought highly of the vast majority of Meinong's work and, until formulating his theory of descriptions
Theory of descriptions
The theory of descriptions is the philosopher Bertrand Russell's most significant contribution to the philosophy of language. It is also known as Russell's Theory of Descriptions...
, held similar views about non-existent objects. Further, recent Meinongians such as Terence Parsons
Terence Parsons
Terence Parsons is an American contemporary philosopher of the analytic tradition. Parsons is also a Professor at UCLA in its Department of Philosophy....
and Roderick Chisholm
Roderick Chisholm
Roderick M. Chisholm was an American philosopher known for his work on epistemology, metaphysics, free will, and the philosophy of perception. He received his Ph.D. at Harvard University under Clarence Irving Lewis and Donald C. Williams, and taught at Brown University...
have established the consistency of a Meinongian theory of objects, while others (e.g., Karel Lambert
Karel Lambert
Karel Lambert is a philosopher and logician at the University of California, Irvine and the University of Salzburg. He has written extensively on the subject of free logic, a term which he coined.-Lambert's Law:...
) have defended the usefulness of such a theory.
Meinong is also seen to be controversial in the field of philosophy of language
Philosophy of language
Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for analytic philosophers is concerned with four central problems: the nature of meaning, language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language...
for holding the view that "existence
Existence
In common usage, existence is the world we are aware of through our senses, and that persists independently without them. In academic philosophy the word has a more specialized meaning, being contrasted with essence, which specifies different forms of existence as well as different identity...
" is merely a property of an object, just as color or mass might be a property. Closer readers of his work, however, accept that Meinong held the view that objects are "indifferent to being" and that they stand "beyond being and non-being". On this view Meinong is expressly denying that existence is a property of an object. For Meinong, what an object is, its real essence, depends on the properties of the object. These properties are genuinely possessed whether the object exists or not, and so existence cannot be a mere property of an object.
Types of objects
Meinong holds that objects can be divided into three categories on the basis of their ontological status. Objects may have one of the following three modalities of being and non-being:- Existence (Existenz, verb: existieren), or actual reality (Wirklichkeit), which denotes the material and temporal being of an object
- Subsistence (Bestand, verb: bestehen), which denotes the being of an object in a non-temporal sense.
- Absistence or Being-given (Gegebenheit, as in the German use es gibt, i.e. "there are", "it is given"), which denotes being an object but not having being.
Certain objects can exist (mountains, birds, etc.); others cannot in principle ever exist, such as the objects of mathematics (numbers, theorems, etc.): such objects simply subsist. Finally, a third class of objects cannot even subsist, such as impossible objects (e.g. square circle, wooden iron, etc.). Being-given is not a minimal mode of being, because it is not a mode of being at all. Rather, to be "given" is just to be an object. Being-given, termed "absistence" by J.N. Findlay, is better thought of as a mode of non-being than as a mode of being. Absistence, unlike existence and subsistence, does not have a negation; everything absists. (Note that all objects absist, while some subset of these subsist, of which a yet-smaller subset exist.) The result that everything absists allows Meinong to deal with our ability to affirm the non-being (Nichtsein) of an object. It absistence is evidenced by our act of intending it, which is logically prior to our denying that it has being.
Object and subject
Meinong distinguishes four classes of "objects":- "Object" (Objekt), which can be real (like horses) or ideal (like the concepts of difference, identity, etc.)
- "Objective" (Objectiv), e.g. the affirmation of the being (Sein) or non-being (Nichtsein), of a being-such (Sosein), or a being-with (Mitsein) - parallel to existential, categorical and hypothetical judgements. Objectives are close to what contemporary philosophers call states of affairs (where these may be actual—may "obtain"--or not).
- "Dignitative", e.g. the true, the good, the beautiful
- "Desiderative", e.g. duties, ends, etc.
To these four classes of objects correspond four classes of psychological acts:
- (re)presentation (das Vorstellen), for objects
- thought (das Denken), for the objectives
- feeling (das Fühlen), for dignitatives
- desire (das Begehren), for the desideratives.
Books
- Meinong, A. (1885). Über philosophische Wissenschaft und ihre Propädeutik
- Meinong, A. (1894). Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werttheorie
- Meinong, A., ed. (1904). Untersuchung zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie
- Meinong, A. (1910). Über Annahmen, 2nd ed.
- Meinong, A. (1915). Über Möglichkeit und Wahrscheinlichkeit
- Meinong, A. (1917). Über emotionale Präsentation
Articles
- Meinong, A. (1877). "Hume Studien I. Zur Geschichte und Kritik des modernen Nominalismus" in Sitzungsbereiche der phil.-hist. Classe der kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 78:185-260.
- Meinong, A. (1882). "Hume Studien II. Zur Relationstheorie" in Sitzungsbereiche der phil.-hist. Classe der kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 101:573–752.
- Meinong, A. (1891). "Zur psychologie der Komplexionen und Relationen" in Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, II:245–265.
- Meinong, A. (1899). "Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren Verhältniss zur inneren Wahrnehmung" in Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, 21, pp. 187–272.
Books together with other authors
- Höfler, A. and Meinong, A. (1890). Philosophische Propädeutik. Erster Theil: Logik. F. Tempsky / G. Freytag, Vienna.
Posthumously edited works
- Haller, R., Kindinger, R., and Chisholm, R., editors, (1968–78). Gesamtausgabe, 7 vols., Akademische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Graz.
- Meinong, A. (1965). Philosophenbriefe, ed. Kindinger, R., Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, Graz.
English Translations
- On Assumptions, trans. James Heanue. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
- On Emotional Presentation, trans. M.-L. Schubert Kalsi. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press, 1927.
- "The Theory of Objects", trans. Isaac Levi, D. B. Terrell, and Roderick Chisholm. In Realism and the Background of Phenomenology, ed. Roderick Chisholm. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview, 1981.
Books
- Albertazzi, L., Jacquette, D., and Poli, R., editors (2001). The School of Alexius Meinong. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 1-84014-374-6
- Bergmann, GustavGustav BergmannGustav Bergmann was a philosopher born in Vienna, Austria. He studied at the University of Vienna and was a member of the Vienna Circle. In the United States, he was a professor of philosophy and psychology at the University of Iowa.- Biography :Bergmann earned his Ph.D. in mathematics at the...
. Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967. - Chisholm, R. Brentano and Meinong Studies. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1982.
- Dölling, E. Wahrheit Suchen und Wahrheit Bekennen. Alexius Meinong: Skizze seines Lebens. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999. ISBN 90-420-0774-5
- Findlay, J. N. Meinong's Theory of Objects and Values, 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.
- Grossman, R. Meinong. London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974. ISBN 0-7100-7831-5
- Haller, R., editor. Jenseits von Sein und Nichtsein. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1972.
- Lindenfeld, D. F. The Transformation of Positivism: Alexius Meinong and European Thought, 1880-1920. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. ISBN 0-520-03994-7
- Rollinger, R. D. Meinong and Husserl on Abstraction and Universals. Number XX in Studien zur Österreichischen Philosophie. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1993. ISBN 90-5183-573-6
- Rollinger, Robin D. Austrian Phenomenology: Brentano, Husserl, Meinong, and Others on Mind and Object. Frankfurt am Main: Ontos, 2008. ISBN 978-3-86838-005-7
- Routley, R. (1982). Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond. Ridgeview Pub Co. ISBN 978-0-685-05636-3. (Also published by the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, 1979.)
- Schubert Kalsi, Marie-Luise. Alexius Meinong: On Objects of Higher Order and Husserl's Phenomenology. Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands. ISBN 90-247-2033-8
Articles
- Chrudzimski, A. (2005). "Abstraktion und Relationen beim jungen Meinong". In [Schramm, 2005], pages 7–62.
- Dölling, E. (2005). "Eine semiotische Sicht auf Meinongs Annahmenlehre". In [Schramm, 2005], pages 129–158.
- Kenneth, B. (1970). "Meinong’s Hume Studies. Part I: Meinong’s Nominalism". in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 30:550–567.
- Kenneth, B. (1971). "Meinong’s Hume Studies. Part II: Meinong’s Analysis of Relations". in PPR, 31:564–584.
- Rollinger, R. D. (2005). "Meinong and Brentano". In [Schramm, 2005], pages 159–197.
- Routley, R. and Valerie Routley. "Rehabilitating Meinong's Theory of Objects". Review Internationale de Philosophie 104-105 (1973).
- Russell, Bertrand. "Meinong's Theory of Complexes and Assumptions" in Essays in Analysis, ed. Douglas Lackey. New York: George Braziller, 1973.
- Ryle, Gilbert. "Intentionality-Theory and the Nature of Thinking." Review Internationale de Philosophie 104-105 (1973).
- Schermann, H. (1972). "Husserls II. Logische Untersuchung und Meinongs Hume-Studien I. In [Haller, 1972], pages 103–116.
- Vendrell-Ferran, I. (2009): "Meinongs Philosophie der Gefühle und ihr Einfluss auf die Grazer Schule" in: Meinong Studien III Graz
Journals
- Schramm, A., editor. Meinong Studies - Meinong Studien, Volume 1 (2005). Ontos Verlag.
Podcasts
- The philosopher A.C.Grayling discusses Meinong in a Podcast about Bertrand Russell's Theory of Descriptions. Available from Philosophy Bites (http://philosophybites.com/2009/12/ac-grayling-on-bertrand-russells-theory-of-descriptions.html) and iTunes.