Alexius Meinong

Alexius Meinong (July 17, 1853, Lviv – November 27, 1920, Graz, Austria) was an Austrian philosopher and psychologist belonging to the school of act psychology.

He is known mainly for his Theory of Objects (Gegenstandstheorie, 1904) and his studies of deontic logic, based on his belief in non-existent objects ("totally abstract"). This theory is based on the fact that it is possible to think of an object, such as the mountain of gold, even though there is no such object in the external world.

Biography

Meinong was born in Lemberg (in "Austrian" Galicia), now known as Lviv, in Ukraine. After having attended the Gymnasium in Vienna, he studied history and philosophy at the University of Vienna under Franz Brentano (1875-1878). In 1878 he moved to the Karl Franz University in Graz as Riedl's successor; in that university he reached the position of extraordinary professor in philosophy (1882). He accepted the chair of philosophy at the University of Graz, where he founded in 1894 the Graz Psychological Institute and the School of Experimental Psychology (the Graz school of experimental psychology became famous in his time).

Meinong supervised the graduation thesis of Christian von Ehrenfels (founder of Gestalt theory -V.:Gestalt- and Gestalt psychology). He was also the supervisor of the qualifications of Alois Höfler and Anton Ölzen-Newin.

In addition to the influence of his teacher Brentano, he received a strong influence from the phenomenology created by his schoolmate Edmund Husserl. This is why Meinong tries the creation of a new science that attempts to study what is prior to experience (the a priori), subtracting for this purpose the intentionality of the highly subjectivist context that phenomenology had reached. from Husserl.
He considers that the & # 34; non-existent objects & # 34; they are aprioristic and, nevertheless, promoters of intentionality and, for this reason, like existing objects, constituents of consciousness, Meinong is far from falling into solipsism, but studies the configuration -in consciousness- of such non-existent entities from of real objectivity.