Meinongian argument

Last updated

The Meinongian argument is a type of ontological argument [1] or an " a priori argument" that seeks to prove the existence of God. [2] This is through an assertion that there is "a distinction between different categories of existence." [3] The premise of the ontological argument is based on Alexius Meinong's works. Some scholars also associate it with St. Anselm's ontological argument. [4]

Contents

Concept

The Meinongian argument holds that Sherlock Holmes exists in what some scholars describe as distant universe of so-beings. Sherlock Holmes portret.png
The Meinongian argument holds that Sherlock Holmes exists in what some scholars describe as distant universe of so-beings.

There are several ontological arguments that qualify as Meinongian but what all these have in common is the reliance upon the theory of objects defended by Alexius Meinong. [6] This theory holds that: 1) there are properties; 2) this assumption does not exclude the possibility of nominalism; and, 3) the predicate expressions in natural language express properties. [6] Out of these contexts, objects are specified or identified through an unordered collections of properties. [6] The premises of Meinongian arguments, hence, cite a distinction of different categories of existence. [3] This include the concept of impossible objects (e.g. round square, golden mountain) where knowledge can be gained and assert true claims out of things that do not exist. [7] The argument implies, for instance, that: "it is now true that [ Sherlock Holmes] did not exist at t0, there was a true proposition at t0, such as the present tensed proposition [Sherlock Holmes does not exist], and that proposition was made true at t0 by Sherlock Holmes' not instantiating existence". [8]

According to P. van Inwagen, St. Anselm's ontology qualifies as Meinongian argument. AnselmCanterbury2.jpg
According to P. van Inwagen, St. Anselm's ontology qualifies as Meinongian argument.

Miroslaw Szatkowski cited St. Anselm's ideas to explain the concept of the Meinongian argument. There was the philosopher's theory that there are two modes of being (or of existence): a weaker (less demanding) existence; and, a stronger (more demanding) existence. [10] In the Meinongian existence thesis, it is argued that even if the Fool is right to say that something than which nothing greater can be conceived does not exist in reality, it is still true to say that the same denotes a certain item, one that is weaker and less demanding mode of existence. [3] These weak and strong modes of existence are not exclusive and that a thing can enjoy both. Szatkowski noted that thinkers such as St. Thomas Aquinas and Gaunilo of Marmoutiers believed that God falls within the weaker, less demanding existence since one cannot fully grasp the divine nature in its entirety and that we only understand a certain name of God. [10] However, this partial grasp of the divine nature is enough to demonstrate the name "something a grater than which cannot be conceived". [10] For Swatkowski, these interpretations presupposes an ontology that indicate Meinongian thought. [10]

Bertrand Russell described the Meinongian argument in the following statement:

If you say that the golden mountain does not exist, it is obvious that there is something that you are saying that does not exist - namely the golden mountain; therefore the golden mountain must subsist in some shadowy Platonic realm of being, for otherwise your statement that the golden mountain does not exist would have no meaning. [11]

While some thinkers associate the Meinongian argument with Anslem's ontology, there are, however, noted differences. For instance, the Meinongian conceptualization treated existenz as one of the two modes of sein while Anselm treated it as a stylistic variant. [10]

Incomplete objects

The Meinonging argument for incomplete objects is considered the key to Alexius Meinong's (pictured) treatment of conception-dependence. Meinong.jpg
The Meinonging argument for incomplete objects is considered the key to Alexius Meinong's (pictured) treatment of conception-dependence.

Meinongian argument describes incomplete objects as that which never exists or has being in its own right, merely deriving its existence by being embedded in complete objects. [12] This can be demonstrated when the properties of an incomplete object are present or shared by one or more existing complete objects. [12] It is also explained that all actually existing objects are complete objects and that we can never conceive any such complete objects due to the finite capacities of the human mind. [12] The Meinongian argument for incomplete object is said to be the key to the treatment of conception-dependence. [13] To distinguish the concepts of complete from incomplete objects, one can take the example of the idea brown. There is a completed object when it is constituted by all the other properties which necessarily belong to brown things. [14] On the other hand, the individual brown things (e.g. strange entity Brown; auxiliary object something brown; and, the species the brown things) are incomplete objects. [14]

Complex objects

The Meinongian conceptualization of complex objects emerged from an attempt to explain how complex objects (the relation between objects such as causal relations, or complex objects, e.g. a melody) are understood based on lower order objects or those objects that are devoid of structural complexity or relation. [15]

Reformulations

To address some of the perceived weaknesses of the Meinongian argument, some thinkers proposed modifications. A reformulation, for example, suggested the elimination of the term proposition so that:

  1. If we can refer to an object, then we can make a statement about it at least meaningful;
  2. A statement about nothing is a meaningless statement;
  3. A statement is about something only if that object exists.;
  4. Therefore, we cannot refer to nonexistent objects. [16]

Opposing Thoughts

One of the critics that criticized Meinongian arguments was Willard Van Orman Quine, who attacked the ontological argument in his work, On What There Is. In this paper, Quine complained the Meinongian conceptualization of the individuation of non-existent objects. [17] Bertrand Russell's ideas also undercut Meinongian argument. This was evident in his theory of denoting concepts, where he maintained that denoting concepts may fail to denote since there is no such thing as the purported denotation. For Russell, this makes it possible for the existence of nothing and a definite description to describe it. In The Existential Import of Propositions, he stated:

"The present king of England" is a denoting concept denoting an individual; "The present king of France" is a similar complex concept denoting nothing.

Russell, however, recognized that Meinongian argument is an unqualified form of direct realism. [18]

The scholar Arnaud Dewalque also stated that Meinong's analysis of assumption fails to adequately account for the noncommital character of assumptive attitudes and the distinction between assumptive and neighboring attitudes. [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Existence</span> State of being real

Existence is the state of being real or participating in reality. The terms "being", "reality", and "actuality" are often used as close synonyms. Existence contrasts with nonexistence, nothingness, and nonbeing. A common distinction is between the existence of an entity and its essence, which refers to the entity's nature or essential qualities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franz Brentano</span> Austrian Catholic priest and philosopher (1838–1917)

Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Josef Brentano was a German philosopher and psychologist. His 1874 Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, considered his magnum opus, is credited with having reintroduced the medieval scholastic concept of intentionality into contemporary philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexius Meinong</span> Austrian philosopher (1853–1920)

Alexius Meinong Ritter von Handschuchsheim was an Austrian philosopher, a realist known for his unique ontology. He also made contributions to philosophy of mind and theory of value.

The existence of God is a subject of debate in theology, the philosophy of religion, and popular culture. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God can be categorized as logical, empirical, metaphysical, subjective or scientific. In philosophical terms, the question of the existence of God involves the disciplines of epistemology and ontology and the theory of value.

The Graz School, also Meinong's School, of experimental psychology and object theory was headed by Alexius Meinong, who was professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Graz where he founded the Graz Psychological Institute in 1894. The Graz School's phenomenological psychology and philosophical semantics achieved important advances in philosophy and psychological science.

In analytic philosophy, actualism is the view that everything there is is actual. Another phrasing of the thesis is that the domain of unrestricted quantification ranges over all and only actual existents.

Philosophical realism – usually not treated as a position of its own but as a stance towards other subject matters – is the view that a certain kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it exists even in the absence of any mind perceiving it or that its existence is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder. This includes a number of positions within epistemology and metaphysics which express that a given thing instead exists independently of knowledge, thought, or understanding. This can apply to items such as the physical world, the past and future, other minds, and the self, though may also apply less directly to things such as universals, mathematical truths, moral truths, and thought itself. However, realism may also include various positions which instead reject metaphysical treatments of reality entirely.

A free logic is a logic with fewer existential presuppositions than classical logic. Free logics may allow for terms that do not denote any object. Free logics may also allow models that have an empty domain. A free logic with the latter property is an inclusive logic.

Ernst Mally was an Austrian analytic philosopher, initially affiliated with Alexius Meinong's Graz School of object theory. Mally was one of the founders of deontic logic and is mainly known for his contributions in that field of research. In metaphysics, he is known for introducing a distinction between two kinds of predication, better known as the dual predication approach.

"On Denoting" is an essay by Bertrand Russell. It was published in the philosophy journal Mind in 1905. In it, Russell introduces and advocates his theory of denoting phrases, according to which definite descriptions and other "denoting phrases ... never have any meaning in themselves, but every proposition in whose verbal expression they occur has a meaning." This theory later became the basis for Russell's descriptivism with regard to proper names, and his view that proper names are "disguised" or "abbreviated" definite descriptions.

In metaphysics and ontology, Austrian philosopher Alexius Meinong advanced nonexistent objects in the 19th and 20th centuries within a "theory of objects". He was interested in intentional states which are directed at nonexistent objects. Starting with the "principle of intentionality", mental phenomena are intentionally directed towards an object. People may imagine, desire or fear something that does not exist. Other philosophers concluded that intentionality is not a real relation and therefore does not require the existence of an object, while Meinong concluded there is an object for every mental state whatsoever—if not an existent then at least a nonexistent one.

Noneism, also known as modal Meinongianism, is a theory in logic and metaphysics. It holds that some things do not exist. It was first coined by Richard Routley in 1980 and appropriated again in 2005 by Graham Priest.

Héctor-Neri Castañeda was a Guatemalan-American philosopher and founder of the journal Noûs.

William Joseph Rapaport is a North American philosopher who is an Associate Professor Emeritus of the University at Buffalo.

William F. Vallicella is an American philosopher.

Meinong's jungle is the name given by Richard Routley (1980) to the repository of non-existent objects in the ontology of Alexius Meinong.

An ontological argument is a philosophical argument, made from an ontological basis, that is advanced in support of the existence of God. Such arguments tend to refer to the state of being or existing. More specifically, ontological arguments are commonly conceived a priori in regard to the organization of the universe, whereby, if such organizational structure is true, God must exist.

In metaphysics, Plato's beard is a paradoxical argument dubbed by Willard Van Orman Quine in his 1948 paper "On What There Is". The phrase came to be identified as the philosophy of understanding something based on what does not exist.

Abstract object theory (AOT) is a branch of metaphysics regarding abstract objects. Originally devised by metaphysician Edward Zalta in 1981, the theory was an expansion of mathematical Platonism.

In modal logic, modal collapse is the condition in which every true statement is necessarily true, and vice versa; that is to say, there are no contingent truths, or to put it another way, that "everything exists necessarily". In the notation of modal logic, this can be written as .

References

  1. ↑ Oppy, Graham (2006). Arguing about Gods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 49. ISBN   978-1-139-45889-4.
  2. ↑ "The Ontological Argument". www.qcc.cuny.edu. Retrieved 2022-03-09.
  3. 1 2 3 Szatkowski, Miroslaw (2012). Ontological Proofs Today. Frankfurt: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 28, 150. ISBN   978-3-86838-181-8.
  4. ↑ Szatkowski, Miroslaw (2013). Ontological Proofs Today. Piscataway, NJ: Walter de Gruyter. p. 27. ISBN   978-3-11-032588-1.
  5. ↑ Vecsey, Zoltán (2019). Fiction and Representation. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 33. ISBN   978-3-11-064680-1.
  6. 1 2 3 Oppy, Graham, ed. (1996), "Meinongian arguments", Ontological Arguments and Belief in God, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 85–91, doi:10.1017/CBO9780511663840.008, ISBN   978-0-521-48120-5 , retrieved 2022-09-08
  7. ↑ Swanson, C. A Meinongian minefield? The dangerous implications of nonexistent objects. Humaff22, 161–177 (2012). doi : 10.2478/s13374-012-0015-2
  8. ↑ Antonelli, Mauro; David, Marian (2016). Existence, Fiction, Assumption: Meinongian Themes and the History of Austrian Philosophy. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 105. ISBN   978-3-11-045136-8.
  9. ↑ Szatkowski, Miroslaw (2013). Ontological Proofs Today. Walter de Gruyter. p. 27. ISBN   978-3-11-032588-1.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Szatkowski, Miroslaw (2012). Ontological Proofs Today. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Books. pp. 144, 148. ISBN   978-3-86838-181-8.
  11. ↑ Hylton, Peter (2005). Propositions, Functions, and Analysis: Selected Essays on Russell's Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 200. ISBN   978-0-19-151596-5.
  12. 1 2 3 Smith, D. W.; McIntyre, R. (2012). Husserl and Intentionality: A Study of Mind, Meaning, and Language. Dordrecht: Springer Science & Business Media. p. 56. ISBN   978-90-277-1730-6.
  13. ↑ Sierszulska, Anna (2005). Meinong on Meaning and Truth: A Theory of Knowledge. Piscataway, NJ: Walter de Gruyter. p. 184. ISBN   3-937202-94-3.
  14. 1 2 Grossmann, Reinhardt (2010). Meinong-Arg Philosophers. New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN   978-1-136-95791-8.
  15. ↑ Hopkins, Burt; Crowell, Steven (2015). The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy: Volume 5. Oxon: Routledge. p. 99. ISBN   978-0-9701679-5-8.
  16. ↑ Davis, Wayne A. (2005). Nondescriptive Meaning and Reference: An Ideational Semantics. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. p. 183. ISBN   0-19-9261652.
  17. ↑ Effingham, Nikk (2013). An Introduction to Ontology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN   978-0-7456-6547-4.
  18. ↑ Griffin, Nicholas (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 217. ISBN   0-521-63178-5.
  19. ↑ Dewalque, Arnaud; Raspa, Venanzio (2019). Psychological Themes in the School of Alexius Meinong. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 86. ISBN   978-3-11-066251-1.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.