V.-CRITICAL NOTICES. Mit Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie. THIS book consists of eleven essays, one by Meinong, the other ten by his pupils. Meinong's and the two which immediately follow it deal with what Meinong calls Gegenstands theorie, and are largely concerned with matters of fundamental philosophical importance. The eighth, "Ueber Vorstellungsproduktion," deals with the relation of the apprehension of a complex to the apprehensions of its constituents, and is thus closely related to Meinong's nonpsychological work. One deals with ethics; one with the principle of economy of thought; and the other five with special points of psychology. There is thus no very close unity, except what results from similarity of outlook and method. Especially the first three essays and the eighth belong together. The philosophy set forth in them is a development of that contained in Meinong's Annahmen, and its value appears to me to be very great. Its originality consists mainly in the banishment of the psychologism which has been universal in English philosophy from the beginning and in German philosophy since Kant, and in the recognition that philosophy cannot concern itself exclusively with things that exist. Presentations, judgments and assumptions, Meinong points out, always have objects; and these objects are independent of the states of mind in which they are apprehended. This independence has been obscured hitherto by the " prejudice in favour of the existent" (des Wirklichen), which has led people to suppose that, when a thought has a non-existent object, there is really no object distinct from the thought. But this is an error: existents are only an infinitesimal part of the objects of knowledge. This is illustrated by mathematics, which never deals with anything to which existence is essential, and deals in the main with objects which cannot exist, such as numbers. Now we do not need first. to study the knowledge of objects before we study the objects themselves; hence the study of objects is essentially independent of both psychology and theory of knowledge. It may be objected that the study of objects must be coextensive with all knowledge; It but we may consider separately the more general properties and kinds of objects, and this is an essential part of philosophy. is this that Meinong calls Gegenstands theorie. This subject is not identical with metaphysics, but is wider in its scope; for metaphysics deals only with the real, whereas the theory of objects has no such limitations. The theory of objects deals with whatever can be known à priori about objects, but knowledge of reality can only be obtained by experience. The theory of objects is not psychology, since objects are independent of our apprehension of them. It is also not theory of knowledge; for knowledge has two sides, the cognition, which belongs to psychology, and the object, which is independent. The theory of objects, Meinong contends, is also not to be identified with pure logic, since logic, in his opinion, is essentially practical in its aim, being concerned with right reasoning. (On this point, opinions. will differ; but the question is in any case only one of nomenclature.) The conclusion is, that the theory of objects is an independent subject, and the most general of all philosophical subjects. Mathematics is essentially part of it, and thus at last finds a proper place; for the traditional division of sciences into natural and mental left no room for mathematics, because it took account only of the existent. Grammar may be a guide in the general theory of objects, as mathematics in more special parts of the theory. The first great division of objects is into three classes, those which exist, those which subsist (bestehen), and those which neither exist nor subsist.1 It is obvious that abstracts such as diversity or numbers do not exist; propositions, again, are nonexistent; thus certainly there are objects which do not exist, and which yet in some sense subsist. But even when we include subsistence, we do not, it would seem, find a place for all objects; some, such as false propositions, the round square, etc., are objects and yet do not subsist. There are two sorts of judgments, which may be called thetic and synthetic; the former assert the being of something, the latter assert its being so-and-so (Sein and Soscin). The latter sort may subsist when their subjects do not subsist; the round square is certainly both round and square, although the round square does not subsist. We may say, if we like, "There are objects of which it is true to say that there are no such objects" (p. 9). Ameseder, the author of the second article ("Beiträge zur Grundlegung der Gegenstandstheorie "), discusses the three kinds of objects more in detail, and reduces existence to the being of a certain kind of objects. An object (Gegenstand) is either an Objekt 2 or an Objective-the latter being a proposition or something derivative from a Meinong appears to use Sein and bestehen as synonyms, and I shall use being and subsistence as synonyms. 2 As this word is used in a different sense from Gegenstand I shall leave it untranslated, using "object" to translate Gegenstand. "The proposition.1 Objects may be divided into three classes, those whose being is respectively necessary, possible, and impossible. The being of what is possible, if the possible object is an Objekt, is defined as existence; but a possible Objective (e.g. the existence of a possible Objekt) has being, but not existence. Whatever is necessary is an Objective; but some Objectives are possible, and some are impossible (pp. 82-84). Still more definiteness is given to the subject of non-subsistent objects by Mally in the third article ("Zur Gegenstandstheorie des Messens"). A being-so (Sosein) whose subsistence excludes that of its Objekt (i.e. what would usually be called its subject) he defines as contradictory. An Objekt which has a non-contradictory being-so he defines as possible. roundness of what is square is an impossible being-so; but the roundness and squareness of the round square, so far from being impossible, are necessary, though contradictory. It is impossible a square should be round, but not that the round square should be round, which is necessary (p. 128). Again he says: "Even if Ꭺ . in fact is not, it is yet tautologically certain that the being of . the subsistent A' subsists. By a judgment the subsistent A subsists,' no more is judged about the (factual) being or not-being of A . . . than by the hypothetical judgment: If A is, it is ' The 'being and not-being' of the A which is and is not' subsists" (p. 133). Ameseder, in the preceding article, says, in the same spirit, that, if B is impossible, A differs from B' and 'A does not differ from B' may both be true (p. 88). It is not customary for philosophers to face the round square with so much courage; and indeed few logicians can withstand its onset. But if we are to be clear about the supposed nonsubsistent objects, it is quite essential that we should have a satisfactory theory about the round square. For my part, I am not convinced that there are any non-subsistent objects. But let us see what the arguments against them are. Meinong's theory may be modified, (1) by denying his nonsubsistent objects, (2) by denying that they do not subsist.2 I should propose to apply the former process to the round square, the latter to false propositions. There is, Meinong admits (p. 12), one strong argument in favour of the subsistence of the objects which he regards as non-subsistent, and that is, that such objects can be subjects of true and therefore subsistent propositions. But this argument, he says, depends upon regarding a proposition as a complex, and its subject as a constituent of it; and such a view, he thinks, can only be taken figuratively. I should have thought the subject of a proposition was a constituent of a complex in the fundamental sense from which all others are derivative, and that 1On the meaning of the word Objective see MIND, N.S., No. 51, pp. 349 ff. 2 We might also invent a third kind of being, more tenuous even than subsistence. Meinong considers and rejects this plan (p. 11). His reasons seem to me not decisive; but I shall not further consider this plan. therefore the argument would be sound. But the chief objection to Meinong's view seems to me to lie in the fact that it involves. denying the law of contradiction when impossible objects are constituents. If A differs from B' and 'A does not differ from B' are to be both true, we cannot tell, for example, whether a class composed of A and B has one member or two. Thus in all counting, if our results are to be definite, we must first exclude impossible objects. We cannot, if B is impossible, say 'A and B are two objects'; nor can we strictly say 'B is one object'. And the difficulty is that impossible objects often subsist, and even exist. For if the round square is round and square, the existent round square is existent and round and square. Thus something round and square exists, although everything round and square is impossible. This ontological argument cannot be avoided by Kant's device of saying that existence is not a predicate, for Ameseder admits (p. 79) that "existing" applies when and only when being actual (wirklich)" applies, and that the latter is a Sosein. Thus we cannot escape the consequence that "the existent God" both exists and is God; and it is hard to see how it can be maintained, as Mally implies (p. 133), that this has no bearing on the question whether God exists. Thus I should prefer to say that there is no such object as "the round square The difficulties. of excluding such objects can, I think, be avoided by the theory of denoting; in any case, it is plain that the admission of such objects is open to grave objections. But much credit is due to the authors of this book for the thoroughness with which their view is developed. For those who agree with the general standpoint of the work, this question of impossible objects is the most important one of all that arise in considering it, and our view in regard to it will affect very many of our other views. There are certainly difficulties in either hypothesis; but I think the hypothesis adopted by Meinong, Ameseder and Mally involves the greater difficulties. In place of the theory of denoting,1 Mally, in the third essay, develops a theory of explicit and implicit Objekte, which serves. a similar purpose. Mally's essay, before it reaches the subject of measurement, treats afresh all the fundamentals of the theory of objects; it does this in a series of definitions, often (I think) embodying important ideas, but so obscurely expressed that it is very hard to understand what they mean. I shall not attempt a summary, as no summary could be more condensed than the original, in which single pages contain more matter than one usually finds in twenty. But some attempt must be made to explain the nature of explicit and implicit objects, though I am not sure of having fully grasped the author's meaning. An Objective of the form "A is" or "that A is" or "A is b" or 1I.e. Frege's distinction of Sein and Bedeutung; cf. his article on this. subject in Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, vol. 100. See also my article in present number of MIND. "that A is b" is called an explicit Objective, and its subject1 is an explicit subject, having the form "A which is or A which is b". A determination which "coincides essentially "2 with an explicit Objective, without being one, is called an implicit determination; and a similar definition applies to an implicit subject. An explicit determination or subject with the determination of being implicit is called a fictitious determination or subject (pp. 137, 138). As an illustration, Number which is greater than 5" is an explicit object; this is not 6, or 7, or 8, or etc., nor yet the aggregate of all of these; but each of these "coincides completely" (in Mally's sense) with this explicit object. Thus 6 e.g. is an implicit object having the kind of connexion in question with our explicit object. Now consider a certain number which is greater than 5". This still has the same ambiguity as the explicit object, but it says it is a particular one of all the possible numbers 6, 7, 8. . . . Thus it is fictitious: it is a particular, but a general particular, if one may coin such a phrase. This distinction is an elusive one; at the same time, it is certainly genuine and important. For example, among the indemonstrable propositions which are the premisses of mathematics there are two which may be roughly stated thus: (1) “What hold of all, holds of any "; (2) "What holds of all, holds of each". The first, when we are given that all men are mortal, allows us to infer the proposition "any man is mortal"; the second allows us to infer that Socrates is mortal, and also that Plato is mortal, and so on. In the second, we infer the mortality of a certain definite man; but when we state the principle generally, the definiteness is fictitious: we say it is there, but in fact it is absent. This seems to be a case of a kind similar to that of Mally's fictitious objects. As to his explicit and implicit objects, their relation seems to be that of denoting concept to object denoted. The manner of statement, as opposed to that by means of denoting, seems to be determined by the admission of non-subsistent objects, which renders it unnecessary to make a sharp distinction of meaning and denotation such as we require for the denial of denotation in the case of impossible objects. Mally passes next to the definition of complexion and complex, which is as follows: "A quality with several objects of determination (Bestimmungsgegenstände) and one implicit subject (Eigenschaftsgegenstand) is to be called an implicit complexion. The implicit subject of a complexion is to be called an implicit complex. The objects of determination of an implicit complexion are called. its inferiora. The objects of determination of an implicit complex are called its constituents, or also inferiora of the complex" (p. 147).3 I hope other readers do not find these definitions perfectly easy I translate by "subject" the word Eigenschaftsgegenstand, which is used very nearly in the usual sense of "subject," though not quite. 21.e., approximately, has the same predicates, or applies to the same subjects, as the case may be. The above definitions are restated in shorter form on p. 153. |