Abstract
We learned at our mother’s knee of the philosophical extravagance of Alexius von Meinong (1853–1920), who believed that in addition to the objects which exist, e.g. tables and chairs, and those which (at best) subsist, e.g. (natural) numbers, geometrical objects and objectives,1 there “are” objects which do not have being of any kind despite having properties. This domain of beingless objects (called ‘Außersein’) includes such things as the golden mountain and the round square, i.e. both possible and impossible objects. We were also told that Bertrand Russell, armed with a robust sense of reality, exorcised ‘the horrors of Meinong’s jungle’ from philosophy. Russell’s essay ‘On Denoting’ was perhaps Mum’s paradigm example of philosophical progress, and we were duly impressed. As Karel Lambert aptly remarks, ‘Graduate students from 1905 on have participated vicariously in Russell’s destruction of the Meinongian edifice, usually with the open glee of an architectural critic at contemplating the annihilation of Disneyland’([1983], p. 34n).
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Notes
Meinong’s objectives roughly correspond to (the early) Russell’s propositions. Russell says: ‘This Objective of the judgment is what (following Mr. G. E. Moore) I have called a proposition: it is to the Objective that such words as true and false, evident, probable, necessary, etc., apply’ ([1904b], p. 350). However, there seem to be at least two differences between propositions of the Moore-Russell variety and objectives. For Russell, all propositions have being: ‘The truth of a proposition consists in a certain relation to truth, and presupposes the being of the proposition. And as regards being, false propositions are on exactly the same level, since to be false a proposition must already be’ ([1903], p. 450). For Meinong, typically only some objectives have being (subsistence), viz. those which have factuality or are facts. This points to a second difference. For Russell (and others) a proposition is not a fact, but is made true by virtue of some sort of correspondence with a fact. For Meinong, ’an objective that subsists is also called a “fact”’ ([1910], Heanue edition, p. 55), in which case an objective can be said to be true by virtue of its being a fact. The first difference is erased if Außersein is ultimately understood by Meinong to be a genuine mode of being, and it is somewhat weakened by Meinong’s later remarks to the effect that there is no such thing as a completely unfactual objective; i.e., all objectives possess at least a “watered-down” factuality. We also have Meinong’s assent to a formulation of his student, Ameseder: ’Every object has being (or non-being). But there are objects that not only have being (in the broadest sense) but also are being, and these objects are the objectives’ ([1910], p. 50). Following Findlay [1963], presumably this means that the objective that snow is white, e.g., not only subsists (has being) but is the being-white-of-snow. On what Meinong means by his objectives and what properties they have, see his [1910], especially section 14.
The following remark is typical of Russell’s attitude: ‘In what precedes, I have dwelt chiefly on points in which Meinong seems open to criticism. But such points are few and slight compared to the points in which his views seem to me true and important. Moreover his contentions are in all cases clear, and whether right or not, they imperatively demand consideration’ ([1907], p. 439). Also see his
See, in particular, Routley’s monumental [1980a], and Parsons [1980]. Though Richard Routley is now Richard Sylvan, I will refer to him by the name under which the works of his I cite were written. Alternative formal theories are on offer. See, e.g., the works of Zalta and Rapaport. Though I will frequently refer to the works of Routley, Parsons, Zalta and Rapaport, I will make no detailed attempt to compare their work either for the purpose of trying to decide which is more faithful to Meinong or to decide which offers a better theory. The scope of this book is already broad enough. Parsons ([1980], p. xii) says that he suspects that Routley’s theory of items is much closer to Meinong’s theory than his own. Routley makes explicit where his own theory diverges significantly from Meinong’s. See, e.g., his [1980a], pp. 851–64. For the most part, Zalta eschews scholarly questions, though he thinks that his own theory is (at key junctures) at least something that Meinong could (should) have accepted. Though Rapaport ([1978], e.g.) calls his own theory a modified Meinongian one and thinks that it may be an adequately clear, coherent and faithful reinterpretation of Meinong’s theory, he says that he is making some changes in Meinong’s original theory.
Plantinga ([1974], p. 122), who is no true friend of nonexistents, rejects this interpretation of the claim on the ground that such an elliptical use of ‘there is’ doesn’t much resemble the use of ‘there is’ in the serious philosophical assertion that there are some things that don’t exist.
Über Gegenstandstheorie, translated into English as ‘On the Theory of Objects’, in Chisholm [1960], p. 83. The German text reads: es gibt Gegenstände, von denen gilt, daß es dergleichen Gegenstände nicht gibt. When Meinong’s texts have been translated into English, I will refer the reader to an accessible translation, noting, if appropriate, any significant discrepancy between that translation and my own.
See, e.g., Marcus [1962] and [1975] for this way of trying to avoid commitment to nonexistents or nonactuals.
Dunn and Belnap ([1968], p. 184 point 4) argue that it is a mistake to think that substitutionalists must be so committed, for the quantifiers in the metalanguage could also, they say, be construed substitutionally. For a criticism of their view, see Kripke ([1976], pp. 341–42).
Dunn and Belnap also argue (p. 184 point 5) that it is mistaken to think that the substitutional interpretation is metalinguistic even if the quantifiers used in giving the semantics (i.e. the metalanguage quantifiers) are interpreted objectually. Nevertheless, what is important to note for my present purposes is that Routley, e.g., unequivocally rejects a substitutional interpretation of his neutral quantifiers. See, e.g., his [1980a], p. 81f. Parsons ([1980], pp. 11–2) also rejects the ploy in question, insisting that his quantifiers are to be interpreted objectually, not substitutionally. Rapaport ([1981], p. 3) says that while the domain of the substitutional interpretation of the quantifiers consists of names, he envisages enlarging the domain by means of additional object-like entities.
Cf. Parsons [1980], pp. 6–7 note 7. It is not entirely clear whether Parsons would call himself a Meinongian. I have been told that he merely developed his theory of objects in a spirit of Carnapian tolerance and does not have “Meinongian tendencies”. Nevertheless, in his [1979a] he labels his theory a ‘quasi-Meinongian’ one, and in the Preface to his [1980] he says that for the most part he considers Meinong an ally who had many of the ideas first.
In conversation (some time ago now), Lycan agrees that the notion of what counts as an object is the issue here. Russell too might agree for the following reason. While both he and Meinong would agree that certain sentences are true, e.g., ‘Pegasus does not exist’, they apparently disagree over what objects they are committed to in order to account for their truth. For Russell, of course, there is no nonexistent object, Pegasus; at best there might be such properties (or “objects” in some broad sense) as being winged and being a horse.
I suspect that it is better to direct this complaint at Routley and his mates than at Parsons (if the latter does not endorse beingless objects); it certainly should not be directed at Zalta. Rapaport [1978] supplies
Though I believe that this (partial) characterization would be widely endorsed -- at least as an interpretation of Meinong’s own theory (cf., e.g., Routley [1980a], Chisholm [1972], p. 25f, and Lambert [1983], p. 14) -- I expect some protests, perhaps especially from those who might in fact be my allies here. Zalta, e.g., would no doubt complain vehemently that I am drawing the boundary around a genuine (Meinongian) theory of nonexistents too narrowly. E.g., insofar as he wholeheartedly rejects the notion of a beingless object and endorses (among other things) abstract though nonexistent individuals, his theory would not count as a genuine (Meinongian) theory of nonexistents by these lights. I doubt, however, whether there is ultimately a big disagreement between us here. Both of us protest against an overly-restrictive set of interpretive options for Meinong’s texts, though Zalta in fact pays little attention to exegetical matters. Likewise, I think we would agree that if the above is what is meant (at least in part) by a ‘genuine (Meinongian) theory of nonexistents’, then Zalta’s theory of abstract objects (A-objects) is not such a theory. The same, however, applies to the view I will ultimately impute to Meinong. That is, if I am right in what follows, all objects (for Meinong) probably do have being of a sort (where this need not be understood as full-blown Lewisian existence-at-a-placespatiotemporally-unreachable-from-here), in which case (given the above characterization) Meinong himself was no Meinongian. In other words, in the end I will not say that there is no way to find a theory similar to Zalta’s in Meinong. On the contrary, if I am right there is, though there are some differences between my interpretation of Meinong and Zalta’s (e.g. over whether Meinong might really have understood his “nonexistents” to be (unexemplified) properties or sets of properties).
’Strong’ or ‘dialethic’ paraconsistency holds that some contradictions are true in this world. Weaker paraconsistency allows inconsistency in some non-trivial theories, or in language or thought, but not in the actual world. For a good discussion of paraconsistent theories and their applications, see Priest and Routley [1984].
This would be the view of Russell (see, e.g., his [1905b] and [1919],-ch. 16) and Quine ([1960], pp. 155–56).
Quine [1953] says, ‘We have all been prone to say, in our commonsense usage of “exist”, that Pegasus does not exist, meaning simply that there is no such entity at all’ (p. 3).
See Routley [1979] as an example of what I have in mind here.
Parsons agrees and wants to avoid such a move in the development of his theory of nonexistent objects. See his [1980], p. 10. It seems to me that there is a sense in which a set, e.g., can have a spatiotemporal, though typically divided, location, viz. it is where its members are, in which case (non-empty) sets might not only be said to exist, but be concrete (even if to be concrete is to have a spatiotemporal location).
Quine says, ‘In all books and most papers I have appealed to classes and recognized them as abstract objects’ ([1960], p. 243n).
This is Parsons’ strategy as well in [1980], p. 10f.
For Zalta [1988], worlds are also abstract, and insofar as ‘exists’ means has a location in space (p. 21), and the actual world (all that is the case) is not itself the kind of thing that could have a location in space (p. 70), the actual world doesn’t exist. Similarly, we’re told (p. 21, e.g.) that abstract (unlike ordinary) individuals aren’t the kind of thing that could ever exist. Nevertheless, in Zalta [1983], p. 50, there’s another sense in which an abstract object can exist, i.e. just in case some existing
I am glossing over the extent to which non-Lewisians disagree both among themselves and with David Lewis over the nature and status of possible worlds and their inhabitants.
n the differences between Lewis and his rivals, see Lewis [1986], especially ch. 3.
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Perszyk, K.J. (1993). Introductory Considerations. In: Nonexistent Objects. Nijhoff International Philosophy Series, vol 49. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8214-8_1
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