Fictional and Aesthetic Objects: Meinong's Point of View (original) (raw)

Beautiful things and Meinong's Object Theory : aesthetic properties in front of us ?

There is no complete theory of aesthetics in Meinong’s works, but more or lesssparse remarks about the way Object Theory is to deal with so-called aesthetic properties. The apprehension and status of such properties mark anew me-inongian problems about properties as abstracted from things, and as objects.Their status in object theory is to be clarified as they involve notions of inter-nal and external dependence. Such notions are operative in Meinong’s work since the psychological period, and they are linked with concepts of objects,higher order objects and objectives, which appear here to be also problematicregarding aesthetical objects. The late meinongian feeling-based theory aims toground directedness toward aesthetic properties, and to preserve their occur-rence in complex entities and their particular realistic status .

Objects and Objectives, Dignitatives and Desideratives: Meinong’s Objects of Cognition and Affect

Axiomathes, 2017

Alexius Meinong (1853-1920) is one of the foremost, most independentminded, most distinctive, most misunderstood and most unjustly maligned of all (and not just Austrian) philosophers. He was pilloried by his own teacher Brentano and his one-time admirer Bertrand Russell as what Gilbert Ryle called ''perhaps the supreme entity-multiplier in the history of philosophy.'' It is often enough to employ the adjective 'Meinongian' to cast a philosopher's views into the outer darkness. But as supreme commentator J. N. Findlay observes, Meinong was a painstakingly careful and methodical thinker, who inched his way forward to his radical ontological views. Meinong maintained a running interest in ethics and value theory, and the subjective experiences of feeling and desire that correlate to these spheres, from his 1894 Psychological-ethical investigations in value theory to his late works Emotional presentation (Meinong in Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien. Philosophisch-historische Klasse. Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1917) and the posthumous On the foundation of general value theory (1923). In the process he graduated from value subjectivism to value objectivism. In this paper we will survey Meinong's mature theory of intentionality and its objects, with particular attention to the otherwise neglected dignitatives and desideratives.

Meinong on Aesthetic Objects and the Knowledge-Value of Emotions

Humana.Mente. Journal of Philosophical Studies, 2013

In this paper I trace a theoretical path along Meinong’s works, by means of which the notion of aesthetic object as well as the changes this notion undergoes along Meinong’s output will be highlighted. Focusing especially on Über emotionale Präsentation, I examine, on the one hand, the cognitive function of emotions, on the other hand, the objects apprehended by aesthetic emotions, i.e. aesthetic objects. These are ideal objects of higher order, which have, even though not primarily, the capacity to attract aesthetic experiences to themselves. Hence, they are connected to emotions, being what is presented by them. These results are achieved on the basis of a fundamental analogy between the domain of value and the aesthetic domain. Finally, the notion of an absolute beauty is discussed.

Modal Meinongianism and Object Theory

The Australasian Journal of Logic, 2020

We reply to arguments by Otávio Bueno and Edward Zalta ('Object Theory and Modal Meinongianism', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2017) against Modal Meinongianism, including that it presupposes, but cannot maintain, a unique denotation for names of fictional characters, and that it is not generalized to higher-order objects. We individuate the crucial difference between Modal Meinongianism and Object Theory in the former's resorting to an apparatus of worlds for the representational purposes for which the latter resorts to a distinction between two kinds of predication, exemplification and encoding. We argue that the distinction has fewer supporters than Bueno and Zalta want, and that there's a reason why the notion of encoding has been found baffling by some.

"... The Most Memorable Don Quixote of a Great Cause": Bergmanns's Critique of Meinong

Fostering the ontological turn: Gustav Bergmann ( …, 2008

At first, I explain how Bergmann reads Meinong. As regards his method, Bergmann’s stated aim is to examine Meinong’s thought through all the stages of its development; but he is very selective in choosing exactly what to consider, not just within each of Meinong’s texts, but equally among his texts – indeed he completely ignores Meinong’s mature works. Moreover, he often alters Meinong’s thought by translating it into his foil ontology. As regards the content, Bergmann interprets Meinong as a reist and a nominalist. I try to show that such a view is not correct. I then discuss this interpretation by focusing on which Meinong Bergmann reads, that is, which writings he refers to and at the same time which of Meinong’s theories he criticizes. I sketch the four phases of the development of Meinong’s thought distinguished by Bergmann: his first theory of relations, the theory of the objects of higher order, of objectives, and finally object theory. I present Bergmann’s critique and compare his distinction of different degrees of independence, which establish differences of status among categories of existents, with Meinong’s distinction between kinds of being. Finally, taking into account also Meinong’s mature work, I offer an assessment of Bergmann’s proposal to rethink object theory. Considering Meinong’s theory of incomplete objects, I show that Bergmann would have found in Meinong an ally not only in the battle against representationalism, as he maintains, but also in that against nominalism

From the Meinongian Point of View

Logic and Logical Philosophy, 2022

In this paper, I discuss one of Peter van Inwagen's charges against the Meinongian thesis, which states that some objects do not exist. The charges aimed to show that the thesis either leads to a contradiction or that it is obscure. Both consequences support the opposite Quinean thesis, which states that every object exists. As opposed to the former, the latter ought to be consistent and clear. I argue why there is no contradiction in the Meinongian thesis and why the Quinean thesis is not clear.

Modal Meinongianism and Object Theory: a Reply to Bueno and Zalta -- Australasian Journal of Logic

Australasian Journal of Logic, 2020

We reply to arguments by Otávio Bueno and Edward Zalta ('Object Theory and Modal Meinongianism', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2017) against Modal Meinongianism, including that it presupposes, but cannot maintain, a unique denotation for names of fictional characters, and that it is not generalized to higher-order objects. We individuate the crucial difference between Modal Meinongianism and Object Theory in the for-mer's resorting to an apparatus of worlds for the representational purposes for which the latter resorts to a distinction between two kinds of predi-cation, exemplification and encoding. We argue that the distinction has fewer supporters than Bueno and Zalta want, and that there's a reason why the notion of encoding has been found baffling by some.

Objects as Intentional and Real

1991

In a recent paper, G. Küng has maintained that in addition to what he considers the three standard theories concerning the relationship between an intentional and a "corresponding" real object, a case might be made for a fourth. According to this new theory, the intentional and the real object are simply one and the same thing, in the sense that should it exist, the intentional object is the real object 1 . In this paper, I hope to show that Küng is right when he says that this theory is preferable to the others, because of its greater explanatory power and because it avoids the perplexities which those theories give rise to. I hold, however, that the thesis of the identity of the intentional and the real object stands in fundamental need of being completed to make it really convincing. Indeed, an objection to it immediately comes to mind: how is it possible for an intentional object -something apparently mental or subjective -to be identical with a real one, generally considered mind-independent or objective? I think that it is only through an appropriate ontological move that a definite answer to this problem may be provided. In actual fact, Küng attempts to support its version of the theory with a Meinongian ontology, according to which objects as such are beyond being and non-being 2 . It seems to me, however, that in dealing with the above problem, Küng does not employ such an ontology satisfactorily. But whether this is or not the case, I will hereafter try to show that the thesis of the identity of the intentional and the real object may be retained if we also attempt to outline an anti-realist ontology different from the ultra-realist doctrine of Meinong's -namely, an ontology of objects as basically objects of discourse.