Meinong Matters – Maverick Philosopher

Metaphysics and Common Sense

It is a curious fact that some philosophers will enlist common sense in support of the wild metaphysical views they maintain. Karel Lambert, for example, thinks that common sense favors Meinong's doctrine of Aussersein! (See his Meinong's Principle of Independence, Cambridge UP, 1983, p. 17.)

I should think that common sense with its "robust sense of reality" (Russell) opposes Aussersein, the doctrine that some items, despite their being mind-independent, have no being (Sein) whatsoever. They are said to be jenseits von Sein und Nichtsein, "beyond being and nonbeing."

Contra Peter van Inwagen, the doctrine is not logically contradictory, but it is, I maintain, unintelligible. (I hope this amounts to more than a purely autobiographical remark.) I simply do not understand how some definite item, the golden mountain, say, that is mind-independent, can be an item without some mode of being. Must not a pure essence, ein reines Sosein, have at least what Henry of Ghent called esse essentiae, the being of essence?

Ontologically Serious and Unserious Uses of ‘Something’ and the Problem of Reference to the Nonexistent

If Jane is friendly, then there is something Jane is, namely, friendly. But one hesitates to infer either

1) There is (exists) such an object as friendly

which is not even well-formed, or

1*) There is (exists) such an object as friendliness

which is well-formed but offensive to the nominalist sensibility. 'Jane is friendly' commits one to Jane but not obviously to the property of being friendly.

According to Sainsbury and Tye (Seven Puzzles of Thought and How to Solve Them, Oxford UP, 2012, p. 114), "'There is something' is not an object quantifier" in sentences like 'There is something that Jane is, namely, friendly.' In such cases,

The 'thing' in 'something' is not ontologically serious. By contrast, expressions like 'object' and 'entity are used in philosophical discourse to mark ontological commitment; and words like 'dagger' and 'fountain of youth' are used by everyone in that way in extensional contexts. (ibid.)

The idea is that there are two senses/uses of 'something.' One is ontologically serious because ontologically committal while the other is not. If I kick a ball, then there is something I kick. (Ontologically committal use of 'something' in an extensional context.) If Macbeth hallucinated a dagger, then there is something Macbeth hallucinated, namely, a dagger. (Ontologically noncommittal use of 'something' in an intensional/intentional context.)

Do we have here the makings of a solution to the ancient problem of apparent reference to the nonexistent? I don't think so.

Go back to Jane. Jane is friendly. So there is something she is, namely, friendly. So far, so good. Everything is clear. But trouble starts and murk intrudes when we are told that the 'something' in play here is ontologically noncommittal: there is nothing in reality that Jane is, or is related to in virtue of which she is friendly. Thus there is no property, friendliness, that she instantiates, or any property that she has as a constituent, or anything like that. In reality there is just Jane. But then what is the difference between Jane's being friendly and her being unfriendly?

It is evident to me that there has to be something in reality that grounds that difference. If you deny this, I will not understand you. Suppose you say that Jane's being friendly is just the circumstance that someone attached or applied the predicate 'is friendly' to her. I will say: So she needs to be called friendly to BE friendly? That is absurd. If I called her unfriendly, would she then be unfriendly? What if I called her anorexic? IS she whatever I SAY she is? Has she no properties independently of my say-so? If no one called her anything, would she have no properties at all? Before the evolution of languages was the Earth neither spheroid nor non-spheroid? Is there no difference between a predicate's being true of an individual and its being applied to or predicated of an individual?

These considerations convince me that the distinction between ontologically serious and unserious uses of 'something' has not been established. Note that it needs to be established independently of the Macbeth problem. To first introduce it as a solution to the Macbeth problem would be ad hoc.

There is also this question: what is the difference between saying that there is something — in the ontologically unserious sense — that Macbeth hallucinated and saying that Macbeth hallucinated a Meinongian nonexistent object? How does the Sainsbury and Tye solution differ from a Meinongian one?

Could Scollay Square be a Meinongian Nonexistent Object?

Bill, newly arrived in Boston, believes falsely that Scollay Square exists and he wants to visit it. Bill asks Kathleen where it is. Kathleen tells him truly that it no longer exists, and Bill believes her. Both use 'Scollay Square' to refer to the same thing, a physical place, one that does not exist. To exist is to exist in reality. 'In reality' means outside the mind; it does not mean in the physical world.

So both Bill and Kathleen use 'Scollay Square' to refer to a physical place that does not exist. The two are not using (tokens of) 'Scollay Square' to refer to Fregean senses or to any similar abstract/ideal item.* Scollay Square is not such an item. It is concrete, i.e., causally active/passive. After all, it was demolished.

Now it could be that reference is routed through sense as Frege maintained. Perhaps there is no road to Bedeutung except through Sinn. Whether or not that is so, when Bill and Kathleen think and talk about Scollay Square, they are not thinking and talking about an abstract object that mediates reference, whether it be thinking reference or linguistic reference. They are thinking and talking about a concrete, physical thing that does not exist.

We also note that Bill and Kathleen are not thinking or talking about anything immanent to consciousness such as a mental content or a mental act. They are referring to a transcendent physical thing that does not exist. Scollay Square is not in the head or in the mind; if it were, it would exist! If memory serves, it was the illustrious Kasimir Twardowski who first made this point, leastways, the first in the post-Brentano discussion.

Therefore, some transcendent physical things do not exist. Copley Square is an example of a transcendent physical thing that does exist.

But you don't buy it do you? Explain why. (I don't buy it either.)

_______________

*Anglosophers use 'abstract'; Eurosophers sometimes use 'ideal.' Same difference (as a redneck student of mine used to say.)

Relations and Nonexistents

Consider the following two sentences:

a) Lions are smaller than dragons.
b) Mice are smaller than elephants.

From this datanic base a puzzle emerges.

1) The data sentences are both true.
2) 'Smaller than' has the same sense in both (a) and (b).
3) In both (a) and (b), 'smaller than' has the same reference: it refers to a dyadic relation.
4) No relation holds or obtains unless all its relata exist.

What we have here is an aporetic tetrad. The four propositions just listed are individually plausible but collectively inconsistent: they cannot all be true. What we have, then, is a philosophical problem in what I call canonical form. Any three of the above four, taken in conjunction, entails the negation of the remaining one. Which limb of the tetrad should we reject?

One might reject (4) while upholding (1), (2), and (3). Accordingly, some relations connect existents to non-existents. It is true that lions are smaller than dragons despite it being the case that dragons do not exist. The sense of 'smaller than' is the same in both (a) and (b). And 'smaller than' picks out one and the same dyadic relation in both (a) and (b).

The idea here is that there is nothing in the nature of a relation to require that its obtaining entails the existence of all its relata. Contrast thinking about the Trevi Fountain in Rome and thinking about the Fountain of Youth. Some will say that in both cases the intentional nexus is a genuine relation since there is nothing in the nature of a relation (to be precise: a specific relatedness) to require that all of its relata exist. It is the same relation, the intentional relation, whether I think of an existing item or think of a non-existent item.

If you don't like this solution you might try rejecting (2) while upholding the remaining limbs: 'smaller than' does not have the same sense in our data sentences. Accordingly, 'are smaller than' in (b) picks out a relation that actually connects mice and elephants. But in (a), 'are smaller than' does not pick out that relation. In (a), 'is smaller than' has the sense 'would be smaller than.' We are thus to understand (a) as having the sense of 'Lions would be smaller than dragons if there were any.'

(2)-rejection arguably falls afoul of Grice's Razor, to wit: one ought not multiply senses beyond necessity. Here is what Grice himself says:

[O]ne should not suppose what a speaker would mean when he used a word in a certain range of cases to count as a special sense of the word, if it should be predictable, independently of any supposition that there is such a sense, that he would use the word (or the sentence containing it) with just that meaning. (Grice, 1989, pp. 47-48, Quoted from Andrea Marchesi, "A radical relationist solution to intentional inexistence," Synthese, 2021.)

Pick your poison.

Lukáš Novák on Reference to What is Not

What follows is a re-do of an entry that first saw the light of the blogosphere on the 4th of July, 2014. The draft Lukáš Novák (on my left in the photo) sent me back then for my comments has since appeared in print in Maimonides on God and Duns Scotus on Logic and Metaphysics (Volume 12: Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics) eds. Gyula Klima and Alexander W. Hall, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015, pp. 155-188. I note that our old sparring partner Edward Buckner has an article in this volume, "On the Authenticity of Scotus's Logical Works," pp. 55-84.

………………………………………

Our Czech friend Lukáš Novák sent me a paper in which, drawing upon John Duns Scotus, he rejects the following principle of reference:

(PR) It is impossible to refer to that which is not.

In this entry I will first pull some quotations from Novak's paper and then raise some questions about the view that he seems to be endorsing.

I. Novak's Scotistic View

Novak writes,

Scotus’ position can be simply characterized as a consistent rejection of the PR . . . . According to Scotus, the objects of any intentional relations . . . simply are not required to have any ontological status whatsoever, or, as Scotus puts it, any esse verum. The “being” expressed by the predicates exploited by Francis, like “to be known” (esse cognitum), “to be intelligible” (esse intelligibile), “to be an image of a paradigm” (esse exemplatum), “to be represented” (esse repraesentatum) and the like, is not real or true in any way, irrespectively of whether the relation involved concerns God or man.

[. . .]

It is not necessary to assume any esse essentiae in objects of knowledge: instead, Scotus speaks of “esse deminutum” here, but he points out emphatically that this “diminished being” is being only “secundum quid”, i.e., in an improper, qualified sense – this is the point of Scotus’ famous criticism of Henry of Ghent laid out in the unique question of dist. 36 of the first book of his Ordinatio. If you look for some real being in the object of intellection that it should have precisely in virtue of being such an object, there is none to be found. The only real being to be found here is the real being of the intellection, to which the esse deminutum of the intellected object is reduced.

[. . .]

In other words: if we were to make something like an inventory of reality, we should not list any objects having mere esse deminutum. By speaking about objects in intelligible being we do not take on any ontological commitment (to use the Quinean language) over and above the commitment to the existence of the intellections directed to these objects.

[. . .]

And now the crucial point: it is precisely this intelligibility, imparted to the objects by the divine intellect, what [that] makes human conceiving of the same objects possible, irrespectively of whether they have any real being or not:

[. . .]

In other words: the most fundamental reason why the PR is false is, according to Scotus, the fact that a sufficient condition of the human capacity to refer to something is the intelligibility of that something. This intelligibility, however, is bestowed on things in virtue of their being conceived, prior to creation, by the absolute divine intellect. This divine conceiving, however, neither produces nor presupposes any genuine being in the objects; for it is a universal truth that cognition is an immanent operation, one whose effect remains wholly in its subject (and so does not really affect its object) – in this elementary point divine cognition is not different. Accordingly, objects need not have any being whatsoever in order to be capable of being referred to. (p. 181, emphases added)

II. Some Questions and Comments

As a matter of Moorean fact we do at least seem to refer both in thought and in speech to nonexistent objects and to say things about them, true and false. The celebrated goldner Berg discussed by Bernard Bolzano, Kasimir Twardowski, Alexius von Meinong et al. is a stock example. Suppose that I am thinking about the golden mountain (GM). Since I cannot think without thinking of something, when I am thinking of or about the GM, I am thinking of something. But thinking is not like eating. Necessarily, if I eat something, that thing exists. I cannot eat a nonexistent comestible. Eating takes an existing object; thinking, however, needn't take an existing object. But it must take an object. So it is quite natural to say that in the case before us, the act of thinking is directed to a nonexistent object.

That some objects do not exist (or have any mode of being at all) would seem to following directly from the intentionality or object-directedness of consciousness. My act of thinking about the GM (or about Frodo, to use Novak's example), being intentional is directed to, intends, an object that is not part of the act, but transcendent of it. It follows straightaway that some objects of thinking and linguistic reference have no being. So far, it seems that Dr. Novak is right: we must reject (P) according to which it is impossible to refer to that which is not.

But of course this is puzzling. An object that has no being is nothing. How then can I be thinking about something that is nothing? And if what I am thinking about is nothing at all, then how is my thinking of Frodo different from my thinking of the GM? Acts are individuated by their objects; if the objects are nothing, then they do not differ and cannot serve to individuate the acts trained upon them. What's more, if the GM is nothing at all, then it has no properties; but it does have properties, ergo, etc. So we have an aporetic dyad that needs solving:

a) The GM is something (because every thinking is a thinking of something, and I am thinking of the GM.)

b) The GM is nothing (because there are no mountains of gold in reality outside my mind, nor, for that matter, inside my mind).

If I understand Novak, he wants a theory that satisfies the following desiderata or criteria of adequacy:

D1. Metaphysical possibilism is to be avoided. We cannot maintain that the merely possible has any sort of being. (Novak distinguishes metaphysical possibilism and actualism from semantic possibilism and actualism. Cf. p. 185)

D2. Actualist ersatzism is to be avoided. We cannot maintain that there are actual items such as Plantingian haecceity properties that stand in for mere possibilia.

D3. The phenomenological fact that intentionality is relational and not quasi-relational (etwas Relativliches) as in Brentano is to be respected and somehow accommodated. No adverbial theories!

D4. Eliminativism about intentionality/reference is to be avoided. Intentionality is real!

D5. Nominalist reductionism according to which reference is a merely intralinguistic phenomenon is to be avoided. When I refer to something, whether existent or nonexistent, I am getting outside of language!

Novak does not list these desiderata; I am imputing them to him. He can tell me if my imputation is unjust. In any case, I accept (D1)-(D5): an adequate theory must satisfy these demands. Now how does Novak's theory satisfy them?

Well, he brings God into the picture. Some will immediately cry deus ex machina! But I think Novak can plausibly rebut this charge. If God is brought on the stage in an ad hoc manner to get us out of a philosophical jam, then a deus ex machina objection has bite. But Novak and his master Scotus have independent reasons for positing God. See p. 185. And see my substantial post on deus-ex-machina objections in philosophy, here. Suppose we have already proven, or at least given good reasons for, the existence of God. Then he can be put to work. Or, as my esteemed and fondly remembered teacher J. N. Findlay once said, "God has his uses."

So how does Novak's solution work?

It is sufficient for x to be an object of thought or reference by us that it be intelligible. This intelligibility derives from the divine intellect who, prior to creation, conceives of such items as the golden mountain. But this conceiving does not impart to them any real being. Nor does it presuppose that they have any real being. In themselves, they have no being at all. God's conceiving of nonexistent objects is a wholly immanent operation the effect of which remains wholly within the subject of the operation, namely, the divine mind. The intelligibility is not projected onto items external to the divine intellect. And yet the nonexistent objects acquire intelligibility. It is this intelligibility that makes it possible for us finite minds to think the nonexistent without it being the case that nonexistent objects have any being at all.

This is the theory, assuming I have understood it. And it does seem to satisfy the desiderata (D1)-(D5) with the possible exception of (D3). But here is one concern. We are being told that the intelligibility of the GM, for example, is due to a wholly immanent operation on God's part. That is: no act of divine intellection is directed outward toward a transcendent object even if said object is beingless. But if the divine production of the intelligibility of the GM, say, is wholly immanent then this can only mean that the production proceeds by God's conceiving-GM-ly. But this amounts to adverbialism and a denial of the relationality of intentionality, which Novak is otherwise committed to. Cf. the "pre-philosophical datum" mentioned on p. 186 according to which "we all know that we can refer to non-existing things" such as Frodo Baggins, and yet "we all know that they are not there." Frodo, after all, is purely fictional item "made up" by Tolkien. Talk of reference whether it be thinking reference or reference expressed verbally implies relationality: I am related to what I refer to. But talk of wholly immanent operations of cognition and conception sits none too well with the relational talk of reference.

So my question for Novak is: Did Scotus anticipate the adverbialism of Roderick Chisholm, et al.? Is Scotus an adverbialist?

Here is a second concern of mine. We are told that:

. . . it is a universal truth that cognition is an immanent operation, one whose effect remains wholly in its subject (and so does not really affect its object) – in this elementary point divine cognition is not different. Accordingly, objects need not have any being whatsoever in order to be capable of being referred to.

This implies that both divine and creaturely cognition and conceiving are wholly immanent operations. So what is going on when I think of, or refer to, the GM? It seem that I too would have to be conceiving-GM-ly. But then the objections to adverbialism would kick in.

Here is a third concern not unrelated to the second. The Scotistic-Novakian theory seems to imply that when I think about the golden mountain I am thinking about an operation wholly immanent to the divine intellect. But that is not what I seem to be thinking about. (And how would I gain access to God's mind?) It falls afoul of the phenomenology of intentionality. What I seem to be thinking about has very few properties (being golden, being a mountain) and perhaps their analytic entailments, and no hidden properties such as the property of being identical to an operation wholly immanent to the divine intellect. An intentional object that does not exist has precisely, all and only, the properties it is intended as having.

Connected with this third concern is the suspicion that on Novak's Scotistic theory the act-object distinction is eliminated, a distinction that is otherwise essential to his approach. He wants to deny that merely intentional objects have any being of their own. So he identifies them with divine conceivings. But this falls afoul of a point insisted on by Twardowski.

My merely imagined table does not exist in reality, 'outside' my mind. But it also does not exist 'in' my mind as identical to the act of imagining it or as a proper part of the act of imagining it, or as any sort of mental content, as Twardowski clearly saw. Otherwise, (i) the merely imagined table would have the nature of an experience, which it does not have, and (ii) it would exist in reality, when it doesn't, and (iii) it would have properties that cannot be properties of mental acts or contents such as the property of being spatially extended.

My point could be put like this. The typical merely intentional, hence nonexistent, object such as the golden mountain does not have the nature of an experience or mental act; it is an object of such an act. But if merely intentional objects are divine conceivings, then they have the nature of an experience. Ergo, etc. Novak's theory appears to fall into 'divine psychologism.'

Is Anything Ever Settled in Philosophy? Meinong’s Theory of Objects

Gilbert Ryle once predicted with absurd confidence, "Gegenstandstheorie . . . is dead, buried, and not going to be resurrected." (Quoted in G. Priest, Towards Non-Being, Oxford, 2005, p. vi, n. 1.) Ryle was wrong, dead wrong, and shown to be wrong just a few years after his cocky prediction. Variations on Meinong's Theory of Objects flourish like never before due to the efforts of such brilliant philosophers as Butchvarov, Castaneda, Lambert, Parsons, Priest, Routley/Sylvan, and Zalta, just to mention those that come first to mind. And the Rylean cockiness has had an ironic upshot: his logical behaviorism is temporarily dead while Meinongianism thrives. But Ryle too will be raised if my parallel law of philosophical experience — Philosophy always resurrects its dead — holds.

Parallel to what?

Parallel to Etienne Gilson's famous observation that "Philosophy always buries its undertakers." That is the first of his "laws of philosophical experience." (The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Scribners, 1937, p. 306) As a metaphilosophical pronunciamento it is hard to beat. It is equally true that philosophy always resurrects its dead. Let that be my first law. The history of natural science is littered with corpses, none of which is an actual or potential Lazarus. Not so in philosophy.

It may be worth noting that if philosophy resurrects its dead then it can be expected to raise the anti-philosophical (and therefore philosophical) positions of philosophy's would-be undertakers. Philosophy, she's a wily bitch: you can't outflank her and she always ends up on top.

Defending Barry Miller against Herman Philipse: Existence as a First-Level Property, Part II

This is the second in a series. Here is the first installment. Read it for context and references. We are still examining only the first premise of Barry Miller's cosmological argument, as sketched by Philipse:

1) Existence is a real first-level accidental property of contingent individuals.

Philipse gave two arguments contra. In my first entry I refuted the weaker of the two. Philipse argued that Kant in 1781 had already put paid to the proposition that existence is a "real predicate," i.e., a real property of individuals. I showed that Philipse confuses two different senses of 'real.' When the Sage of Koenigsberg tells us that Offenbar, Sein ist kein reales Praedikat, he is telling us that it is obvious that being or existence is not a first-level quidditative determination. This is true, whether or not it is obvious. But when Miller tells us that existence is a real property of individuals, he is telling us that it is a non-Cambridge property of individuals. Philipse confuses 'real' in the sense of 'quidditative' with 'real' in the sense of 'non-Cambridge,' and on the basis of this confusion takes Kant to have refuted Miller. The ineptitude of Philipse's 'argument' takes the breath away.

The other argument Philipse gives is not so easily blown out of the water, if it can be so blown at all. He writes:

It is not necessary to discuss here all the attempted refutations Miller puts forward, for the simple reason that if he fails to refute convincingly only one plausible argument to the effect that existence is not a real predicate, his negative strategy is shipwrecked.

Let me take the so-called absurdity objection as an example (pp. 21-23). According to this objection, if existence is an accidental real first-order property of individual entities, so must non-existence be, but this would imply an absurdity. For in order to attribute truly a real property to a specific individual, we must be able to refer successfully to that individual by using a proper name, a pronoun, or by pointing to it, etc. However, we can refer successfully to an individual only if that individual exists or at least has existed, so that non-existence cannot be a real property. Hence existence cannot be an accidental real first-level property of individuals either.

The absurdity objection can be put like this:

a) Existence is a (real, non-Cambridge) property of individuals if and only if nonexistence is also a (real, non-Cambridge) property of individuals.

b) Non-existence cannot be a property of individuals: if an individual exists, then it cannot have the property of nonexistence.

Therefore

c) Existence is not a property of individuals.

This is an argument that cannot be dismissed as resting on an elementary confusion. But let's take a step back and formulate the problem as an aporetic triad or antilogism the better to reconnoiter the conceptual terrain.

a) Existence is a (real, non-Cambridge) property of individuals if and only if nonexistence is also a (real, non-Cambridge) property of individuals.

b) Non-existence cannot be a property of individuals: if an individual exists, then it cannot have the property of nonexistence.

c*) Existence is a property of individuals.

Each of these three propositions is individually plausible. And yet they cannot all be true on pain of logical contradiction. Individually plausible, but collectively inconsistent. So, if we adhere to the law of non-contradiction, one of the propositions must be rejected. Which will it be?

A. The Fregean will reject (c*). A Fregean or Fressellian for present purposes is someone who, first, holds that 'exist(s)' is univocal in sense and second, has only one admissible sense: as a second-level predicate. Thus the general existential 'Cats exist' is logically kosher because it can be read as predicating of the first-level property of being a cat the second-level property of being instantiated. But the singular existential 'Max exists' is not logically kosher and is indeed meaningless in roughly the way 'Max is numerous' is meaningless. For if 'exists' is univocal and means 'is instantiated,' then one cannot meaningfully say of Max that he exists for the simple reason that it is meaningless to say of an individual that it is instantiated. Max could conceivably have an indiscernible twin, but that would not be an instance of him. By definition, the only instantiable items are properties, concepts, and the like. Some will say that the Fregean analysis can be made to work for singular existentials if there are such haecceity properties as identity-with-Max, 'Maxity' to give it a name. Suppose that there are. Then 'Max exists' is analyzable as 'Maxity is instantiated.' But this does not alter the fact that 'exist(s)' is a second-level predicate, and existence a second-level property.

B. The Meinongian will reject (b). A Meinongian for present purposes is someone who denies that everything exists, and holds instead that some items exist and some do not. For the Meinongian, existence is a classificatory principle: it partitions a logically prior domain of items into those that exist and those that do not. For the Meinongian, both existence and non-existence are first-level properties. Existence cannot be classificatory for the Fregean because, for the Fregean, everything exists. And so for the Fregean, there cannot be a property of non-existence.

C. The Millerian — to give him a name — rejects (a). A Millerian for present purposes is one who holds, against the Meinongian, that there are no nonexistent items, and against the Fregean that existence is a genuine, non-relational property predicable of individuals. Holding that everything exists, the Millerian cannot admit that non-existence is a real (i.e., non-Cambridge) property of individuals.

In Part III of this series, I will examine Philipse's atempted rebuttal of Miller's rejection of (a). For now I will merely point out that the Meinongian and Fregean positions are open to powerful objections and therefore cannot be used to refute the Millerian view. They merely oppose it. To oppose a theory T with a questionable theory T* is not to refute T. 'Refute' is a verb of success. To refute a theory is to prove that it is untenable. Note also that the Fregean and the Meinongian are at profound loggerheads, which fact undermines both positions. After all, deep thinkers have supported each.

My point, then, is that Philipse hasn't refuted Miller; he has merely opposed him from the point of view of the Fregean theory which is fraught with difficulties. One cannot refute a theory with a theory that is itself open to powerful objections as the Fregean theory is.

Van Inwagen contra Meinong on Having Being and Lacking Being

There is a passage in Peter van Inwagen's "Existence, Ontological Commitment, and Fictional Entities," (in Existence: Essays in Ontology, CUP, 2014, p. 98, emphasis added), in which he expresses his incomprehension of what the Meinongian means by 'has being' and 'lacks being':

. . . the Meinongian must mean something different by 'has being' and 'lacks being' from what I mean by these phrases. But what does he mean by them? I do not know. I say 'x has being' means '~(y) ~y = x'; the Meinongian denies this. Apparently, he takes 'has being' to be a primitive, an indefinable term, whereas I think that 'has being' can be defined in terms of 'all' and 'not'. (And I take definability in terms of 'all' and 'not' to be important, because I am sure that the Meinongian means exactly what I do by 'all' and 'not' — and thus he understands what I mean by 'has being' and is therefore an authority on the question whether he and I mean the same.) And there the matter must rest. The Meinongian believes that 'has being' has a meaning that cannot be explained in terms of unrestricted universal quantification and negation.

Before I begin, let me say that I don't think van Inwagen is on this occasion feigning incomprehension as some philosophers are wont to do: I believe he really has no idea what 'has being' and cognate expressions could mean if they don't mean what he thinks they mean.

No one articulates and defends the thin theory of existence/being better than Peter van Inwagen who is arguably 'king' of the thin theorists. The essence of the thin theory is that

1. x exists =_df ~(y)~(y=x).

Driving the tilde though the right-hand expression, left to right, yields the logically equivalent

1*. x exists =_df (∃y)(y = x)

which may be easier for you to wrap your head around. In something closer to English

1**. x exists =_df x is identical to something.

The thin theory is 'thin' because it reduces existence to a purely logical notion definable in terms of the purely logical notions of unrestricted universal quantification, negation, and identity. What is existence? On the thin theory existence is just identity-with-something. (Not some one thing, of course, but something or other.) Characteristically Meinongian, however, is the thesis of Aussersein which could be put as follows:

M. Some items have no being.

Now suppose two things that van Inwagen supposes. Suppose that (i) there is exactly one sense of 'exists'/'is' and that (ii) this one sense is supplied in its entirety by (1) and its equivalents. Then (M) in conjunction with the two suppositions entails

C. Some items are not identical to anything.

But (C) is self-contradictory since it implies that some item is such that it is not identical to itself, i.e. '(∃x)~(x = x).'

Here we have the reason for van Inwagen's sincere incomprehension of what the Meinongian means by 'has being.' He cannot understand it because it seems to him to be self-contradictory. But it is important to note that (M) by itself is not logically contradictory. It is contradictory only in conjunction with van Inwagen's conviction that 'x has being' means '~(y) ~(y = x).'

In other words, if you ASSUME the thin theory, then the characteristic Meinongian thesis (M) issues in a logical contradiction. But why assume the thin theory? Are we rationally obliged to accept it?

I don't accept the thin theory, but I am not a Meinongian either. (Barry Miller is another who is neither a thin theorist nor a Meinongian.) 'Thin or Meinongian' is a false alternative by my lights. I am not a Meinongian because I do not believe that existence is a classificatory principle that partitions a logically prior domain of ontologically neutral items into the existing items and the nonexisting items. I hold that everything exists, which, by obversion, implies that nothing does not exist. So I reject (M).

I reject the thin theory not because some things don't exist, but because there is more to the existence of what exists than identity-with-something. And what more is that? To put it bluntly: the more is the sheer extra-logical and extra-linguistic existence of the thing, its being there (in a non-locative sense of course). The 'more' is its not being nothing. (If you protest that to not be nothing is just to be something, where 'something' is just a bit of logical syntax, then I will explain that there are two senses of 'nothing' that need distinguishing.) Things exist, and they exist beyond language and logic.

Can I argue for this? It is not clear that one needs to argue the point since it is, to me at least, self-evident. But I can argue for it anyway.

If for x to exist is (identically) for x to be identical to some y, this leaves open the question: does y exist or not? You will say that y exists. (If you say that y does not exist, then you break the link between existence and identity-with-something.) So you say that y exists. But then your thin theory amounts to saying that the existence of x reduces to its identity with something that exists. My response will be that you have moved in an explanatory circle, one whose diameter is embarrassingly short. Your task was to explain what it is for something to exist, and you answer by saying that to exist is to be identical to something that exists. This response is no good, however, since it leaves unexplained what it is for something to exist! You have helped yourself to the very thing you need to explain.

It is the extra-logical and extra-linguistic existence of things that grounds our ability to quantify over them. Given that things exist, and that everything exists, we have no need for an existence predicate: we can rid ourselves of the existence predicate 'E' by defining 'E' in terms of '(∃y)(y = x).' But note that the definiens contains nothing but logical syntax. What this means is that one is presupposing the extra-logical existence of items in the domain of quantification. You can rid yourself of the existence predicate if you like, but you cannot thereby rid yourself of the first-level existence of the items over which you are quantifying.

Here is another way of seeing the point. Bertrand Russell held that existence is a propositional function's being sometimes true. Let the propositional function be (what is expressed by) 'x is a dog.' That function is sometimes true (in Russell's idiosyncratic phraseology) if the free variable 'x' has a substituend that turns the propositional function or open sentence into a true closed sentence. So consider 'Fido,' the name of an existing dog and 'Cerberus.' How do I know that substituting 'Fido' for 'x' results in a true sentence while substituting 'Cerberus' does not? Obviously, I must have recourse to a more fundamental notion of existence than the one that Russell defines. I must know that Fido exists while Cerberus does not. Clearly, existence in the fundamental sense is the existence that belongs to individuals, and not existence as a propositional function's being sometimes true.

Now if you understand the above, then you will be able to understand why, in van Inwagen's words, "The Meinongian believes that 'has being' has a meaning that cannot be explained in terms of unrestricted universal quantification and negation." The thin theory entails that there is no difference in reality between x and existing x. But for Meinong there is a difference: it is the difference between Sosein and Sein. While I don't think that there can be a Sosein that floats free of Sein. I maintain that there is a distinction in reality between a thing (nature, essence, Sosein, suchness) and existence.

If van Inwagen thinks that he has shown that Meinong's doctrine entails a formal-logical contradiction, he is fooling himself. Despite his fancy footwork and technical rigmarole, all van Inwagen succeeds in doing is begging the question against Meinong.

Beingless Objects

For Alexius von Meinong, some objects neither exist nor subsist: they have no being at all. The stock examples are the golden mountain and the round square.

London Ed finds this contradictory. "The claim that some objects neither exist nor subsist is an existential claim, of course, so how can 'they' have no being?"

But of course it is not an existential claim from a Meinongian point of view. Obviously, if it is true that some objects are beingless, then 'Some objects are beingless' is not an existential claim. On the other hand, if it is true that sentences featuring the particular quantifier 'some' all make existential claims, then 'Some objects are beingless' is self-contradictory.

So the Grazer can say to the Londoner: "You are begging the question against me!" And the Londoner can return the 'compliment.' The Phoenician stands above the fray, merely observing it, as from Mt. Olympus.

So far, then, a stand-off. Ed has not refuted the Meinongian; he has merely opposed him. Ed needs to admit this and give us a better argument against the thesis of Aussersein.

Graham Priest on Alexius von Meinong

Dave Lull sends us to a short piece by Graham Priest which will serve as an introduction to the Austrian philosopher and his characteristic views for those who know nothing of either.

As I write in my Philosophy Always Resurrects its Dead,

Gilbert Ryle once predicted with absurd confidence, "Gegenstandstheorie . . . is dead, buried, and not going to be resurrected." (Quoted in G. Priest, Towards Non-Being, Oxford, 2005, p. vi, n. 1.) Ryle was wrong, dead wrong, and shown to be wrong just a few years after his cocky prediction. Variations on Meinong's Theory of Objects flourish like never before due to the efforts of such brilliant philosophers as Butchvarov, Castaneda, Lambert, Parsons, Priest, Routley/Sylvan, and Zalta, just to mention those that come first to mind. And the Rylean cockiness has had an ironic upshot: his logical behaviorism is temporarily dead while Meinongianism thrives.

What accounts for Meinong's comeback according to Priest?

Why has this change taken place? A hard question. Undoubtedly many factors are involved. Certainly, one important one is that the arguments against noneism are, indeed, bad. Another is that Russell’s theory of descriptions, as applied to names, is now itself history, despatched by Saul Kripke’s onslaught in the 1970s.

Not quite.

The arguments are uncompelling, but not bad. Let's look at a couple.

One of Russell's objections to Meinong was that the denizens of Aussersein, i.e., beingless objects, are apt to infringe the Law of Non-Contradiction. Suppose a Meinongian subscribes to the following principle:

Unrestricted Satisfaction (US): Every definite description is such that some object satisfies it.

For any definite description we can concoct, there is a corresponding object or item, in many cases a beingless object or item. From (US) we infer that some object satisfies the definite description, 'the existent round square.' This object is existent, round, and square. So the existent round square exists, which is a contradiction. This is one Russell-type argument.

A similar argument can be made re: the golden mountain. By (US), not only is some object the golden mountain, some object is the existent golden mountain. This object is existent, golden, and a mountain. So the existent golden mountain exists, which is false, though not contradictory. This is a second Russell-type argument.

Are these arguments compelling refutations of Meinong's signature thesis? No, but they are certainly not bad arguments. Here is one way one might try to evade the Russellian objections, a way similar to one Meinong himself treads. Make a distinction between nuclear properties and extranuclear properties. (See Terence Parsons, Nonexistent Objects, Yale UP, 1980, p. 42) Nuclear properties are those that are included in an object's Sosein (so-being, what-being, quiddity). Extranuclear properties are those that are not so included. The distinction can be made with respect to existence. There is nuclear existence and extranuclear existence. 'Existent' picks out nuclear existence while 'exists' picks out extranuclear existence.

This distinction blocks the inference from 'The existent round square is existent, round, and square' to the 'The existent round square exists.' Similarly in the golden mountain case. You will be forgiven for finding this distinction between nuclear and extranuclear existence bogus. It looks to be nothing more than an ad hoc theory-saving move.

But there may be a better Meinongian response. The Russellian arguments assume an Unrestricted Characterization Principle:

UCP: An object exemplifies each of the properties referenced in the definite description it satisfies.

From (US) we get the object, the existent golden mountain, and the object, the existent round square. But without (UCP) one cannot move to the claim that the existent golden mountain exists or to the claim that the existent round square exists.

A Meinongian can therefore defeat the Russellian arguments by substituting a restricted characterization principle for (UCP). And he can do this without distinguishing between nuclear and extranuclear existence.

Did Kripke "despatch" Russell's theory of descriptions. More chutzpah on Priest's part. You are nothing but a blind partisan if you fail to acknowledge the problems with Kripke's views.

As for Kripke himself, he never took the time to understand Meinong's actual views. See my Kripke's Misrepresentation of Meinong. A first-rate entry!

What Song Did the Sirens Sing and in What Key?

Ulysses had himself bound to the mast and the ears of his sailors plugged with wax lest the ravishing strains of the sea nymphs' song reach their ears and cause them to cast themselves into the sea and into their doom. But what song did the Sirens sing, and in what key? And what about the nymphs themselves? Were their tresses of golden hue? And how long were they? Were the nymphs equipped with special nautical brassieres to protect their tender nipples from rude contact with jelly fish and such?

One cannot sing a song without singing some definite song in some definite key commencing at some definite time and ending at some definite later time.

But you understand the story of Ulysses and the Sirens and you are now thinking about the song they sang. And you are thinking about the nymphs and their ravishing endowments. But what sorts of objects are these? Incomplete objects. Are there then in reality incomplete objects?

Kripke’s Misrepresentation of Meinong

In "Vacuous Names and Fictional Entities" (in Philosophical Troubles, Oxford UP, 2011, pp. 52-74) Saul Kripke distances himself from the following view that he ascribes to Alexius Meinong:

Many people have gotten confused about these matters because they have said, 'Surely there are fictional characters who fictionally do such-and-such things; but fictional characters don't exist; therefore some view like Meinong's with a first-class existence and a second-class existence, or a broad existence and a narrow existence, must be the case'.²³ This is not what I am saying here. (p. 64)

Footnote 23 reads as follows:

At any rate, this is how Meinong is characterized by Russell in 'On Denoting'. I confess that I have never read Meinong and I don't know whether the characterization is accurate. It should be remembered that Meinong is a philosopher whom Russell (at least originally) respected; the characterization is unlikely to be a caricature.

But it is a caricature and at this late date it is well known to be a caricature. What is astonishing about all this is that Kripke had 38 years to learn a few basic facts about Meinong's views from the time he read (or talked) his paper in March of 1973 to its publication in 2011 in Philosophical Troubles. But instead he chose to repeat Russell's caricature of Meinong in his 2011 publication. Here is what Kripke could have quickly learned about Meinong's views from a conversation with a well-informed colleague or by reading a competent article:

Some objects exist and some do not. Thus horses exist while unicorns do not. Among the objects that do not exist, some subsist and some do not. Subsistents include properties, mathematical objects and states of affairs. Thus there are two modes of being, existence and subsistence. Spatiotemporal items exist while ideal/abstract objects subsist.

Now what is distinctive about Meinong is his surprising claim that some objects neither exist nor subsist. The objects that neither exist nor subsist are those that have no being at all. Examples of such objects are the round square, the golden mountain, and purely fictional objects. These items have properties — actually not possibly — but they have no being. They are ausserseiend. Aussersein, however, is not a third mode of being.

Meinong's fundamental idea, whether right or wrong, coherent or incoherent, is that there are subjects of true predications that have no being whatsoever. Thus an item can have a nature, a Sosein, without having being, wihout Sein. This is the characteristic Meinongian principle of the independence of Sosein from Sein.

Kripke's mistake is to ascribe to Meinong the view that purely fictional items are subsistents when for Meinong they have no being whatsoever. He repeats Russell's mistake of conflating the ausserseiend with the subsistent.

The cavalier attitude displayed by Kripke in the above footnote is not uncommon among analytic philosophers. They think one can philosophize responsibly without bothering to attend carefully to what great thinkers of the tradition have actually maintained, while at the same time dropping their names: Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, Brentano, Meinong. For each of the foregoing I could give an example of a thesis attributed to them that has little or nothing to do with what they actually maintained.

I suppose what really irks me here is not so much the ignoring of the greats, but the ignoring in tandem with the dropping of their names. There is something intellectually dishonest about wanting to avoid the work of studying the great philosophers while also either invoking their authority, or else using them as whipping boys, by dropping their names.

Does the cavalier attitude of most analytic philosophers to the history of philosophy matter? In particular, does it matter that Kripke and plenty of others continue to ignore and misrepresent Meinong? And are not embarrassed to confess their ignorance? This depends on how one views philosophy in relation to its history.

At this point I refer the reader to a somewhat rambling, but provocative, essay by the late Dallas Willard, Who Needs Brentano? The Wasteland of Philosophy Without its Past.

Descartes Meets Meinong: Might I be a Nonexistent Individual?

Lukas Novak thinks I am being politically, or rather philosophically, 'correct' in rejecting Meinongianism. And a relier on 'intuitions' to boot. I plead innocent to the first charge. As for the second, I rather doubt one can do philosophy at all without appealing to some intuition somewhere. That would make for an interesting metaphilosophical discussion. For now, however, an argument against Meinongianism. I will join the Frenchman to beat back the Austrian. But first we have to understand at least some of what the great Austrian philosopher Alexius von Meinong was about. What follows is a rough sketch that leaves a lot out. It is based on Meinong's writings, but also on those of distinguished commentators including J. N. Findlay, Roderick Chisholm, Karel Lambert, Terence Parsons, Richard Routley/Sylvan, Reinhardt Grossmann, and others.

A Meinongian Primer

The characteristic Meinongian thesis is the doctrine that some items have no Being whatsoever: they neither exist nor subsist nor have any other mode of Being. A Meinongian item (M-item) is something, not nothing; it is just that it has no Being. A famous example is the golden mountain. It has no Being at all according to Meinong. It is a pure Sosein, a pure whatness, a Sosein without Dasein, "beyond Being and non-Being." (jenseits von Sein und Nichtsein.) What's more, the golden mountain actually has properties: it is actually made of gold and actually a mountain. It is not merely possibly these things, nor is it merely imagined or merely thought to be these things. The golden mountain is actually made of gold even though it does not exist or subsist or enjoy esse intentionale or any other mode of Being!

Furthermore, the golden mountain, though in one sense merely possible, is in itself actual, not merely possible. It is merely possible in relation to existence, but in itself it is actual, though nonexistent. The realm of Aussersein is a realm of actualia. This holds also for the round square which is both actually round and actually square. It is in one sense impossible: it cannot exist, or subsist either. But it is not nothing: it is some actual item even though it has no Being whatsoever. Actually round, actually square, actually an item!

We should also note that the golden mountain is an incomplete object: it has exactly two properties, the ones mentioned, but none of their entailments. The set of an M-object's properties is not closed under entailment. Consider the blue triangle. It is not colored. Nor is it either isoceles nor not isoceles.

A number of philosophers, Kant being one of them, held to the Indifference of Sosein and Sein, but what is characteristic of Meinong is the radical Independence of Sosein from Sein:

Indifference: The being or nonbeing of an item is no part of its nature or Sosein. Whether an item is or is not makes no difference to what it is.

Independence: An item has a nature or Sosein whether or not it has Being and so even if it has no Being at all. In no instance does property-possession entail existence. There are no existence-entailing properties.

The two principles are clearly distinct. The first principle implies that nothing is such that its nature entails its existence. But it is neutral on the question that the second principle takes a stand on. For the second principle implies that an item can actually have a nature without existing, and indeed without having any Being at all. (Nature = conjunction of monadic properties.)

Independence entails Indifference. For if an item has a nature whether or not it has Being, then a fortiori it is what it is whether or not it is. But the converse entailment does not hold. For consistently with holding Indifference one could hold that Being is a necessary condition of property-possession: nothing can have properties unless it either exists or subsists or has some other mode of Being. Independence, however, implies that the actual possession of properties does not require that the property-possessor have any Being at all.

The Question

Do I know, and how do I know, that I am not a nonexistent object, say, a purely fictional individual like Hamlet? Can I employ the Cartesian cogito to assure myself that I am not a nonexistent person?

An Argument

The following is excerpted from my "Does Existence Itself Exist? Transcendental Nihilism Meets the Paradigm Theory" in The Philosophy of Panayot Butchvarov: A Collegial Evaluation, ed. Larry Lee Blackman, The Edwin Mellen Press, 2005, pp. 57-73, excerpt pp. 67-68.

If anything can count as an established result in philosophy, it is the soundness of Descartes' famous cogito ergo sum 'argument.' Thus to the query, 'How do I know that I exist?', the Cartesian answer is that the very act of doubting that one exists proves that one indubitably exists. Now this may not amount to a proof that a substantial self, a res cogitans, exists; and this for the reason that one may doubt whether acts of thinking emanate from a metaphysical ego. But the cogito certainly does prove that something exists, even if this is only an act of thinking or a momentary bundle of acts of thinking. Thus I know with certainty that my present doubting is not a nonexistent object. But if Meinong were right, my present doubting could easily be a nonexistent object, indeed, a nonexistent object that actually has the property of being indubitably apparent to itself.

For on Meinongian principles, I could, for all I could claim to know, be a fictional character, one who cannot doubt his own existence. In that case, the inability to doubt one's own existence would not prove that one actually exists. This intolerable result certainly looks like a reductio ad absurdum of the Meinongian theory. If anything is clear, it is that I know, in the strictest sense of the word, that I am not a fictional character. My present doubting that I exist is an object that has the property of being indubitable, but cannot have this property without existing. It follows that there are objects whose actual possession of properties entails their existence. This implies the falsity of Meinong's principle of the independence of Sosein from Sein, and with it the view that existence is extrinsic to every object. Forced to choose between Descartes and Meinong, we ought to side with Descartes.

Is the Above Argument Rationally Compelling?

What is the difference between me enacting the cogito and a purely fictional Hamlet-like character — Hamlet* — enacting the cogito? What I want to say is that Hamlet* is not an actual individual and does not actually have any properties, including the property of being unable to doubt his own existence. Unlike me. I really exist and can assure myself of my existence as a thinking thing via the cogito, but Hamlet* is purely fictional, hence does not exist and so cannot assure himself of his existence via the cogito.

That is what I want to say, of course, but then I beg the question against Meinong. For if an item can actually have properties without existing, then it is epistemically possible that I am in the same 'boat' with Hamlet*: we are both purely fictional nonexistent items.

So I don't believe I can show compellingly that Meinong is wrong in his characteristic claims using the Cartesian cogito. But I have given an argument, and it is a reasonable argument. So I am rationally justified in rejecting Meinongianism, and justified in just insisting that I am of course not a nonexistent person but a fully existent person with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereunto.

This fits nicely with my metaphilosophy which teaches that there are no rationally compelling arguments for ANY substantive thesis in philosophy and cognate areas of controversy.

So this is enough to answer Novak's first charge. And perhaps also his second. In the end I recur to the intuition that I really exist, and that I am not merely possible, or purely fictional, or nonexistent. The appeal to intuition is justified. And must not Novak also appeal to an intuition if he disagrees with me, the intution, say, that some items have no Being at all? Or does he have a knock-down argument for that thesis?

What the Meinongian Means by ‘Has Being’ and ‘Lacks Being’

… the Meinongian must mean something different by 'has being' and 'lacks being' from what I mean by these phrases. But what does he mean by them? I do not know. I say 'x has being' means '~(y) ~y = x'; the Meinongian denies this. Apparently, he takes 'has being' to be a primitive, an indefinable term, whereas I think that 'has being' can be defined in terms of 'all' and 'not'. (And I take definability in terms of 'all' and 'not' to be important, because I am sure that the Meinongian means exactly what I do by 'all' and 'not' — and thus he understands what I mean by 'has being' and is therefore an authority on the question whether he and I mean the same.) And there the matter must rest. The Meinongian believes that 'has being' has a meaning that cannot be explained in terms of unrestricted universal quantification and negation.

Before I begin, let me say that I don't think van Inwagen is feigning incomprehension as some philosophers are wont to do: I believe he really has no idea what 'has being' and cognate expressions could mean if they don't mean what he thinks they mean.

No one articulates and defends the thin theory of existence/being better than Peter van Inwagen who is arguably 'king' of the thin theorists. The essence of the thin theory is that

1. x exists =_df ~(y)~(y=x).

Driving the tilde though the right-hand expression, left to right, yields the logically equivalent

1*. x exists =_df (∃y)(y = x)

which may be easier for you to wrap your head around. In something closer to English

1**. x exists =_df x is identical to something.

M. Some items have no being.

C. Some items are not identical to anything.

But (C) is self-contradictory since it implies that some item is such that it is not identical to itself, i.e. '(∃x)~(x = x).'

In other words, if you ASSUME the thin theory, then the characteristic Meinongian thesis (M) issues in a logical contradiction. But why assume the thin theory? Are we rationally obliged to accept it?

I don't accept the thin theory, but I am not a Meinongian either. 'Thin or Meinongian' is a false alternative by my lights. I am not a Meinongian because I do not believe that existence is a classificatory principle that partitions a logically prior domain of ontologically neutral items into the existing items and the nonexisting items. I hold that everything exists, which, by obversion, implies that nothing does not exist. So I reject (M).

I reject the thin theory not because some things don't exist, but because there is more to the existence of what exists than identity-with-something. And what more is that? To put it bluntly: the more is the sheer extralogical and extralinguistic existence of the thing, its being there (in a non-locative sense of course). The 'more' is its not being nothing. (If you protest that to not be nothing is just to be something, where 'something' is just a bit of logical syntax, then I will explain that there are two senses of 'nothing' that need distinguishing.) Things exist, and they exist beyond language and logic.

Can I argue for this? It is not clear that one needs to argue the point since it is, to me at least, self-evident. But I can argue for it anyway.

It is the extralogical and extralinguistic existence of things that grounds our ability to quantify over them. Given that things exist, and that everything exists, we have no need for an existence predicate: we can rid ourselves of the existence predicate 'E' by defining 'Ex' in terms of '(∃y)(y = x).' But note that the definiens contains nothing but logical syntax. What this means is that one is presupposing the extralogical existence of items in the domain of quantification. You can rid yourself of the existence predicate if you like, but you cannot thereby rid yourself of the first-level existence of the items over which you are quantifying.

Here is another way of seeing the point. Russell held that existence is a propositional function's being sometimes true. Let the propositional function be (what is expressed by) 'x is a dog.' That function is sometimes true (in Russell's idiosyncratic phraseology) if the free variable 'x' has a substituend that turns the propositional function or open sentence into a true closed sentence. So consider 'Fido,' the name of an existing dog and 'Cerberus.' How do I know that substituting 'Fido' for 'x' results in a true sentence while substituting 'Cerberus' does not? Obviously, I must have recourse to a more fundamental notion of existence than the one that Russell defines. I must know that Fido exists while Cerberus does not. Clearly, existence in the fundamental sense is the existence that belongs to individuals, and not existence as a propositional function's being sometimes true.

Another Misrepresentation of Meinong

This time from John Nolt in his SEP entry on Free Logic: "Alexius Meinong is best known for his view that some objects that do not exist nevertheless have being."

False for reasons already supplied. See article below.

It takes quite bit of chutzpah to shoot your mouth off about authors you never took the trouble to read or even to read about. But it is typical of analytic philosophers.