"Every object we can think of is a genuine object" (Alexius Meinong).
"What is thinkable is also possible" (Witgenstein, Tractatus 3.02).
Meinong's Object Theory
Alexius Meinong was an Austrian philosopher and psychologist, known primarily for his Theory of Objects (Gegenstandstheorie, 1904), a universalist doctrine in which he envisages all kinds of objects, including non-existent, impossible, contradictory and abstract ones. Broadly speaking, the theory (which Meinong updated over the years) is based on the correspondence or identification between objects and thoughts:
Every thought −and, consequently, every expression of language−, refers to something, to an object. Every thought is always about something.
Every object that we can think about, even if it is non-existent, impossible or contradictory, is a genuine object. Examples of non-existent objects are: a mountain of gold, Don Quixote, Sherlock Holmes, Zeus, Vulcan, Pegasus, etc. An example of an impossible object is a round square, which is contradictory (an object cannot be both square and round), but the fact that we can think of it makes it an object.
Since it is possible to think about impossible objects, these objects must exist for thought to be possible. Conversely, about what does not exist, one cannot think.
Through thought and language we can describe objects, but objects themselves are independent of thought and language. Objects are not generated by thought and language.
There is a huge realm of objects that have never been the subject of any thought, but objects exist, even though we have never thought about them.
There is one kind of objects, which are "objectives," which are sentences about objects. Objectives are generalizations of propositions, since they have nothing to do with truth or falsity. An example of an objective is "A red horse runs across the meadow."
Every thinkable object can be the object of a predication.
Everything is an object, whether it is thinkable or not. If it is thinkable, that object exists. If it is not thinkable, then it has at least one property: that of not being thinkable.
Every object has Being (Sein) and character (Sosein), nature, mode of being or properties. For example, a round square has no Sein (it is an object "without a house"), but it has Sosein (properties).
There are two modes of Sein: spatio-temporal existence and subsistence. Subsistence is a type of being that corresponds to "pure" or ideal objects (mathematical objects, states of affairs, abstractions, etc.). Subsistence is equivalent to Platonic existence. Contradictory objects (such as the round square) are not in the Platonic realm of Ideas, they have Sosein, but they do not subsist because they are not ideal objects. Existence and subsistence encompass the whole domain of Being.
There are objects which do not have Sein and which also do not exist or subsist (of which it can be asserted that there are no such objects). Objects that do not have any kind of being (neither existence nor subsistence), belong to non-being.
The Sosein is independent of Sein. An object can have Sosein and not have Sein. An object that has no Sein (like Pegasus), "subsists". Pegasus does not exist, it subsists. But an object that has Sein always has Sosein.
Possible objects are those that have Sein and do not have contradictory Sosein. Impossible objects do not have Sein and have Sosein contradictory.
Not having Being is also a property, so that property belongs to Sosein.
The goals "The round square is round" and "The mountain I am thinking of is made of gold" are sentences about non-existent objects. They are Sosein sentences and not Sein sentences.
There are higher-order objects (superiora), which are constructed from other lower-order objects (inferiora), with no upper bound. Examples:
Since houses exist, there exists an object which is the Being of houses. This object, in turn, has Being: the Being of the Being of the houses. Since one can think of the non-Being of the houses, this object exists, and there also exists the non-Being of the non-Being of the non-Being of the non-Being of the Being of the Being of the houses, etc.
Since there is no Pegasus, there is the non-Being of Pegasus, the Being of the non-Being of Pegasus, the non-Being of the Being of Pegasus, etc.
A number is a higher-order object that has as inferiors the primes on which it is built.
Objects of higher order are objects that subsist in objects of lower order that have Being, that exist.
There are objects of lower order, of last level, irreducible, objects that cannot be objects of higher order. They are the "infima", simple elements that constitute the forms.
Although the objects of higher order are based on the infima, they are not reduced to these, for the properties of the higher ones are above the properties of the lower ones.
All objects that have non-Self are not the same. The non-Self of a mountain of gold is not the same as the non-Self of a mountain of uranium.
A pure or ideal object is an object free of all Being. For example, a triangle. Every object implies a pure object. Ideal objects subsist.
Meinong's theory of objects as a universal science.
Meinong held that his object theory was the universal science, more universal even than metaphysics:
Object theory is a theory can be termed as "objectivism", a broader and more universal theory than traditional realism. Therefore:
The totality of objects extends beyond the confines of the real world.
In realism, only real objects have properties. In objectivism, there are objects that do not exist but have properties.
If the new realism includes all objects (the real in its supreme sense), then there are real objects that do not exist, and there are objects that do not exist that are real.
Although everything is an object, it is not possible to give a definition of object, for it is a primitive notion. The notion of object is not ontological but gnoseological.
Non-existent objects are aprioristic.
Existent and non-existent objects are the constituents of consciousness. Consciousness is the relation between objects and mental contents.
Every mental content is an existent, real, concrete object. Anything that can be experienced (the object of a mental act) is an object.
Every experience is a mental phenomenon in which 3 components are involved: 1) the act, 2) the mental content, and 3) the object of the experience.
According to Meinong, philosophy can be developed scientifically rather than speculatively. Philosophy is closely linked to mental phenomena, so psychology is the fundamental discipline of philosophy.
Frege vs. Meinong
For Frege, "sense" is the way of referring to something. And "reference" is the object to which the sense refers. There can be many ways (senses) of referring to something, to the same reference.
If we compare these two concepts of Frege with Meinong's Sein and Sosein, Sein would be equivalent to reference and Sosein to sense. But with a difference: in Frege, when there is sense, there must be reference. In Meinong there is not; there can be Sosein without Sein.
Russell vs. Meinong.
Bertrand Russell studied Meinong's writings with great interest, because of the originality of his ideas. He initially believed that Meinong's theory of impossible objects might help solve the problem of logical paradoxes, but was disappointed.
In his essay "On Denoting", Russell presented a theory (the theory of definite descriptions) that was intended to solve the difficulties that arise with denotative sentences (those that refer to something) and to offer a solution to the inconsistencies of Meinong's theory. In this essay:
He criticizes the theory of objects because it violates the law of non-contradiction, a law that states that "A sentence cannot be true and false at the same time" and also as "Something cannot have both a property (P) and its opposite (non-P) at the same time", i.e., "P and non-P" is a false sentence. And admitting the law of contradiction implies that, once a contradiction is admitted, every proposition becomes contradictory.
He asserts that there are no Sosein sentences. Every sentence is Sein or the negation of a sentence Sein.
In short, he rejects Meinong's theory of objects and his conception of objects without Being.
Meinong replied to Russell that the law of non-contradiction only applies to propositions about objects that are possible. And that the "prejudice in favor of the real" is what does not allow us to see that the law of non-contradiction is not universal, since it only applies to what we call "real".
MENTAL vs. Meinong's Object Theory
From MENTAL's point of view, Meinong's object theory is better understood, there being numerous commonalities between the two systems, although Meinong did not develop a formal philosophy linked to language:
Meinong objects can be made to correspond to MENTAL expressions.
Given the equivalence between ontology and epistemology, there is no difference between objects and goals. Both are expressions.
The simple objects (infima) of Meinong, which constitute the forms, can be made to correspond to the primitives of MENTAL.
The Sosein can be associated with the expressible. That is to say, every expression, by the fact that it can manifest itself, exists, has Sosein. But its existence resides in the purely mental realm, a realm superior to the physical, where all possibilities exist. The Sosein belongs to the mental world, to the world of the thinkable and expressible, including the impossible and the contradictory. The only limitations there are determined by the primitives. The possible is equivalent to the expressible.
The Sein belongs to the real or ideal, but non-contradictory world, a realm more restrictive and limited than the realm of the Sosein.
The "non-Self" of Meinong objects can be made to correspond in MENTAL to the non-expressible.
Lower-order (inferiora) objects are elementary instances of primitives. Higher order (superiora) objects are derived expressions of the primitives.
Examples
We can express
object/{round square}
That is, a certain object is qualified as both square and round. This expression has meaning, regardless of its existence or not in the physical world, and regardless of its contradictory or non-contradictory character. And this expression exists in the abstract mental world. According to Frege's conception, it has meaning (it is expressible), even though it has no reference to any physical object.
The sentence "This sentence is false", which can be expressed in the descriptive and self-referential form (s =: s/F), and which represents the fractal expression (((s/F)/F)/F)....
The statement "This object is blue and non-blue", can be expressed in the form (object/{blue blue'}), where blue' indicates "not blue".
The truth is the meaning.
In MENTAL, the truth of an expression is its semantics, its primary meaning. The concept of "truth" is not associated with the physical, dual, manifested and non-contradictory world, but with the higher, the world of meaning, the mental world. And the primary truth is constituted by the primitives, the origin and source of all manifested expressions.
The sentence "The present king of France is bald" is neither true nor false. It is a purely descriptive, mental sentence. It is an expression (according to Frege) with meaning, but without reference.
The law of non-contradiction.
Meinong was right: the law of non-contradiction is not universal, for it is valid only in the physical world. In the mental world it has no validity because it is expressible.
But considering existence instead of truth, in MENTAL the law of non-contradiction is valid and can be expressed as follows: "No expression can exist and not exist at the same time". This law manifests itself in the semantics of the primitive "Condition."
(z ←' x → y)
(if x exists, then y; otherwise, z).
Therefore, this law is intrinsic to the MENTAL language, and is not something imposed from outside.
The imaginal realm
Thinking about non-existent objects connects us with the imagination. Everything that is possible to imagine already exists in an "imaginal realm," the realm of all possibilities. When we think, we imagine. It is not possible to think without imagining. Imagination is a faculty of the soul, like consciousness. In fact, consciousness makes use of or is clothed in imagination and thoughts.
When we think, we imagine and contact something that already exists on the higher plane of the imaginary realm. What is thinkable is possible because it is imaginable. In the imaginable reside all possibilities.
Consciousness
According to Meinong, consciousness is the relationship between objects and mental contents. MENTAL expressions are manifestations of consciousness, being grounded in the archetypes of consciousness, regardless of whether there is correspondence with the physical world.
In MENTAL, it is enough to refer to an expression to bring it into our consciousness, although the expression already exists in the world of all expressions. All possible expressions of MENTAL already exist, and are symbolized by Ω (the universal meta-expression).
According to Meinong, philosophy could be conducted scientifically and not speculatively, and that philosophy is closely linked to mental phenomena. In MENTAL, this becomes evident, being the primitive philosophical categories and primary archetypes.
Addenda
Meinong object theory vs. rheism.
Meinong's theory must also be distinguished from the "rheism" of Franz Brentano (who was Meinong's teacher), whose principles are:
Every mental state refers to an individual object and not a proposition.
If an object exists, it is real. Object is synonymous with real. The only sense in which one can speak of an object is in the sense of the real, of the concrete and individual. For example, the centaur does not exist, it is not real; but if it existed, it would be real.
Objects, aggregates of objects, parts of objects, and individual properties of objects, are the only existing things.
It makes no sense to speak of the existence or being of an object. Nor does it make sense to speak of non-existent objects.
Bibliography
Findlay, John N. Meinong's Theory of Objects and Values. Clarendon Press, 1963.
Griffin, Nicholas; Jacquette, Dale (editors). Russell vs. Meinong. The Legacy of “On Denoting”. Routledge, 2011.
Griffin, Nicholas. Russell's Critique of Meinong's Theory of Objects. En Haller 1985–86, 375–401, 1985-1986.
Jacquette, Dale. Meinongian Logic. The Semantics of Existence and Nonexistence. Walter de Gruyter, 1996.
Lambert, Karel. Meinong and the Principle of Independence. Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Meinong, Alexius. On Objects of Higher Order and their Relationship to Internal Perception. 1899.
Meinong, Alexius. Teoría del objeto y Presentación personal. Miño y Dávila editores, 2009.
SEP (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Nonexistent Objects. Internet.
SEP (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Alexis Meinong. Internet.
Perszyk, Kenneth J. Nonexistent Objects: Meinong and Contemporary Philosophy. Kluwer, 1993.
Russell, Bertrand. On Denoting. Mind, 14, pp. 479-493, 1905. Disponible en Internet y también la versión española “Sobre la Denotación”.
Sierszulska, Anna. Meinong on Meaning and Truth. Ontos Verlag, 2005.
Smith, Janet Farrell. The Russell-Meinong Debate. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, XLV: 305–350, 1985.
