## 1. Life and Work


### 1.1 Chronology




|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| (1853) | Born July 17 in Lemberg, former capital of the Austrian crown
land Galicia (before and after the Habsburg period Lwow,
Poland; today Lviv, Ukraine). Youngest of the six children of Anton
Meinong von Handschuchsheim (1799-1870), and Wilhelmine,
nee Sofalvi (1817-1909). |
| (1862) | Meinong comes to Vienna; first as a private student, then as a
public student for his high school education at the Academic Gymnasium
in Vienna (1868-1870). |
| (1874) | Meinong receives D.Phil. in History as major and German
Philology as minor at the University of Vienna. His doctoral
dissertation is on the history of Arnold of Brescia [*Zur
Geschichte Arnold's von Brescia*]. Franz Brentano is one of
Meinong's examiners in his philosophical doctoral examination
("Philosophicum"). |
| (1875) | Meinong attends philosophical courses held by Brentano for four
semesters; before this, for two semesters, he also attended courses on
economics held by Carl Menger. |
| (1878) | Meinong earns a Habilitation in Philosophy at the University of
Vienna with the thesis, supervised by F. Brentano, *Hume-Studien I.
Zur Geschichte und Kritik des modernen Nominalismus*, and becomes
*Privatdozent* there. |
| (1882) | Meinong becomes a *Professor Extraordinarius* at the
University of Graz. |
| (1889) | Meinong is appointed *Professor Ordinarius* at the
University of Graz; stays in this position until his death.

Marriage to Doris Buchholz (1865-1940). |
| (1892) | Son Ernst born November 15 (deceased 1940). |
| (1894) | Meinong founds Austria's first psychological
laboratory. |
| (1897) | Meinong establishes the Philosophical Seminar at the University
of Graz. |
| (1898) | Meinong gets an offer from the University of Kiel, but he
rejects it and remains in Graz. |
| (1904) | Meinong edits *Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und
Psychologie*, a composite publication of the so-called Graz School
of experimental psychology (Gestalt psychology) and theory of
objects. |
| (1906) | Meinong becomes a Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy
of Science. |
| (1914) | Meinong rejects the offer to become a professor at the
University of Vienna.

Elected as a Real Member of the Austrian Academy of Science. |
| (1916) | Appointment as *Hofrat* [Councilor]. |
| (1920) | Meinong dies November 27 in Graz. |
| (1933) | John Niemeyer Findlay receives his D.Phil. at the University of
Graz with his book *Meinong's Theory of Objects* as a
doctoral dissertation -- supervisor and first examiner: Ernst
Mally, a former disciple of Meinong and Meinong's successor in
Graz. |
| (1968-1978) | Publication of the Complete Edition of Meinong's works in
seven volumes and one supplement. |


### 1.2 Meinong's Life and Work



Meinong's father was an Austrian Major General whose ancestors
came from southwestern Germany (Handschuchsheim, near Heidelberg).
Meinong repeatedly stressed that he was German, and he also joined
political organizations of German nationalists. On the other hand, he
was a loyal Austrian and emphasized his distance from extreme,
Pan-Germanist groups like those that had taken up the ideas of Georg
von Schonerer.



Meinong showed a strong inclination to music, practically as well as
theoretically. He performed chamber music in a proficient way (the
piano and especially the violin), was an amateur composer (mainly of
*Lieder*) and took an interest in theoretical questions
concerning music (for example, he was engaged in discussions with
Guido Adler, Christian von Ehrenfels, Stephan Witasek, and Joseph
Marx, and he wrote reviews of Carl Stumpf's
*Tonpsychologie*, Vol. I and II).



Meinong suffered from an inherited semi-blindness, a handicap that he
always tried to conceal, but which was already a hindrance in his
early years and deteriorated to almost complete blindness in the
course of his life. Eventually, he needed people like his wife to read
to him. So it was rather difficult for him to become acquainted with
the literature of his time. In spite of such unfavorable circumstances
and although Meinong rather shunned social, political and cultural
exposure (including the giving of public lectures and participation in
conferences), he was still able to exert considerable influence on the
academic community of his time. Meinong's great achievements
were due in part to his ambition and perseverance, combined with
diligence and a disciplined way of working. To a considerable extent
Meinong's accomplishments were facilitated by a well-organized
family life for which his wife Doris bears much of the responsibility
and credit. Meinong is a paradigmatic example of a bourgeois academic
scholar -- of an "Ordinarius" -- around the turn
of the century.



Life-time friendships begun in Meinong's Viennese academic
period included those with the musicologist Guido Adler and the
philosophers (also his pupils) Christian von Ehrenfels, Alois
Hofler, and Anton von Oelzelt-Newin. During the time of his
professorship in Graz he also became the teacher of, among others,
Eduard Martinak, Stephan Witasek, Anton Faist, Rudolf Ameseder,
Vittorio Benussi, Ernst Mally, Joseph Marx, Franz Weber, Ferdinand
Weinhandl, and Fritz Heider.



Although Meinong was a Roman Catholic, his early work already showed a
critical and distanced attitude towards the Catholic Church. Like
Arnold of Brescia, Meinong advocated the separation of religious and
secular affairs as well as the idea of the political equality of all
denominations. Furthermore, Meinong criticized the religious education
in Austria's "Mittelschulen" [*high schools*]
as inadequate, since he considered it to be a restriction on freedom
of opinion. Meinong suggested that historians (and not priests) should
instead teach the history of the development of religions and the
various ways of satisfying religious needs.



His early essays, the "Hume Studies", I (1877) and II
(1882) -- his only investigations with an explicit historical
orientation -- are, as the subtitles foreshadow, nonetheless
critical and systematic treatises. Written under the influence of his
Viennese mentor Franz Brentano, they show Meinong's tendency
towards British Empiricism (rather than Kantianism and German
Idealism) and became relevant in the development of his object
theory.



Meinong's first book *On Philosophical Science and its
Propaedeutics* (1885) plays a pivotal role for the understanding
of Meinong's research as well as his teaching activities.
Originally, this book was written with the intention to criticize
instructions issued by the Ministry of Culture and Instruction to cut
down the hours of high school teaching in Philosophical Propaedeutics
[*philosophisch-propadeutischer Unterricht*], i.e.,
psychology, logic and philosophy. But the book can also be read as a
programmatic essay on Meinong's own views on philosophy and
psychology. He makes it clear that philosophy can be done in a
scientific rather than in a speculative manner, and he considers
psychology as a fundamental subdiscipline of philosophy. Teaching
psychology and philosophy cannot consist in the attempt to present
finished results or accepted theories; it has to be done by performing
experiments and engaging in discussion, respectively. Uncertainty in
the domain of knowledge is not to be considered as an obstacle, but
rather as a didactically fertile challenge and an opportunity for
making progress. Because of this practically-oriented view of
philosophy and science, Meinong proposed the establishment of both a
Psychological Laboratory and a Philosophical Seminar as university
institutions in Graz. As an academic philosopher he made it his duty
to find extra time to discuss philosophical matters with his students,
friends, and colleagues.



In his *Psychological-Ethical Investigations in* *Value
Theory* (1894), Meinong discussed the subjectivist economic value
theories of the Austrian economists Carl Menger and Friedrich von
Wieser. He took over, in principle, their subjectivist approach, but
he criticized and modified their theory of marginal utility in certain
ways. On the one hand, he extended it to values in general, over and
above mere economic values, on the other hand, he applied it to other
axiological domains, especially to ethics. He also developed in detail
his idea that ethics was entirely determined by the
*value-disvalue* [*Wert-Unwert*]
distinction. Beginning with his paper from 1912 "Fur die
Psychologie ..." and then with *On Emotional
Presentation* (1917) and other later works on value theory (1921;
1923), Meinong took an objectivist point of view and combined the
psychological analysis of values with his theory of objects. Values
and norms ("oughts", [*Sollen*]) are to be seen as
special kinds of objects, and there are not only personal values but
also impersonal ones.



Meinong's psychological works are more concerned with the
methodology of psychology and with what Brentano called
"descriptive psychology" -- a kind of classification
or taking of an inventory of the mental furniture -- than with
"genetic psychology", i.e., the experiment-based, causal
theory of mental (and physiological) occurrences (cf. Antonelli 2018:
3-100). Stimulated by Twardowski (1894) but also in critical
distance to this treatise, Meinong combined descriptive-psychological
matters with epistemological and ontological themes in his essay
"On Objects of Higher Order and Their Relationship to Internal
Perception" (1899).



Meinong's mature epistemological views, which are both
anti-skeptical and fallibilistic, are to be found in his 1906, 1910,
and 1915. He propagated a theory of evidence as the basis of
justification partly similar to Brentano's (as far as the
"direct-indirect" and "*a
priori*-*a posteriori*" distinctions are
concerned), partly in sharp contrast to it, because already in 1886
Meinong added the "evidence for presumption"
[*Vermutungsevidenz*] to the "evidence for
certainty", something of which Brentano strongly
disapproved.



In his later works (1902; 1904b; 1906; 1907; 1910; 1915; 1917; 1918)
the various aforementioned philosophical disciplines are intertwined,
only the emphasis of the subject matters differs. Although the topics
of the monographs seem to be narrowly demarcated (*On
Assumptions* (1902, 1910); *On Possibility and Probability*
(1915); *On Emotional Presentation* (1917)), Meinong deals with
a broad range of subjects so that one can make out the development of
a complete system of philosophy. A work of a more general character is
"The Theory of Objects" (1904b), a kind of manifesto,
which was continued by the apologetic and also programmatic book
*On the Place of the Theory of Objects in the System of
Sciences* (1907).



In 1918, Meinong published his last major work -- an attempt at
proving the law of universal causation, i.e. the principle that
assures the unexceptional causal determination of all occurrences
(states, events). He provides two arguments in favor of this
principle. First, he argues, following Hobbes and Brentano, that
uncaused events turn out to be infinitely improbable. Second, Meinong
uses an *a priori* proof of his own which claims that
exceptionless determinacy is necessary as no occurrence can be without
a state of affairs that Meinong calls its "implicans"
(1918: 45-66; cf. Hartmann 1920). Meinong not only supports
determinism, he also defends compatibilism because determinism, and
not indeterminism, allows us to ascribe responsibility (for being
guilty, or meritorious etc.) to persons (1894, SS68; 1918: 92:
"Freedom is not indeterminacy, and determinacy is not compulsion
or coercion").



Near the end of his life he wrote the short and yet comprehensive
intellectual autobiography "A. Meinong" (1921a). Further
biographical information is provided in Dolling 1999, the first
biographical monograph on Meinong, and in Dolling 2001, Eder
1995, Kindinger 1965, Lindenfeld 1980 (Chapt. III), Raspa 2016.


## 2. Meinong on Philosophy



Meinong was neither a speculative philosopher nor a so-called
philosophical system thinker. Nevertheless he gradually developed a
philosophical system which included the main disciplines and had his
theory of objects at its center. Meinong's terminology
constantly increased, and the number of his ideas and alleged objects
grew steadily -- although with significant revisions of some of
his older views.



Meinong's metaphilosophical reflections do not yield something
like a definition of what philosophy is, and in his autobiography he
concedes that he has not yet found a conceptually exact formula for
it. Philosophy is supposed to be not a single sharply delineated
science but an assemblage of sciences which are held together by the
fact that they have to do with mental phenomena (1921a: 101; 1885: 5).
There are no specifically philosophical objects, but everything that
can be experienced "may be handled philosophically if treated
from the point of view of its relation to the human thinking
subject" (Hicks 1922: 5). Because of this, psychology becomes a
fundamental discipline of this philosophical congeries. Another even
more basic philosophical discipline is the theory of objects as it is
the most general, comprehensive and fundamental science. According to
Meinong, its range is wider than metaphysics because metaphysics deals
only with existing things, i.e. with the entirety of the real. As
metaphysics is determined by "the prejudice in favor of the
actual", it can only be seen as a universal science *a
posteriori*. However, the theory of objects goes beyond that. It
is an *a priori* science as it has to do with whatever can be
known *a priori* about objects. It deals essentially with
objects as such, or in Meinongian words, it "has to do with the
given taken in its entirety" (1904b, SSSS2, 11).



Meinong saw himself neither in the camp of the empiricists nor in the
camp of the rationalists; instead he claimed to be an empirical
although not a psychologistic thinker (1907, SSSS25-6).
Although Meinong's theory of objects is an *a priori*
science, its method can be characterized as a *philosophy from
below*, a working method that follows the precepts of a kind of
bottom-up thinking. There is an important analogy between the
empirical (*a posteriori*) sciences and the theory of objects
as a paradigmatic *a priori* science: both start from given
data. In the case of the empirical sciences these data are
experiences, while the data of the theory of objects usually are
things that are not existent but only subsistent [*bestehend*]
or even merely outside of being [*ausserseiend*] (1917,
SS11: 103 [*92*]; 1921a, Sect. 2.F: 130). This
"empirical manner of investigating" was appreciated by
Russell (1904: 205), for instance. Moreover, our general as well as
our particular knowledge of language facts is able to supply us with
additional data as basis of further theorizing. Meinong (1904b,
SS10: 33 [*103*]) thus says "that the general theory
of objects has to learn from grammar just as the specialized theory of
objects can and must learn from mathematics" (cf. also 1904b: 15
[*88*]; 1907: 109). He also told his students that it is best
to begin one's investigations with linguistic data (Nachlass,
Karton IV/b), and -- because of this -- that the answer to
the question what the common man thinks of this or that situation or
of this or that word is an indispensable presupposition of all other
inquiry (Nachlass, Karton XI/e; cf. Manotta 2005: 65-68).



Meinong considers ethics, aesthetics and logic to be the primary
disciplines of practical philosophy. It is worth noting that he
contrasts his customary use of "logic" as a practical
discipline, which was adopted from Brentano and is comparable to
*Port-Royal Logic* [*La Logique ou l'art de
penser* (*Logic, or the Art of Thinking*)], with
Kant's and, especially, Husserl's conception of a
"formal" or "pure" logic and also with
symbolic logic, "Logistik", and algebra of logic, which
all can be seen as parts of his theory of objects. He puts the
distinction between theoretical and practical disciplines primarily
down to the difference between theoretical and practical interests and
not to the difference between the subject matters of the sciences. In
contrast to the disciplines of theoretical philosophy --
metaphysics, object theory, and theory of knowledge, for example
--, which are determined by cognitive aims, the practical
disciplines set themselves practical goals. They can be seen as
something like applied sciences or branches of engineering
[*Kunstlehren*], quite comparable to architecture, and nautical
or military sciences. (1885: 96-98; 1904b,
SSSS7-8; 1907, SS20: 114-30; 1921a: 103,
130.)


## 3. Some Epistemology Matters



Epistemology has a double fact as its object: the known fact and the
fact of knowing. Knowing is judging an objective (state of affairs,
see below 4.3.1) with entitlement [*Berechtigung*] - both
external and internal (1915, Chapt. IV). The external entitlement is
provided by the truth or truth-conduciveness of the judged objective,
the internal by evidence [*Evidenz*]. Evidence is not just a
subjective feeling of conviction; it is an objective feature of the
mental act component of judging (with or without certainty) and not of
its mental content component. (For the difference between the act and
content components of an experience see 4.1 below and the supplement
on
 Presentation of Objects via Psychological Content.)
 Following Brentano, Meinong stands up for a concept of evidence as a
basis for the theory of knowledge. Meinong, for instance, accepts
Brentano's views on evidence as they pertain to the
"direct-indirect" and "*a
priori*-*a posteriori*" distinctions. On the
one hand, direct evidence may be given as a borderline case in inner
perception, in which case it is evidence *a posteriori* (1906,
SSSS9-13: 47-68; SS26: 111: "The
evidence of inner perception, like that of memory, is mere conjectural
evidence that only reaches the limit of certainty at the present
limit." ["*Die Evidenz der inneren Wahrnehmung ist,
gleich der des Gedachtnisses, blosse Vermutungsevidenz, die
nur an der Gegenwartigkeitsgrenze die Gewissheitsgrenze
erreicht*."]). On the other hand, it may be given as
knowledge of axiomatic truths, which is evidence *a priori*
(1906, SS1; 1915, SS55).



Like Brentano, Meinong also thinks that perceiving and remembering are
always cases of judging and not just representing (1915: 606-7,
613) and that a judgement is indirectly evident if it is concluded
from directly evident judgements. On the other hand, Meinong deviates
in certain respects from Brentano's theory of evidence. Already
in 1886, Meinong adds "evidence for presumption"
[*Vermutungsevidenz*] to "evidence for certainty".
He realizes that we trust in memory, outer perception, and induction
not "blindly and thoughtlessly" or by chance, although our
trust in these abilities does not derive from anything else. It has an
internal justification, which is directly given and neither derived
from the a posteriori evidence of inner perception nor from the a
priori evidence of axioms. In delivering a kind of inference to the
best explanation, Meinong concludes that this confidence can be
counted as a further source of knowledge. It manifests itself as
direct evidence, but evidence for something that may be erroneous, not
certain, and he therefore calls it "direct conjectural
evidence" ([*unmittelbare* *Vermutungsevidenz*],
1886: 30-34). Brentano, who only accepted "evidence for
certainty", strongly disapproved of Meinong's conception.
He considered Meinong's introduction of a new special mode of
cognition to be a cutting rather than an unravelling of the Gordian
knot (Kindinger 1965, 22-3). - Actually this disagreement
was the beginning of the estrangement between them.



As Meinong takes objectives as ideal objects, he gives up
Brentano's definition of truth by means of evidence. Brentano
rejects the correspondence theory of truth, on the grounds that (among
other things) he does not see anything in reality that would
correspond to true negative judgements such as "there are no
unicorns" and defines truth of judgements by their evidence
(Brentano 1930: 139 [*82*]); see entries on *Brentano*
and *Brentano's Theory of Judgement*). Meinong adopts a
kind of identity theory of truth, which can be seen as a borderline
case of a correspondence theory (Meinong 1915, SS7; 1910,
SS13; see below 5.6). According to Meinong, the true negative
judgement "there are no unicorns" has a subsistent
objective as its corresponding object (the fact of the non-being of
unicorns). If the objective in question does not subsist (has
non-being) the judgement is false. However, though Meinong does not
use the notion of evidence for a definition of truth, he holds it
still relevant for a truth criterion because truth is a
"proprium" of evidence (1915: 463), and evidence for
certainty (and for presumption, respectively) makes truth (and
probability, respectively) accessible to us. (A classical criticism of
Meinong's theory of evidence is Nelson 1908: 479-485.)



Meinong's epistemology turned out to be relevant to analytic
theory of knowledge. Some of Chisholm's (1966: 38-55)
rules of evidence, for example, are a kind of application of
Meinong's conception of direct evidence for conjecture. Further,
Meinong's treatment of epistemic concepts like *truth* or
*entitlement* as value concepts anticipates the epistemic
normativity of some internalist positions. It is also worth
mentioning, that Meinong (1915, SS54) linked the "principle
of the self-validity of all knowing" [*Prinzip der
Selbstgultigkeit alles Erkennens*], a kind of prima facie
justification principle, with the fallibilistic
methodological-epistemological "principle of the critical
openness of all knowing" [*Prinzip der kritischen
Unabgeschlossenheit alles Erkennens*], which says that critical
examination is always possible, since there is always an unverified
judgement left at the end of a justification process.



In his *Erfahrungsgrundlagen* (1906) Meinong shows that a
perception taken only from a causal point of view cannot explain, for
example, why a perception picks out the distant object and not
something between the perceived object and the observer. In
investigating important features of perception, Meinong (1906,
SS22) introduces the concept of a perceptive forum
[*Wahrnehmungsforum*]. The perceptive forums include the
internal and external moments that affect the content of a perception.
As such the sensing organs, the determinations of the perceived object
and other media come into consideration. The forums are transparent in
the sense that you cannot tell from the perceptive act which forums
are involved. When you see, for example, a piece of chalk, by means of
your spectacles, you see the chalk but you do not notice your eyes and
your spectacles. But it is possible that the role of such media can be
reconstructed by using causal approaches. Fritz Heider already
discussed some of this accounts in his dissertation thesis *Zur
Subjektivitaet der Sinnesqualitaeten* [*On the subjectivity of
sense qualities*] (1920), and later, in his paper "Ding und
Medium" ["Thing and Medium"] (1926/27), he took over
Meinong's conception that media are so to say glass -
glass can mediate the seen of objects, but glass can also be seen as
an object. From this point of view he elaborated fundamental features
of media. Through its interesting, detailed descriptions this study
together with later papers became a forerunner of some modern theories
of media and communication (see, for example, Luhmann 1995;
Kramer 2008).


## 4. Mind and Object


### 4.1 Psychological Content *versus* Logical Content



In his treatise "On Objects of Higher Order and Their
Relationship to Internal Perception" (1899) Meinong explicitly
introduces the distinction between the *psychological* (mental)
*content* [*psychologischer Inhalt*] and the *object
of a representation* [*Gegenstand einer Vorstellung*]
-- a fundamentally important distinction to him that he keeps on
refining and extending (subsequently applying it to *all* kinds
of mental acts).



Meinong's view on non-existent and impossible objects was
sharpened by Twardowski 1894. Twardowski's work can be seen as
the occasion for Meinong to begin thinking more deeply about the
content/object distinction, and indeed Meinong took over some of
Twardowski's arguments. However, Meinong never thought that
Twardowski's distinction and conception of the content of a
representation could be understood as a precise conceptual
clarification that should be adopted unquestioningly. Meinong stated
that there was a great deal of interesting niand useful information in
Twardowski's 1894 study, but he said this with respect to
"the whole difficult and important problem of objects" and
not exactly in relation to the difference between content and object
(1899, SS2: 185 [*141*]). Meinong, for example, accepts
Twardowski's critical attitude to the view that there are
objectless, empty representations, a thesis Bolzano put forward
"with special emphasis" (see the entry on
 Bernard Bolzano,
 Section 3.5). After 1894, Meinong took psychological contents as
something purely mental and concrete. Such contents are therefore
always something real. Twardowski, however, says that the content is a
mental picture, but he also identifies the mental content with the
meaning of a name and with Bolzano's objective representation
(idea), i.e., the representation (idea) in itself, or as such,
[*Vorstellung an sich*]. For that reason Twardowski (1894: 31
[*29*]) takes the content -- in contrast to the (real) act
-- as something that "always lacks reality". Meinong,
however, became more and more aware of the purely mental nature of the
psychological content. He realized that the psychological content was
not something abstract or conceptual in the sense of something
intensional, that it was not some sort of meaning at all.



According to Meinong, all experiences [*Erlebnisse*], even the
most elementary ones, are complex mental phenomena, because they
contain at least three constituents: (1) the act, (2) the
(psychological) content, and (3) the object of the experience. The
first two components are intrinsically mental and, therefore, must
exist if the experience exists, whereas the third one need not exist,
and it is usually extrinsic to the mental. If somebody entertains a
strong hope for universal peace, for instance, then (1) the act of
hope (and not of hate) exists, (2) the corresponding psychological
content exists, but (3) no universal peace may occur (there is only
the non-existent object *the universal peace*). Meinong
believes that experiences can have different objects
[*Gegenstande*] for two reasons: (i) Different kinds of
acts correspond to different kinds of objects (for example,
"objecta" correspond to representations, and
"objectives" to thoughts; see below 4.3.1). (ii) But
inside an act, so to speak, any variation on the side of the objects
is correlated with a variation of some mental component which is the
psychological content of the experience. (See the supplement on
 Presentation of Objects via Psychological Content.)



What is often called "content", especially
"conceptual content", is not a Meinongian psychological
content. Meinong distinguishes between psychological and logical (=
conceptual) content in his later work, but he stresses the point that
so-called "logical content" is "not [psychological]
content but object or, more exactly, it is the proximate object"
a psychological content is related to (1915: 163n). The psychological
content of a presentation is not something abstract or intensional,
whereas the conceptual content is identified with the auxiliary
object, which is an incomplete object and which seems in a way akin to
a universal (1915, SS23: 163, SS28: 206, unpublished appendix
in Meinong 1968-78, Vol. VI: 739-40; 1978: 368, 400; see
also Section 6 below). However, the connection to meaning, reference,
and so-called "logical content" is guaranteed by
Meinong's ideal relation of adequateness between the
psychological content to its corresponding object, expounded in the
supplement below. Perhaps this is one reason why quite a number of
Meinong's interpreters seem to bring Meinong's
psychological content too close to the sphere of intensions.
Nevertheless, Meinong thinks that the introduced distinction between
the psychological content and its corresponding proximate object,
which is the logical content, allows him to avoid psychologism. See
the supplement:



> 
> Presentation of Objects via Psychological Content
> 


### 4.2 Mind as Object -- Self-Presentation in Contrast to Other-Presentation



Meinong's so-called *self-presentation*
[*Selbstprasentation*] usually counts as a mark of
consciousness, of the manifest mental. Experiences, i.e., conscious
mental occurrences, are able to present themselves to a self. This
kind of self-presentation is not yet presentation of the self or the
ego, which was not an issue for Meinong. It should also be set apart
from self-evidence in the sense of infallibility, and from inner
perception, self-observation, and higher-order thinking. The whole
manifest mental life is self-presenting, that is, all the experiences
of a subject are self-presenting to the experiencing subject. If you
are happy that it is raining**,** you can grasp your
happiness in inner perception**,** but not by means of a
separate mental content. That your mental experiences present
themselves to you means you refer to your instantaneous experiences
without the intermediary of a further representation of them. You are
able to reflect upon your momentary anger or upon your feeling of
shame, for instance, without needing a kind of mental symbol of your
anger or your feeling of shame.



Usually, the objects of experiences are not constituted by their
experiences: they are something mind independent and not immanent to
consciousness. What is immanent to the mind (consciousness) are the
experiences themselves. When you have a representation of red, for
example, you are conscious of the object *red*. In such a
representation of *red*, the red-content serves as a kind of
sign of something, i.e., *red*, and is itself a mental piece of
the whole representation. In order to present the red-content as
object of an inner reflective experience, you do not need a further,
separate representation with an additional mental content to which the
red-content corresponds as object. The red-content has the capacity to
present itself to your mind. In general, the reference to one's
own experiences does not require the intervention of an additional
content. Meinong thinks that *all* inner experiences and
*all* parts of them are able to be apprehended through
self-presentation. Meinong (1910, SS20: 138 [*103*],
SS43: 264 [*190-1*]; 1915, SS33; 1917, SS1)
calls it the *self*-presentation of inner experiences in
opposition to the *other*-presentation
[*Fremdprasentation*], where the content functions as sign
for something else. Since experiences do not need to be brought within
the range of apprehension by presentations (and contents) of their
own, Meinong calls the self-presenting parts of an experience (act
component and content component) and the whole self-presenting
experience *quasi-contents*. The quasi-content coincides with
the object that is to be apprehended or intended. When you desire
something, for example, it may also happen that you judge about your
desire. The whole desire, then, presents itself to your judgement
without any supplementary interfering content. It plays the role of a
content, so to speak -- hence the name
"quasi-content."



Meinong (1906, SSSS11 and 13; 1910, SS43) thinks that
attention allows us to do two different things with one and the same
experience and content respectively: (1) If we direct our attention to
our inner experience, for instance, to the red content of a
representation of red, this very content serves for the inner
perception of itself -- the red-content becomes an intended
object and serves for the apprehension (perception) of itself. He also
says that in this case the content becomes *turned inwards*
(*introversion*, [*Einwartswendung*]). (2) If the
content contributes to a perception or a thought of something red, the
content concerns something external to the mind -- it serves for
the apprehension of the coordinated outer objects and can therefore be
called *turned outwards* (*extraversion*,
[*Auswartswendung*]).



Meinong would not accept the following highly controversial thesis of
consciousness:



(C)
Consciousness is necessarily such that if a subject *s* has
a conscious property *P*, *s* is also conscious of its\*
having the property *P*.


This is a thesis of self-consciousness in a twofold manner: First,
*s* is conscious of itself in a direct (de se) manner --
therefore, the third person pronoun is used with a Castaneda
asterisk as a sign of a "quasi-indicator", i.e., an
emphatic reflexive expressing the reference of the subject to itself
qua itself (cf. the entry on
 indexicals,
 Section 5). Secondly, *s* is conscious of the conscious state
it is in. Brentano accepted (C), with some provisos in order to avoid
an infinite regress. Brentano thinks that conscious states (mental
acts) are necessarily such that if a subject *s* is in a
conscious state, *s* is also conscious of its\* being in this
state. This self-consciousness is to be interpreted as inner
perception, but *not as a separate higher-order perception*:
Each mental act is primarily directed to an object (my hearing a sound
has the sound as its primary object), and it is *incidentally*
directed towards itself (my hearing a sound has itself as secondary
object). (See Brentano 1874, 2. Buch, 2. Kap., SSSS8-9;
Brentano 1982: 22-5).



Meinong would instead state:



 
 
(C1)
Being *F* is a self-presenting property for a subject
*s* =*df* Being *F* is necessarily
such that, if *s* is *F*, and if *s* thinks about
its\* being *F*, then *s* does not need any particular,
separate presentation of its\* being *F*.
(C2)
Being *F* is self-presented to a subject *s*
=*df* (1) Being *F* is a self-presenting
property for a subject *s*, (2) *s* is *F*, and
(3) *s* thinks about its\* being *F*.
(C3)
Conscious properties are necessarily self-presenting properties,
and self-presenting properties are necessarily conscious
properties.
(C4)
The evidence one gets by self-presentation is (1) direct, (2)
certain (in the borderline case of immediate presence), and (3) *a
posteriori*.


Consciousness does not automatically include some kind of
self-reflection. An experience's being conscious does not
consist in the subject's having a higher-order thought; that is,
consciousness *only allows* self-reflection by
self-presentation in the sense of (C2), but does not already involve
any higher-order thoughts or inner perception in a Brentanoan sense.
Meinong's use of "self-presentation" seems to have
two readings: (1) as an *ability-based term*, when you say that
the self-presentation of an experience consists in its
*ability* to be apprehended directly, that is, without any
supplementary psychological content; (2) as a *nondispositional
term* that expresses a *manifest* self-presentation in the
sense that the experience is actually self-presented. (C3) expresses
the thesis that being a self-presenting state is a mark of
consciousness: The whole of a person's manifest mental life is
self-presenting (understood as "selfpresent*able*",
as an ability-based term); that is, all experiences of a subject are
in this sense self-presenting to the experiencing subject. (Cf. Marek
2003; 2012.)


### 4.3 The Manifoldness of Mind



Although Meinong is concerned with the subject matter Brentano called
*intentional inexistence* of an object, he avoids using this
term or something like *intentionality*. Meinong is not
completely sure whether "being directed to something, to an
object" is common to all experiences. But Meinong stresses the
point that experiences like representations, judgements, feelings and
desires are usually directed to an object (1904b, SS1; 1899,
SS2: 185 [*141*]), and he interprets the intentionality of
such mental occurrences in a relational rather than in an adverbial
manner ("I am sensing (something) red" instead of "I
am sensing redly"). Agreeing with Twardowski, Meinong stresses
the point that among the objects that are presented to the subject,
some may not exist and some may not even be possible, for example the
round square or the state of affairs ("objective") that a
biangle exists.



Meinong's philosophical psychology is influenced by
Brentano's descriptive psychology, but Meinong modified it in
several ways. There are at least four main modifications involving
Brentano's view of mental phenomena, especially Brentano's
tripartite classification of such phenomena into representations,
judgements, and phenomena of love and hate (or emotions
[*Gemutsbewegungen*]): (1) Meinong's first deviation
consists in dividing up the class of emotions into the classes of
*feelings* [*Gefuhle*] and of *desires*
[*Begehrungen*]. (2) His second modification consists in
introducing the differentiation between *serious*
[*ernstartige*] and *fantasy* [*phantasieartige*]
experiences (the latter include what he called
"assumptions"). (3) He distinguishes between the
*act*, the *(psychological) content*, and the
*object* of a mental phenomenon (see above 4.1). (4) He gives
up Brentano's thesis that we can be intentionally directed to
one and the same object in different ways, i.e., by different kinds of
mental acts, and he argues in favor of proper, nonreal (ideal) objects
corresponding to judging, feeling, and desiring. (For further
investigations regarding the affinities and divergences between both
philosophers, see Rollinger 2005 and Marek 2017.)


#### 4.3.1 Mental Elementary Experiences and Their Objects



As Meinong supposes that the different kinds of acts are coordinated
with the different kinds of presented objects [*prasentierte
Gegenstande*], his classification of mental elementary
experiences [*psychische Elementarerlebnisse*] allows a
*categorization of all objects from an intentionalistic point of
view*:




|  |
| --- |
|             Experience
[*Erlebnis*] |
| intellectual | emotional |
| Representation

[*Vorstellung*]

serious or fantasy | Thought

[*Gedanke*]

serious (= judgement [*Urteil*]) or

fantasy (= assumption [*Annahme*]) | Feeling

[*Gefuhl*]

serious or fantasy | Desire

[*Begehren*]

serious or fantasy |
| object of representation

[*Vorstellungsgegenstand*]:


objectum

[*Objekt*] | object of thought

[*Denkgegenstand*]:


objective

[*Objektiv*] | object of feeling

[*Fuhlgegenstand*]:


dignitative

[*Dignitativ*] | object of desire

[*Begehrungsgegenstand*]:


desiderative

[*Desiderativ*] |
| *Red* | *Red is a color* | *The attractiveness of red* | *The fruit should be red* |



A representation does not occur in isolation -- it always comes
to mind in the context of a further, more complex mental act that
includes this very representation as a psychological presupposition,
i.e., representations are always embedded in propositional attitudes.
We do not just present the object *red*, we judge, for example,
that something is red, or that *red* is something (1910,
SSSS38, 45; 1915, SS33; 1917, SSSS1, 8). On the
other hand, no mental act can take place without the occurrence of a
representation, and hence the objects of a mental act always include
an objectum; no objective, for instance, can subsist without an
objectum (even though the objectum in question may be a beingless
object) (1910, SS20: 135 [*101*]). The judgement that red
is a color presupposes the representations of red and of color, for
example. The common linguistic expressions of represented objecta are
nouns or adjectives. Objecta can be continuants but also occurrents,
and they can be either real or
 ideal.[1]
 Objectives are always ideal, they are something like states of
affairs or propositions and can be expressed (1) by an independent
sentence like "Red is a color" if they are judged or
assumed, and (2) by a "that"-clause ("that red is a
color") or a nominal phrase ("the colorfulness of
red") if they are judged about (1910, SS10). That which is
judged [*geurteilt*] is always an objective whereas that which
is judged about [*beurteilt*] is often an objectum but can be
an objective, a dignitative, and a desiderative as well. There is no
objective which is an objectum, although objectives may be the subject
matter of further objectives as, for example, in "Meinong
believed that the round square is round". Following his pupil
Rudolf Ameseder (1904: 54-5), Meinong stresses the point that
objectives can be characterized as those objects that not only can
*have* being but can also *be* being, whereas objecta
can have being but can never be being. This dictum is based on the
linguistic fact that the "that"-clauses "that
(object) *o* is" and "that (object) *o* is
*F*", respectively, can frequently be replaced by the
nominal (gerund) phrases "the being of *o*" and
"the being *F* of *o*", respectively (1910,
SS11: 61-2 [*50-1*]; 1915, SS5: 27;
Morscher & Simons 2001: 443-4).



Meinong was not completely sure whether his classification of mental
acts and its corresponding categorization of objects (taken
intentionalistically) were complete (1917, SS11). A candidate for
another category would be questions. Are questions reducible to
something like a specific desire to know something, as Meinong thought
(1910, SS18), or are they ultimately irreducible? And do they have
specific objects of their own, which could be coined
"quaesitives" or "rogatives" (cf. Kreibig
1914)? One might think that another candidate would be drawing
conclusions, because it is controversial whether inferences can be
understood simply as complex judgements. Meinong did not consider this
possibility; he just reduced inferences to particular (specially
"motivated") judgements about assumptions or about
judgements (1910, SSSS27-32).


#### 4.3.2 Fantasy Experiences and Serious Experiences



The distinction between fantasy (imaginary) experiences and serious
experiences concerns the act component. This distinction is a
generalization of Meinong's division of thoughts into assumption
and judgements, which he introduces in *On Assumptions* (1902).
Meinong, considering assumptions as a subclass of thoughts, places
them "between representations and judgements", as they
are, like judgements, affirmative or negative; and like
representations, without belief (1910; SSSS1, 59). Judgements
are directed to objectives *and* involve conviction, whereas
assumptions do not involve conviction -- they merely involve
entertaining the objectives they are directed at (1910: 376
[*268*]). Meinong realized that such an entertaining of
objectives without conviction plays a central role in our intellectual
and emotional lives. Asking questions, denying, reasoning, desiring,
playing games, performing or producing artistic works would not be
possible without assuming. In judging that *A or B*, for
example, one does not judge *A* and *B*, respectively
-- one only assumes them. Fantasy and serious cases can also be
found in the other kinds of experiences. As an illustration, if a
representation of red has a perceptual look because a red-quale is
involved, it is of a serious character, and if the red-representation
is merely reproductive, that is, a recollective or imaginative one, it
is a fantasy experience and so only of an imaginary character.
Meinong's application of the fantasy/serious distinction to
*all* kinds of mental acts (including the affective and
conative dimension) may seem schematic and controversial, but also
leads to remarkable insights into phenomena like art and into
understanding the role of emotions in writing and reading fiction, as
empathic experiences and reception of art provide us with paradigmatic
cases of fantasy representations, fantasy thoughts, and --
especially -- fantasy feelings. These are neither merely
representations of emotions nor serious emotions but something
intermediate between representations and serious emotions. In general,
fantasy experiences are not imagined experiences as they are not
merely representations of experiences. Adopting Mally's
distinction between fantasy judgement and pure assumption
[*Unterscheidung von Phantasieurteil und reiner Annahme*]
(1912: 61-2, fn.) Meinong later even distinguishes between (1)
*serious-like* and (2) *shadowy* fantasy experiences
[*ernstartige* versus *schattenhafte
Phantasieerlebnisse*]. A fantasy experience (e.g., an assumption)
can be understood either (1) as a pretense of experiencing seriously
(e.g., of making a judgement) or (2) as a mere entertaining of the
object (e.g., an objective without a pretense of judging) (1917,
SS6: 47-53 [*42-47*]). Introducing the concept
of shadowy fantasy experiences (or pure assumption, respectively)
allows some forms of fantasy to be understood without resort to a
pretense theory.



Assumptions do not imply conviction. Hence, no assumption can exhibit
any evidential advantage over another assumption or can be challenged
on evidential grounds. From the standpoint of an evidential
requirement, one cannot believe everything, but one can assume
everything, that is, one can assume any objective and one can
represent any objectum. Meinong calls this insight the *principle
of unrestricted freedom of assumption* [*Prinzip der*
*unbeschrankten Annahmefreiheit*] (1910, SS60) and
contrasts it with the principle of relatively constrained assumptions,
which postulates a quite unmistakable logical constraint when one
regards one or more assumptions as already given and then logically
relates further assumptions to them: "It is true that
assumptions are without exception free, absolutely regarded; but for
all that, they can be constrained relatively." (1910, SS60:
346 [*246-7*]) Over the years, Meinong maintained that
there were limitations of his principle of unrestricted freedom of
assumption. He speaks of such a limitation explicitly in connection
with the modal moment (1915, SS37: 282; see below 5.4.3), and his
discussion whether some defective objects fail outside-being and were
therefore no loyal objects can be interpreted as limiting this freedom
principle. (Cf. 1917, SS2; 1978: 377-8; see below
5.3.1.)


#### 4.3.3 Production of Representations



Assembling objects to a more complex object is an important activity
of the mind, but it does not form a separate species of elementary
experiences beyond the four aforementioned types of mental acts.
According to Meinong (1902, SS2; 1910, SS2) two or more
representations of objecta can be used to produce a new representation
of a complex objectum. The objects of the more simple representations
can be seen as the foundation of the complex object, which is always
an object of higher order, a *superius*, because it is founded
by the founding objects (*inferiora*). (See below Section 5.5.)
The diversity of red and green has *red* and *green*,
the checkered pattern has squares of different colors, and a red
square has *red* and *square* as its inferiora. In order
to get a representation of objects of higher order, of a Gestalt, a
melody, for example, you have to have representations of the more
elementary objects on which you build the complex representation. This
operation of the mind is called "production of
representations" ["*Vorstellungsproduktion*"]
because the mind is able to produce complex representations and not
already their corresponding complex objects. This conception became an
important and fruitful, although controversial, notion in Gestalt
psychology, as Meinong still acknowledges the primacy of the
elementary representations. The underlying elements of objects of
higher order, for example, are not to be seen as "only
abstractly distinguishable parts" which was assumed by the
Berlin Gestalt school. (Cf. Smith 1994, Chapt. 8: 272.)


## 5. Object Theory -- Ontology beyond Being and Non-Being


### 5.1 The Principle of Independence and the Principle of Indifference



Whatever can be experienced in some way, i.e., be the target of a
mental act, Meinong calls an object [*Gegenstand* or
*Objekt*]. The term "object" is a "relation
term" in the sense that "you shall not speak of an object
without considering a mental activity" (1888-1903: 47).
Meinong does not see an ontological but only a conceptual dependence
expressed by the term "object", and he does not determine
an object intentionally as something that is grasped but only as
something that *can* be grasped by mental acts (it *can*
be represented, judged etc.). He is neither a constructivist nor a
subjective idealist as he admits that the mental acts are not already
to be thought of as something that create objects. He (1904b, SS4;
1921a: 110) also acknowledges the following connection between
"(every) thing" and "object": Everything is an
object, but everything is logically prior to its apprehending and
pre-given [*vorgegeben*] to the mind. Referring to
Meinong's theory of knowledge lectures in the winter term
1903/4, Ernst Mally (1904, Chapt. I, SS3, 126), even states
"Everything that is something is called an object"
[*"Alles, was etwas ist, heisst ein
Gegenstand"*]).



Not only existing things but also all kinds of non-beings
(nonentities, Routley 1980: 7) find their place in Meinong's
all-embracing theory of objects -- among them even impossible
objects, like the round square, as well as paradoxical,
"defective" objects, like some forms of *the liar*
or special cases of purely self-referential thinking (*the thought
about itself*, for
 example).[2]
 Similar to Twardowski (see above 4.1), Meinong maintains that talking
about non-beings is not just speaking of nothing, i.e. there can be no
objectless representations and thoughts. He clears up the apparently
paradoxical sentence "There are objects of which it is true that
there are no such objects" (1904b, SS3) by introducing two
meanings of "there are": first as *outside-being*
(pre-giveness), second as *being*, and he tries to give a
rational account of the paradoxical sentence by referring to two
closely related principles: (1) the "principle of the
independence of so-being from being" [*"Prinzip der
Unabhangigkeit des Soseins vom Sein"*], and (2) the
"principle of the indifference of the pure object to
being" ("principle of the outside-being of the pure
object" [*"Satz vom Aussersein des reinen
Gegenstandes"*]) (1904b, SS3-4).



Ad 1: The *independence principle*, first formulated by Ernst
Mally in the year 1903 and a little later in his 1904 (Chapt. I,
SS3), states that "the so-being of an object is not affected
by its non-being" (Meinong 1904b: 8 [*82*]), that is to
say, an object's having properties is independent of whether it
has being or not. Meinong's comments on this principle show that
it combines several claims; in particular, (i) the
*characterization principle*, which postulates that any object
has those properties that it is characterized as having (e.g.,
"The *AB* is *A* and *B*,
respectively"), and (ii) the *denial of the ontological
assumption*, which denies that there are no true propositions
about what does not have being (cf. Routley 1980).



Ad 2: The *indifference principle* says: "The object is
by nature indifferent to being, although in any case one of the
object's two objectives of being, its being or its non-being,
subsists" (1904b: 13 [*86*]). This formulation is
supposed to be less misleading than the claim that "the pure
object stands 'beyond being and non-being' "
["*der reine Gegenstand stehe* '*jenseits von
Sein und Nichtsein*'"]. The latter catchphrase means
that neither being nor non-being belongs to the make-up of an
object's nature (its so-being [*Sosein*]), but it should
not be taken to mean that an object is beyond being and non-being in
the sense that it neither has being nor does not have being --
the second clause of the indifference principle makes this clear.
Although the non-being of an object may be guaranteed by the
object's nature -- as in the case of the round square, for
example --, the non-being does not belong to its nature. In other
words: Being (or non-being) is not part of an object's nature,
but nevertheless "the law of excluded middle lays it down that
every object necessarily stands in a fact of being or in a fact of
non-being" (Findlay 1963: 49). It is worth noticing that there
are two interpretations of negation (narrower, internal, predicate, or
ontological negation *versus* wider, external, sentence,
logical negation), and accordingly there are two versions of the law
of excluded middle. Meinong seems to accept the law of excluded middle
only with respect to sentence negation.


### 5.2 Incomplete Objects


#### 5.2.1 Incomplete Objects and Their Logic



In his 1915, SS25, Meinong introduces in more detail the notion of
*incompletely determined objects*, i.e., objects that are
undetermined with respect to at least one property. Pure things like
the triangle as such are incomplete objects. The triangle as such has
three angles (a *constitutive* property), it has three sides (a
*consecutive* property, one that is somehow included in the
object's constitutive properties), but it is neither scalene nor
non-scalene, neither green nor non-green etc. In such cases denying
that *a* is *F* does not imply affirming that *a*
is not *F*, because the denial that *a* is *F*
may also be correct when *a* is not determined with respect to
*F*. Incomplete objects infringe the law of excluded middle
(and impossible objects infringe the law of noncontradiction) with
respect to internal negation only (predicate negation:
"~") and not with respect to external negation (sentence
negation: "!"). Meinong would have acknowledged the
validity of



> 
> Law of Noncontradiction:
> [?]*F*[?]*x*!(*Fx* [?]
> !*Fx*)
> 



and



> 
> Law of Excluded Middle:
> [?]*F*[?]*x*(*Fx* [?]
> !*Fx*)
> 



but he would also have admitted the theses:



> 
> [?]*F*[?]*x*[*Fx* [?]
> (~*F*)*x*]
>   
> 
> [?]*F*[?]*x* ![*Fx* [?]
> (~*F*)*x*]
> 



More recent philosophical work shows that characterizing
determinations can be constructed which go against any classical
logical law. The object *the square such that it is not the case
that it is square* is characterized as being square and also being
such that it is not the case that it is square. These two
determinations, however, lead to a contradiction involving external
negation. (See Routley 1980; Simons 1992: 185; Thrush 2001b.)


#### 5.2.2 Indeterminacy with Respect to Being



With respect to being, Meinong states that all complete objects have
either being or non-being, and all incomplete objects lack being.
Meinong's indifference principle accommodates the law of
excluded middle in the external but not in the internal version. From
the fact that incomplete objects do not have being, it does not follow
that they have non-being as well. Some of them, for example,
incomplete objects that are also contradictorily determined, have
non-being; others, like the triangle as such, are not determined with
respect to being at all.



Using "*B*!" as an abbreviation for Meinong's
"has being", this can be summed up as follows:


* If object *x* is determined with respect to being
[*seinsbestimmt*] then !(*B*!*x*) -
(~*B*!)*x*.
* If *x* is not determined with respect to being then
![!(*B*!*x*) -
(~*B*!)*x*].
* "!(*B*!*x*)" either implies
"(~*B*!)*x*" or "*x* is not
determined with respect to being".



This indeterminacy with respect to being
[*Seinsunbestimmtheit*] must not be mixed up with the
indifference to being (or outside-being [*Aussersein*]),
because every object has outside-being whereas only some of them
-- the square (as such), for example -- are not determined
with respect to being (1915, SS25).


#### 5.2.3 Incomplete Objects as the Territory "Where Possibility Is at Home"



Incomplete objects play an important role in Meinong's late
philosophy, for instance as "auxiliary objects" to
indicate the (usually complete) target objects of our intending (see
below Section 6), and as the basis of ascribing possibility and
degrees of possibility to objectives. Some objectives are factual,
some nonfactual [*untatsachlich*], and some are neither
(i.e. "subfactual" [*untertatsachlich*]). The
subfactual objectives, which concern incomplete objects, constitute
the proper territory "where possibility is at home" (1915,
SS24: 167). Incomplete objects that are not determined with
respect to being serve as the foundation of possibility insofar as
neither the factuality nor the nonfactuality of their being and their
so-being (except their constitutive properties) is specified. For
instance, the objective expressed by the sentence "The
[incomplete] object *the (fair) die* will show a three with the
next throw" has neither factuality nor nonfactuality, but it is
subfactual to the degree of 1/6. The borderline cases are degree 1
(factuality) and degree 0 (nonfactuality). Meinong states that
incomplete objects can somehow be embedded or involved in complete
objects, not like a part in a whole, but rather in the sense that for
certain incomplete objects there are (more) complete ones which have
at least all the determinations that the incomplete objects in
question have. Such an incomplete object, the die, for instance, can
be said to be *implected* [*implektiert*] in a (more)
complete object: this white ivory die, for instance (1915, SS29;
see also Section 6 below). One may apply the possibility ascription of
incomplete objects to the corresponding complete objects in an
indirect way. If the throw of a concrete die actually shows a three,
the objective "This die shows a three" is factual (degree
of possibility = 1) and we cannot say that it really has the
possibility degree of 1/6. This degree of possibility can be
attributed to this throw in a derivative way only; its possibility is
1/6 in so far as the throw is treated merely as a throw of a fair
die.


### 5.3 A Meinongian Table of Categories


#### 5.3.1 Outside-Being as a Borderline-Case of a Mode of Being



Meinong repeatedly ponders the question of whether outside-being is a
further mode of being or just a lack of being (1904b, SS4; 1910,
SS12; 1917, SS2; 1978: 153-4, 261, 358-9, 377). He
finally interprets outside-being as a borderline case of a kind of
being (1910: 80 [*62*]). Every object is prior to its
apprehension, i.e., objects are pre-given [*vorgegeben*] to the
mind, and this pre-givenness is due do the (ontological) status of
outside-being. According to Meinong's distinction between
judgements that state that something is so and so
[*Soseinsurteile*] and judgements about the mode of being of an
object [*Seinsurteile*], the most general determination of
so-being is *being an object*, and the most general
determination of being is *outside-being*. The concept of an
object cannot be defined in terms of a qualified genus and
differentia. It does not have a negative counterpart, and
correlatively outside-being does not seem to have a negation either
(1921a, Section 2 B: 102-7).



But this claim is challenged in lecture notes from 1917/18 (1978:
377-8), where Meinong discusses cases of negative outside-being,
for example so-called *defective* objects -- objects that
involve paradoxes like the liar or the apprehension of inapprehensible
objects. (See also 1917, SS2: 22-4 [*20-1*])
where he states that there is a typical case of something that lacks
outside-being, namely a round square concretely presented.) In lecture
notes from 1910 (1978: 227), Meinong also mentions absurdities,
examples of nonsense [*Unsinn*], and tries to contrast them
with cases of a kind of inconsistency [*Widersinn*] like the
round square. Meinong tentatively defines such an inconsistency as
something that involves incompatible determinations
[*Unvertragliches*] but is still understandable, whereas
nonsense would be something that cannot be understood at all. "A
blot of ink fiddled down on a piano", "green
virtue", and "an automobile paved with therefore"
seem to be examples of incomprehensible nonsense. In the end, however,
Meinong gives up the attempt to distinguish nonsense from mere
inconsistency. Meinong's point, rather, is that although the
first two examples mix determinations of different groups, his theory
of objects can describe them as based on incompatibility, and it gives
an account of this kind of incompatibility, whereas the last example
has only linguistic but no object theoretical relevance (cf. also
1978: 385-6).


#### 5.3.2 Meinong's Non-Intentionalistic Table of Categories



If one puts the paradoxical and nonsensical cases aside,
Meinong's table of categories according to the modes of being
looks as follows:





|  |
| --- |
| I. Objects

(Everything is an object, and every object has outside-being
[*Aussersein*]) |
| I.A. Objects that have being | I.B. Objects that do not have being |
| I.A.1.

Real objects

(which exist as well as subsist) | I.A.2.

Ideal objects

(which only subsist) | I.B.1.

Objects that have non-being | I.B.2.

Objects that are not determined with respect to being |
| | | | | I.B.1.a.

Noncontradictory Objects | I.B.1.b.

Contradictory Objects | | |
| Complete objects | Complete objects | Complete objects | Incomplete objects; non-being is "explicitly
presupposed" ([*ausdrucklich vorgegeben*], 1915:
740) | Complete or incomplete objects | Incomplete objects; not contradictorily determined and their
non-being is not "explicitly presupposed" |
| Examples:

Doughnuts (like the one on the table in front of me), tables, stars,
etc.; occurrences such as my judging or desiring now | Examples:

The objective (state of affairs) of my doughnut being on the table;
the state of affairs of my doughnut not being in the fridge; the
number of doughnuts in front of me | Examples:

The doughnut on the table but which is made of chocolate instead of
vanilla; the state of affairs of my doughnut being in the fridge; the
Platonistic idea of "doughnuthood" (if Platonism
fails) | Examples:

The mountain made of doughnuts; the golden mountain; the perpetual
motion machine | Examples:

The ring-shaped doughnut without a hole; the round square; the set of
all sets; the greatest prime number; the doughnut on the table but
with some property in *addition* to its complete set of
properties | Examples:

The doughnut as such; the "auxiliary" object: my doughnut
(see Sections 5.4.3 and 6 below); the object whose only property is
being blue; The Triangle |




Being has two modes, to wit *existence*, which is linked with
time, and mere *subsistence*, which is timeless (1910: 64
[*52*]). Nevertheless Meinong states that existence implies
subsistence, and non-subsistence implies non-existence (1896: 250;
1910: 74 [*58*]; 1915, SS11: 63). All objects that subsist
(and *a fortiori* all objects that exist) are completely
determined, but not all complete objects exist or have being (1915,
SSSS25-7: 169-202).



The ideal-real distinction is to be explained by the terms
"existence", "subsistence", and "mere
subsistence". In 1978, (252-3, 366-7), Meinong calls
those objects *real* (1) which exist (= "externally
real" [*ausserlich real*]), my chair or my
desiring, for example, or (2) which could exist by their nature (=
internal reality [*innere Realitat*], *ibid*.) as,
for example, my golden chair. Physical and psychological things as
well are real. If an object that subsists also exists, it is a
*real* object, but if an object that subsists cannot exist
(i.e., can merely subsist), it is an ideal object. Hence, ideal
objects can never correctly be said to exist. There are also ideal
objects that do not subsist, for example the being of a biangle or the
non-identity between the morning star and the evening star. Absences,
limits, the number (of some existent or non-existent) chairs,
similarities, and objectives are further examples of ideal objects
(1899, SS6; 1910, SS12).


### 5.4 Beingless Objects -- Russell versus Meinong


#### 5.4.1 Russell's Criticism



Russell (especially 1905a; see also 1905b and 1907) chiefly objects to
Meinong's theory as inconsistent because of the following:
Objection (1): Some propositions about impossible objects (e.g.,
"The round square is round and not round") are
contradictory. Objection (2): Although it is a fact that the
*existent* present King of France or, respectively, the
*existent* round square does not exist, one also has to
conclude (using the characterization principle; see Section 5.1 above)
that he/it does exist. Russell thinks he can provide a radical cure
for Meinong's inconsistencies by applying his theory of
descriptions, which treats definite (and indefinite) descriptions as
incomplete symbols that are to be eliminated in favor of existential
quantification and predicates. According to Russell, the problems
involved stem from the mistaken view that the grammatical form of
language always shows its logical form, and that if an expression
means something, there must always be some thing that it means. But
while denoting phrases such as "The *so-and-so*"
look like referring expressions they are, in fact, nothing of the
sort. It is because Meinong wrongly assumes that such expressions are
referring expressions whose meaning is what they refer to that his
theory is apt to infringe logical laws.


#### 5.4.2 Meinong's Answers



Meinong answered objection (1) by denying that beingless objects must
obey the law of noncontradiction -- only actual and possible
objects do (1907, SS3: 16). On the contrary, thinking about
impossibilia makes the suspension of the law of noncontradiction
indispensable. Meinong's later appeal to the above-mentioned
distinction between negation in a wider and narrower sense (5.2.1)
shows that he meant only the law of noncontradiction in its
traditional, ontological and not in its logical, propositional form.
According to Meinong's characterization principle, the round
square is both round and non-round, but it is not the case that (i)
the round square is round and (ii) the round square is not round
(i.e., it is not the case that the round square is round). The
triangle is neither green nor non-green, but nevertheless it is either
the case that the triangle is green or it is not the case that it is
green. In such cases, Meinong does not accept that the predicate
negation "*A* is non-*B*" is equivalent to
the sentence-negation "Not (*A* is *B*)".
The equivalence of both kinds of negation
"(~*F*)*x* - !(*Fx*)" does
not hold for impossibilia and incomplete objects but only for actual
and possible objects where "possible" seems to be taken in
a strong sense that relates possibility with completeness: "Only
complete objects are possible" Meinong says in a lecture note
dating from 1910 (1978: 228). (To see that there is still a problem
left, see 5.2.1 above; cf. also Swanson 2011 which criticizes
Meinong's distinction between narrow and wide negation and
argues that Russell's account is to be preferred to a
(Neo-)Meinongian view.)



Meinong's reply to objection (2) consists in stressing the
distinction between "being existing"
[*Existierend-Sein*] as a determination of so-being and
"existence" ("to exist" [*Existieren*])
as a determination of being. Meinong's distinction between
judgements of so-being and judgements of being, combined with the
indifference principle that being does not belong to the
object's nature (so-being), reminds one of Kant's dictum
that being is not a real predicate. Meinong did not accept the
ontological argument either, and argued that "being
existing" is a determination of so-being and can in a certain
sense be properly accepted even of the object "existing golden
mountain," and, say, even of the object "existing round
square," whereas "existence", which is a
determination of being, will no more belong to the one than it does to
the other (1907, SS3; 1910, SS20: 141 [*105*]). In
other words, according to the characterization principle both the
existing round square and the existing golden mountain (Russell 1907
uses "existent") are existing (existent), but nevertheless
they do not exist. Russell (1907, 439) could not see any difference
between "being existent" and "to exist" and
had "no more to say on this head." With that, the
published debate on nonentities came to an end.


#### 5.4.3 The Nuclear/Extra-nuclear Distinction and the Modal Moment



That there is indeed a difference between "being existing
(existent)" and "to exist" can also be made clear by
a distinction Meinong took over from Mally, the distinction between
two kinds of properties (determinations), *nuclear* versus
*extra-nuclear* properties [*konstitutorische* versus
*ausserkonstitutorische Bestimmungen*] (1915, SS25).
The nuclear properties of an object are the properties characterizing
the nature of a presented object -- what we might call its
"ordinary" (constitutive and consecutive) properties
--, and the extra-nuclear properties of an object are those
properties that are neither a constitutive nor a consecutive part of
its nature. Some of the extra-nuclear properties may supervene on the
nature of the object, some may not. According to the characterization
principle, the round square, for instance, is round and a square,
i.e., it is determined by the nuclear properties being round and being
a square. *Being thought of by someone*, on the other hand, can
be seen as an extra-nuclear property of the round square which does
not supervene on it. Nevertheless, the round square has as its
supervening extra-nuclear determinations such properties as *being
determined by the (nuclear) property round*, *being determined
by two (nuclear) properties*, *being undetermined by the
property red*, *being incomplete*, *being
contradictorily determined*, and *having non-being*.
Similarly, the object *a red* (*thing*) [*ein
Rotes*] is just red, has only *red* as its nuclear
determination, and can, therefore, be called a "simple
object", with simplicity being one of its supervening
extra-nuclear determinations (another is being-incomplete).



If an extra-nuclear property like simplicity were treated as a further
"ordinary", characterizing property, one would be caught
up in a contradiction: As the object *a red thing* is a simple
object, it has two properties, redness and simplicity, and is,
therefore, not simple but complex. The introduction of the
nuclear/extra-nuclear distinction allows us to avoid this
contradiction. Without it Meinong would also have had problems holding
the principle that every particular triangle has *all* the
properties that belong to the (incomplete) object *the triangle in
abstracto* (*the triangle as such*). Particular triangles
are triangles, have three sides etc., and they are complete, but
according to the mentioned principle, they would also be
incomplete.



Furthermore, Meinong states that one can treat [*behandeln*]
such determinations like *complete* in two ways: as an
extra-nuclear determination but also as a nuclear one. If one
considers an object through its three nuclear determinations
*complete*, *brown*, and *quadrangle* one has not
yet decided the question whether one intends the object to have the
extra-nuclear determination of completeness. But one can do this
simply by attributing the extra-nuclear version of the determination
*complete*. Meinong just trusts in the ability of the
extra-nuclear function of the determination *complete* to
ensure that one intends a complete object, and he only wonders about
the reason that makes a determination nuclear or extra-nuclear (1915,
SS26: 189-90). Our mental powers are limited as our human
mind cannot take in the infinity of the determinations of complete
objects. Despite this limitation we can think and speak about the
world and hit [*treffen*] an existing and, therefore, complete
object because we consider an object that is incomplete to be complete
in its extra-nuclear version. The object hit by the incomplete object
that is present to the mind (and functions as an "auxiliary
object") is called the "target object" (more about
this in 6 below). Nevertheless, our thinking of things in the world
with the aid of auxiliary objects and the extra-nuclear determinations
may fail. If you think "the golden mountain" in this way
there is no corresponding target object that exists; there is only the
incomplete object that does not exist (cf. 1915: 740). It is worth
noting that you can also hit incomplete objects by this method. You
succeed in hitting the incomplete object *the triangle as such*
when you simply think the object *the triangle* with the
extra-nuclear determination of incompleteness (1915, SS26:
191-2).



Meinong *does not explicitly* apply the nuclear/extra-nuclear
distinction to the being existent/to exist case. This is done in some
logical reconstructions of Meinong's object theory which favor a
dual property approach (for example, Parsons 1980; Routley 1980;
Jacquette 1996; see below 5.4.4 and the entry on
 nonexistent objects).



In order to explain his view, Meinong resorts to the notions of the
*modal moment* and *watered-down factuality*
[*depotenzierte Tatsachlichkeit*] (1915,
SSSS37-38). Objectives can be *assumed* to be
subsistent (factual), although, actually, they do not subsist (are
nonfactual). For instance, we can imagine that it is a fact that
squares are round. This assumption has as its object *the fact that
squares are round*; nevertheless this assumption is directed to a
non-subsistent (nonfactual) objective. On the one hand (according to
the characterization principle), the objective *the fact that
squares are round* is a fact; on the other hand (as the objective
in question cannot subsist), it is not a fact. Meinong explains away
the discrepancy with the introduction of two readings of
"fact". The second reading, as Findlay (1963: 103-4)
puts it, concerns factuality in a "full-strength" sense,
whereas the first reading is about factuality in a
"watered-down" sense. The watered-down version fails a
feature that the full-strength version has: Meinong calls it
"the modal moment". In pure, counterfactual imagination we
can *correctly* assume the watered-down version of factuality
but we cannot correctly assume the full-strength version of it --
there seems to be a lack of freedom of assumption, Meinong thinks
(1915, SS37: 282).



Meinong thinks that one cannot unrestrictedly apply analytic sentences
to the sphere of being. Analytically true sentences like "A
(The) *BA* is *B*" do not imply the full
factuality of the being of the objects involved. The factuality of the
being of a *B*, the being of an *A*, and the being of a
*BA*, respectively, is "watered down" in such a
sentence -- it lacks the modal moment. According to this view,
"The sun is the sun" or "The eclipsed sun is
eclipsed" has more than one reading. On the interpretation of
these sentences as purely analytic, no claim as to the existence of
the sun or an eclipsed object is made. However, if an existential
claim is implied, the sentences could be false; they are not purely
analytic anymore. The terms "the sun" and "the
eclipsed sun" may express the pure objects (without any
existential commitment), or they may express the actual (eclipsed) sun
that exists. But this existence claim is an extra claim and cannot be
gained through an analytic formula.



Because of this, only "The existent *B* is
existent", where no existential claim is made, can be analytic.
In thinking "The existent *B* is existent", one can
apprehend the existence of *B*, but one cannot grasp the
genuine factuality of *B*'s existence. In order to do so,
one would also have to encounter the factually existing object and
thereby *learn* this fact of being (= the objective of being
with the modal moment). One may even assert "The *B*
which exists exists", but if this sentence is to be understood
as analytic, it can only be interpreted as a variant of "The
existent *B* is existent". In short, it is in no way
within one's mental power to determine objectively which
objectives have the modal moment. The principle of unrestricted
freedom of assumption thus finds a limit with respect to the modal
moment. Concerning the sentence "The existent round square
exists", Meinong thinks that it is either analytically true (and
no existential claim is made) or it is the expression of an
evidentially false judgement because there exists no round square. It
follows that for Meinong it is not possible to apply the
characterization principle to cases where the existence of the objects
is presupposed to be a fact (cf. Jorgensen 2002b).


#### 5.4.4 Meinong's Impact on Modern Logic and Semantics



Meinong's conception of beingless objects has proved to have
useful applications in intentional contexts where simple applications
of Russell's theory of descriptions do not work. Consider the
following:



> 
> Meinong believed that the round square is round.
> 



This is true, but Russell's theory of definite descriptions
implies that it is false. Depending on whether the scope of the
description is wide or narrow, this sentence permits two possible
analyses:



> 
> 
> There exists exactly one round square, and Meinong believed that it is
> round.
> 
> 
> 
> Meinong believed that there exists exactly one round square, and that
> it is round.
> 
> 
> 



The first analysis is false, because no round square exists. The
second is false, because Meinong did not believe in the existence of
the round square (Routley 1980: 118-9; Simons 1992: 184-5;
Priest 2005: 109-10; cf. Castaneda 1974: 6-10).



It is controversial whether Russell's interpretation was
naive or whether there was indeed a naive Meinong whom
Russell rightly criticized. In fact, many modern logico-semantical
"re-constructions" and philosophical interpretations show
a Meinongian object theory that is not naive but tenable and
fruitful. Russell's claim that Meinong's theory is
internally inconsistent can be refuted. There are at least three main
accounts that overcome the naivety (cf. the entries on
 nonexistent objects,
 Sections 4 & 5, and on
 existence,
 section 2): (1) The first consists in the elaboration of
Mally's nuclear/extra-nuclear distinction, which Meinong
adopted. Routley and (in particular) Parsons (in addition to authors
like Jacquette) are in accord with this dual-property approach. (2)
Another strategy is the dual-copula approach which has its origin in
Mally's distinction between an object's being determined
[*determiniert sein*] by a property and an object's
satisfying [*erfullen*] a property (Mally 1912; see entry
on
 Ernst Mally).
 On this approach, Mally's distinction is interpreted as a
distinction between two modes of predication of properties, namely, in
Zalta's terms, between "encoding" and
"exemplifying" a property. Sympathetic to the dual-copula
approach are, for instance, Castaneda, Rapaport, Zalta,
Pasniczek, and Reicher. (3) Adopting a paraconsistent logic, that is,
a logic in which inconsistencies do not imply everything, is a further
attempt to confine the infringement of fundamental logical principles
(Routley, Priest). One version of such an approach is Berto and
Priest's *Modal Meinongianism*, so-named because
"characterization is understood with reference to worlds other
than the actual", including impossible worlds (Berto &
Priest 2014: 184).


### 5.5 Objects of Higher Order



Some objects are, in a way, founded on other objects. A founding
object is an *inferius*, as it is in some way inferior and also
prior to the founded object, that is, an inferius is of lower order
with respect to its superior object. Such a *superius* is,
therefore, coined *an object of higher order* (1899,
SSSS2-7). Objects of higher order presuppose founding
objects; you can also say that the superius supervenes on its
inferiora. In the case of four nuts that form a plane square one can
state "There are four nuts on the floor", but one can also
state that there is a square of nuts over there, i.e., the nuts form a
square. The nuts are the founding objects, the inferiora, and the
founded higher object (the superius) is the square of nuts (1910,
SSSS4, 6). Another example is given by the combination of the
following tokens "**:-)**" or by a
circle with three points and a round line -- they make a face
picture, a smiley. Meinong is a kind of ontological atomist as he
thinks that there are objects of lowest order -- objects which
cannot be objects of higher order. These genuinely simple objects are
called *infima* (1921a, Sect. 2B: 105). Although objects of
higher order are based on infima they are not reducible to them;
properties of superiora supervene on properties of their inferiora.
Infima can be presented only by the mental act of an elementary
representation, while objects of higher order can be presented by
representations (gained by the production of representation; see above
4.3.3) and by other mental acts as well. In Meinong's later
work, objects of higher order are complexes (comprising mere
collections as a borderline case), relations, and the aforementioned
objects of mental acts, namely objectives, dignitatives and
desideratives (1917, SS11). Every object of higher order includes
its constituents and a relation which combines them in a specific way.
Not all objects of higher order have mereological parts. The objective
"The round square does not exist" has being (subsists),
although its constituent "the round square" is a beingless
object. According to Meinong's examples of existing things, real
objects of higher order may also exist (an experience or a house, for
example), but the number of stones and the (dis-)similarities between
the stones of an existing house do not exist; they only subsist and
are of ideal character (1899, SS6; 1978: 252).



Meinong's conception of objects of higher order was strongly
influenced by Christian von Ehrenfels' Gestalt theory (Ehrenfels
1890). Despite some differences, there are significant similarities
between Meinong's objects of higher order and Ehrenfels'
Gestalt qualities (1891; 1899; cf. Smith 1994, Chapt. 8).


### 5.6 Facts and Truths



Objectives, the objects of thinking, are ideal, not real objects. They
may have being or not, but they cannot exist at all. Like all other
(possible) ideal objects, they can merely subsist. Concrete
occurrences, however, can exist. They are therefore real and must be
distinguished from the objectives, which are ideal. An objective which
subsists can be called factual -- it is a fact
[*Tatsache*]. Nonfactual objectives (nonfacts,
[*Untatsachen*]) do not subsist and are thus objects beyond
being. "True" in its subjective sense is a relative
predicate as it can be attributed only to subsistent objectives in so
far as they are apprehended by thoughts (judgements or assumptions).
In an analogous way one can also attribute truth to thoughts in so far
as they present subsistent objectives (facts). "Truth" in
its objective sense, however, simply means a subsistent objective, a
fact. Hence Meinong's truth theory is a borderline case of a
correspondence theory; it is an identity theory of truth (1915,
SS7; 1910, SS13). The relation of possibility to probability
corresponds to the relation of factuality to truth. Possibility is
objective and absolute, whereas probability is in a way subjective and
relative. What is nowadays called "objective probability",
Meinong calls "possibility" ("degrees of
possibility").


## 6. Expressing Mind and Intending Objects -- Meinong's Theory of Meaning



Meinong did not develop a comprehensive philosophy of language; his
remarks on language are rather fragmentary and embedded as digressions
in his object-theoretical works. In 1910, SS4: 28 [*27*],
he summarizes his views this way: "a word means something so far
as it expresses a presenting experience, and the object thereby
presented is the meaning [*Bedeutung*]." This statement
can be generalized to all linguistic items: If someone judges
"The golden mountain does not exist" she expresses a
judgement and its presupposed representations, and she means the
objective that the golden mountain does not exist, and all the other
presupposed objecta such as something golden and a mountain.



In the above quotation "means" and "meaning"
have two uses: (1) Meaning as a relation between signs and experiences
(acts), i.e., the relation of expressing experiences by means of
signs; and (2) meaning as a relation between signs and the objects
that are presented by the expressed experiences (more exactly: by the
corresponding psychological contents), that is, the relation of
expressing the objects of experiences. Referring to Martinak 1901,
Meinong states that signs are objects which let someone know the
existence of (usually other) objects. *A* is a sign for someone
if it constitutes the epistemic ground to an epistemic consequent
*B*: If you can infer the presence of *B* from the
presence of *A*, then *A* is a sign of *B* for
you, and the being of *B* is the meaning of the sign
*A*. Sign and meaning in this sense cover a broad range of
cases, including natural, "real" signs like dark clouds
for thunderstorm or tears for sorrow, and artificial,
"final" signs as, for example, (groups of) words express
mental acts. An experience (like happiness, sorrow, conviction) can be
expressed by an object (a smiling face, tears, and a group of words
respectively). This object (more exactly: the fact that there is such
an object) lets you know the expressed act (experience, mental
phenomenon) and, therefore, functions as a sign which has the act
behind it as its meaning1. If *A* is the sign that
has the experience *B* as its meaning1, and if the
object *C* is presented by the expressed experience *B*,
then the sign *A* is connected not only with *B* but, in
a new way, also with *C*, which is the meaning2. The
utterance "It is raining in Graz" means1 a
judgement, and it means2 the object of the judgement, i.e.,
the objective that it is raining in Graz. In other words, you can say
the utterance expresses the judgement in one way, and it expresses the
object presented by the judgement in another way. Meinong observes
that the meaning of a word is usually an actual meaning for someone,
but he also mentions in contrast to such a speaker's meaning the
potential, linguistic meaning of a word.



Meinong's account from 1910 is represented in the schematic
diagram below (cf. Simons 1992, 163):



> 
> ![figure 1](figure1.jpg)
> 



When someone utters in a sentence "something that is
black" and "something that is light", respectively,
two different sorts of things can be meant by those expressions: (1)
the meant object is *closed* to further possible determination;
(2) the meant object is *open* to further possible
determination. If "something that is black" is used in the
open way, we think of the object as something that can have other
properties besides blackness; it may be identical with the object that
is meant by "something that is light". If we use the
expressions "something that is black" and "something
that is light" in the closed way, the objects meant by these
expressions are necessarily distinct. In general, we speak about real,
existent things, which as completely determined objects have
infinitely many determinations. As our mind can only grasp a finite
number of aspects, we usually intend the objects as open (1910,
SS45). Nevertheless a question remains: That an object appears
closed or open to us, is due to our intending (meaning). But what
makes an open attitude open?



Later, in 1915, Meinong points out that we can use incomplete objects
(see above 5.2, and 5.4.3), like *a square brown thing*, as a
kind of "auxiliary object" [*Hilfsgegenstand*] to
intend (mean) more completely determined objects, like *a square
brown thing in the dining room*, or even complete ones as the
"target objects" [*Zielgegenstande*] of our
intending. In order to apprehend a target object, the auxiliary object
has to have an "implexive being" [*implexives
Sein*] in the target object, that is, it has to be in a way
involved -- Meinong says "implected" -- in the
more complete object. An incomplete object *A* is
*implected* in a more complete object *T* if and only if
*T* has all the determinations *A* has (cf. 1915,
SSSS27, 29; Section 5.2.3 above). In order to aim *at a
complete object*, it is essential "to include the moment of
completeness explicitly in the intending. If I want to intend
something wholly determined by the thought 'a square brown
thing', without necessarily knowing the determinations which
distinguish it from something else, I need only think of 'a
determinate square brown thing'" (1915, SS26: 189).
Meinong points out that the determinacy or completeness he hints at
cannot be simply seen as a nuclear property -- it has to be of an
extra-nuclear character. (See Section 5.4.3 above.)



As auxiliary objects are incomplete and as they can be implected in
complete target objects, they bear a remarkable resemblance to things
of abstract nature like universals, concepts or types. Indeed, in the
appendix to his 1915 (p. 739-40) Meinong himself interprets such
incomplete objects as platonic universals without being (see also
1978: 368; Section 4.1 above), and he also states there: "what
words mean [*bedeuten*] is the auxiliary object, and what they
designate [*nennen*] is the target object" (1915: 741).
This sounds like Frege's sense/reference distinction: The
incomplete, auxiliary objects' role is akin to the role of
Frege's sense, which functions as the mode of presentation and
the determinant of its referent. Meinong's view of incomplete
objects as auxiliary objects has also a close affinity with the
denoting concepts view of Russell (1903).


## 7. Values and Emotions


### 7.1 Meinong's Initial Theory -- Value Subjectivism



Meinong's early theory of value is influenced by Carl
Menger's subjectivist interpretation of value in economics as
something that is not inherent in the goods but determined by
people's subjective valuation. According to Menger (1871, Chapt.
3, SS1), values are not independent real things which exist
outside the consciousness of men; value is rather the importance
[*Bedeutung*] that people attribute to something to the extent
that it satisfies their needs. Meinong criticises and modifies,
generalizes and extends that view. He is not only concerned with
economic value but with value in general, and he tries to apply
general value theory to other fields than economics, for instance to
ethics and aesthetics. Already in his early courses on practical
philosophy, Meinong bases ethics mainly on general value theory and
value theory on psychology.



Meinong's early theory of value (1894; 1895) can be dubbed a
*subjectivist theory* insofar as Meinong holds the thesis that
value experiencies are explanatorily prior to values, that is, things
have values because of our value attitudes [*Werthaltungen*],
and not that we would value things because they have a value *per
se*. A value attitude is a value-feeling
[*Wertgefuhl*], for instance, the feeling that rescuing
this person from a tricky situation is good or meritorious. Value
attitudes themselves are neither judgements about one's
value-feelings nor judgements about the values of objects. A
value-feeling is an emotional response to believed states of affairs
and presupposes, therefore, judgements and representations (ideas) of
the intended objects as so-called "psychological
presuppositions" (1894, SS11). The objects of emotions are
set up before the mind by those judgements and ideas. Genuine value
errors (i.e., false emotional responses to presented objects) are not
possible. Errors can only occur in those judgements that are
psychological presuppositions of value attitudes (that the person is
in a perilous situation if she is not, for instance) and in
misjudgements about one's own (manifest and latent) value
attitudes (1894: 77-81; 1895).



Meinong (1894; 1895) thinks that there are no absolute, impersonal
values, and thus values cannot be defined without the concept of a
subject being able to have value-feelings. Values can be seen as a
*special relation between the object* that has value *and
the subject* for whom the object has value (1894: 71-2).
Although Meinong considers himself to be a value subjectivist at this
stage, he already includes some kind of *non-subjective*,
namely intersubjective and dispositional, conditions in the definition
of values. Values are conceptually determined by value-feelings, but a
value cannot simply be characterized as an assemblage of
value-feelings. A value judgement [*Werturteil*], that is,
judging that something has value or disvalue, goes far beyond the
actual value feeling, and therefore the decision about its truth value
is primarily a matter for cognition and not for emotion (1895,
SS4). The verbal expression of a value judgement is neither the
verbal expression of one's actual value feeling nor the verbal
judgement about one's actual appreciation or aversion. It
expresses the judgement that the thing in question has the ability to
invoke appreciation or aversion by an adequately oriented subject with
a normal disposition under appropriate circumstances (1894: 25; 1895:
328).



Values are always personal or interpersonal values, that is, values
for an individual or a collective of individuals, respectively. In
discussing moral values, Meinong attaches them not to an individual
subject as such but to a collective subject, to the "surrounding
totality" [*umgebende Gesamtheit*] to which the
individuals in question belong -- in the end up to the totality
of mankind -- (1894: 168ff, 205, 216-7), or, in a more
personified form to the *representative of social interests*
(1894: 187). The constitutive nature of values (and value-feelings,
respectively) itself is indefinable or unanalyzable insofar as it
cannot be derived from concepts like utility, happiness, pleasantness,
biological needs or cost (1894, SSSS2-4; 1923, I,
SSSS2-5). The value properties of an object are not its
intrinsic, fundamental properties like common physical or
psychological properties, they are higher order properties and
external to the object, something dependent upon the underlying
properties of the object *and* the subject.



Meinong, being an ethical relativist and cognitivist, emphasizes that
the presence of moral values is an empirical fact (1894: 170), and
ethics, like value theory in general, is an *empirical science*
(1894: 225). Against the reproach for having fallen victim to a kind
of naturalistic fallacy, Meinong could reply, first, the he does not
confuse the intellectual, cognitive side with the emotional one, and
second, that some facts are constituted by the intentional (emotional
and intellectual) attitudes of an individual or the members of a
community and, because of that, acquire a valuative character and a
normative strength.



Meinong bases values on feelings and not on desires, and he critically
contrasted his kind of emotivism to Ehrenfels' voluntarism, a
more conative, desire-based theory of values. For Meinong, things have
value because we value things, and we desire things because they have
value for us. (1894: 15, 25; 1895: 341, where he comes closer to
Ehrenfels. Cf. Fabian & Simons 1986: 57-75; Schuhmann 2001,
Reicher 2009.)


### 7.2 Meinong's Later Theory -- Value Objectivism



Later on, Meinong (1912; 1917; 1923) became a value objectivist, and
value theory was taken up into his theory of objects together with his
epistemology and philosophical psychology. He does not consider value
experiences as constitutive of values anymore. Value experiences make
values only accessible to the subject. They have a presenting function
of their own ("emotional presentation") and are a means of
apprehending values analogous to sensations in perception. Moreover, a
value experience or value attitude has to be distinguished from the
corresponding value judgement. Despite the subjectivity of sensible
qualities, one does not want to talk about a personal color or a
personal hardness, Meinong says. In a similar vein, it is not the case
that each value has to be a personal value just because it comes to us
only through the mediation of value experiences (1923, Chapt. IV,
SS7: 152). Perception includes perceptual judgements on the basis
of sensations, i.e., perceptive representations
[*Wahrnehmungsvorstellungen*]. The value judgement completes
the valuation as the perceptual judgement completes the perception:
(1) just as one is permitted to derive the existence of colored things
from color sensations, so one is justified in deriving the realization
of value properties from value experiences; (2) just as sensations can
be illusory and even hallucinatory, so emotions may be unwarranted;
the judgement that an object has value may be false, hence, genuine
value errors (and not only errors concerning the presupposed cognitive
judgements) are possible. Because emotions are more susceptible to a
subjective bias, they are not as reliable a source of knowledge as
sensations are (1912: 13). Meinong is no longer either a value
subjectivist or a relativist. He became a realist concerning objective
values as he believes that value experiences are able to present not
only subjective, personal values but also objective, absolute,
impersonal values: "An object has value in this [new] sense not
just because a subject is interested in it, but only insofar it merits
this interest." (1912, Sect. IV: 12)



Yet, Meinong does not give up the assumption of personal values. A
personal value of an object is the emotional significance
[*emotionale Bedeutung*] that a subject is disposed to assign
to that object (1923, Chapt. IV, SS6: 144-5, SS7: 162),
or, in other words, it is the aptitude of the object to arouse a
certain value experience in the subject (1917, SS13: 151
[*132*], 156 [*136*]). Impersonal values, by contrast,
are not based on value attitudes; they are independent from them, but
we can give them a subjective characterization (not a definition). As
an object in its most general sense is describable, although not
definable, as something that is able to become an object of
experience, values can also be described (but not defined) by their
dispositional property of being able to become objects of value
experiences. However, value experiences are not only a means of
recognizing a dispositional value property; they are also a means of
recognizing the actual value property, that is the underlying
foundation or basis of the disposition. In accordance with
Meinong's theory of dispositional properties (1919), a
disposition has an actual quality as its foundation. The actual
feature that is the foundation of the disposition to generate value
experiences in the subject is determined purely objectively, i.e.,
without any reference to subjects. According to Meinong, there are
objective values, interpreted (1) as dispositions to produce value
experiences, and (2) as the foundations of this disposition (1923,
Chapt. IV, SS7: 151).



The genuine objects of emotions are called "dignitatives";
examples are the good and the beautiful. Ought [*Sollen*] and
expediency [*Zweckmassigkeit*] are the paradigms of
the so-called desideratives, the genuine objects of desires (1917,
SS11). Like objectives, the genuine objects of thinking, both
dignitatives and desideratives can subsist or
 not,[3]
 and they are ideal objects and cannot be reduced to something mental
or physical. As value properties are not reducible to natural
properties, they are in some way unanalyzable. Goodness, for example
cannot be defined in terms of pleasure, and moral value judgements are
not to be reduced to psychological or sociological reports on moral
behavior. Furthermore, dignitatives and desideratives have a complex
nature because the presuppose certain things and states of affairs. A
person has an aesthetic emotion, for example, when a building is
presented to her as beautiful. The presented beauty (of the building)
is the genuine, proper object [*Eigengegenstand*] -- the
dignitative -- of the aesthetic emotion, while the building
itself is the presupposed, appropriated [*angeeignete
Gegenstand*] of the emotion in question. Dignitatives and
desideratives then are objects of higher order (1917: 107-8
[*95-6*]) -- they are *superiora* (see above
5.5; against the view that ought is an object of higher order, see
Weber 2004: 31-3). Just as one can see four nuts as a square of
nuts, or a circle with two dots and an arc as a smiling face, so a
donation to a charitable fund can be seen (grasped) as a morally good
deed. Grasping value properties can be interpreted as a certain kind
of grasping of a Gestalt, as Ehrenfels and other Gestalt theorists
might have said. There are, we might say, good-Gestalten (the Gestalt
of the moral good, the aesthetic good, and so on). The main difference
between this sort of "value perception" and sensory
perception is that, instead of (or in addition to) sense impressions,
emotional impressions are involved. Meinong thinks that "the
indefinability of impersonal values is not to be put on a par with the
one of color or sound, but rather with the one of melody or form
[*Gestalt*]" (1923, Chapt. IV, SS7: 161).



Meinong calls the dignitatives and the desideratives that are of
impersonal nature "dignities" and
"desiderata", respectively (1917, SS15). Axiological
(and deontological) knowledge is possible since feelings (and desires)
that present factual dignities (and desiderata) can be justified. A
feeling can be described as justified if the corresponding judgement
attributing the dignity to the presupposed object is justified (1917,
SS12). Meinong sees here a kinship to Brentano's "love
with the character of rightness" or "correct love"
(Brentano 1889, SS27), which can be understood as
"evidence-analogue" to the evidence of judgements, but
Meinong emphasizes that only the evidence of judgements itself makes
such a justification possible and "an evidence-analogue for
feelings and desires is therefore not required" (1917: 131
[*115*]). As values have to be taken as ideal things that
cannot exist but only subsist, Meinong thinks that axiological (and,
similarly, deontological) knowledge is *a priori* (1917,
SS12). He is convinced that "there are laws for so to speak
correct desires as there are laws for the correct deriving of
conclusions" (1917: 128). Already in 1912 Meinong admits
self-critically that his naturalistic, "exclusively
psychological" account of value has been shown to rest on an
inadmissible, faulty psychologism (see also 1917: 168
[*146*]).