{"id":6714,"date":"2016-01-20T12:15:38","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T12:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/01\/20\/kripkes-misrepresentation-of-meinong\/"},"modified":"2016-01-20T12:15:38","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T12:15:38","slug":"kripkes-misrepresentation-of-meinong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/01\/20\/kripkes-misrepresentation-of-meinong\/","title":{"rendered":"Kripke’s Misrepresentation of Meinong"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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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<\/sup>  This is not what I am saying here. (p. 64)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Footnote 23 reads as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n

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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.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But it is<\/em> a caricature and at this late date it is well known<\/em> 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<\/em>.   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:<\/span><\/p>\n

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. <\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/em>.  Aussersein<\/em>, however, is not a third mode of being.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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<\/em> with the subsistent.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Related articles<\/p>\n

\n<\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>Begging the Question Against Meinong<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Descartes Meets Meinong: Might I be a Nonexistent Individual?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>A Searle-y Objection to the Causal Theory of Names<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Another Misrepresentation of Meinong<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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; … Continue reading “Kripke’s Misrepresentation of Meinong”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[518,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kripke","category-meinong-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}