Abstract
Meinong’s principles of independence and indifference purport to tell us that objects have properties or natures independently of their being and that being is not a part of the nature of any object. But these principles by themselves do not tell us a great deal about how he understood the nature of objects, existent or nonexistent. The terminology used by Meinong to explicate these principles, which up to this point I have adopted uncritically, suggests that existent and nonexistent (i.e. beingless) objects have or exemplify properties. But one might wonder whether this talk is a bit loose, and whether Meinong really meant that objects, i.e. at least nonexistent ones, are properties or combinations of properties, instead of things which have or exemplify properties.
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Notes
This consideration is not just a matter of antiquarian interest, but should be the focus of the examination of any contemporary theory of nonexistent objects as well.
Lewis ([1986], pp. 81–6) maintains, with certain reservations, that nonactual worlds and their inhabitants are in some sense concrete. But, once again, they are s aid to exist simpliciter,and so we must distinguish Lewisian modal realism from Meinongianism, at least from that sort which endorses beingless objects.
He does, however, use the terms ‘complex’ and (apparently) ’set-complex’ (Mengenkomplex),but more of that later (see note 11 below).
I subsequently discovered that Zalta [1988] does much the same. I will try to point out along the way some of the places where our interpretations of Meinong are similar and where they appear to diverge.
For a more detailed discussion of the development of the notion of an incomplete object in Meinong, see Findlay [1963], ch. 6, and Grossman [1974a], chs. 2, 9 and 10. On the use of incomplete objects to explicate the notion of possibility, see Chisholm [1973]. The following exposition draws heavily on these works. For a recent, very interesting discussion, see Kalsi’s ‘Incompleteness and the Tertium Non Datur’, forthcoming in Conceptus.
Here and below, ‘lacks’ would appear to be used strongly by Meinong to mean has the negation of.
That is, at least on Meinong’s “narrow” negation, according to which it would appear that ‘the golden mountain is nonexistent (lacks existence)’ means ‘the golden mountain has (possesses) nonexistence’. On “wide” negation (erweiterte Negation),one could presumably say that the golden mountain is nonexistent, meaning that it is not the case that the golden mountain is existent. See Findlay [1963], pp. 160–62.
Recall that the early Russell, circa [1903], appears to have thought that a variable represented an indefinite number. Frege [1904] insists, against Czuber, that variables in mathematics designate or indicate numbers indefinitely; there are no indefinite numbers.
This is in line with Twardowski’s [1894] view that no adequate presentation exists of any object, and that it is impossible to conceive all or even a tolerably large number of constituents of an object through one perception. See Grossmann [1977], pp. 79 and 82.
For representationalist theories, of course, there is the problem of whether we can ever get to (complete) existent objects, but I am not concerned with that here. In his notes on Husserl’s phenomenology (in Kalsi [1978], p. 226), Meinong admits that it is logically possible that there is no world out there. Also see Meinong [1917], Kalsi edition, p. 138.
I have been following Grossmann’s [1974a] critical discussion of the epistemological role of incomplete objects, except that I (unlike him) do not sharply distinguish sets from “bundles”. (Grossmann is not alone in this. In a different context, see, e.g., Castenada [1974], p. 23f.) In Grossmann’s view (in correspondence) this is a big mistake, and I think it is worth pausing briefly here to say something about this. On his reading, Meinong never thought of existents as sets of properties (property-instances), and neither did any of the bundle ontologists from Berkeley through Hume to Meinong, Husserl, et al. (Of course, and here I anticipate, even if existents for Meinong are bundles and not sets, nonexistents might be different by being sets and not bundles.) For Grossmann (and others), individual (existent) things cannot possibly be sets of properties (property-instances) for two main reasons: (1) while the former are concrete (spatiotemporal), the latter are abstract (nonspatial, atemporal); and (2) while any number of properties (instances) form a set, they do not constitute an individual thing (a bundle,or what Grossmann calls a structure). With respect to (1), while I do not deny that philosophers have traditionally taken sets to be paradigmatically abstract, there is as we shall see a sense in which sets can be said to be concrete, even if one accepts the spatiotemporal criterion of concreteness. (2), on the other hand, appears to turn on a narrow notion of what counts as an individual (why not say instead that any number of properties do constitute an individual thing # it can be quantified over, etc. #though perhaps this need not be (or correspond to) an actual, i.e. this-worldly, (existent) thing), and it already seems to presuppose a sharp distinction between sets and bundles. Strictly speaking, the term ‘bundle’ is not Meinong’s. Nevertheless, Grossmann’s bundles (structures) do appear to go proxy for Meinong’s complexes. The early Meinong does appear to distinguish collectives (objective collectives) from complexes (cf., e.g., his [1899]). [He also distinguishes complexions from complexes, but let’s ignore that here.] On one reading, a collective is any old bunch (set) of objecta (“individuals”, properties, etc.), and as such it appears to correspond to the notion of an unordered set. A complex, on the other hand, consists of objecta (originally two or more) connected or associated with (to) each other in a certain way; there is no complex without a relate (and no relate without a complex), though the relate in question is not strictly a member of the complex but that which binds it together. [A relate is not strictly a relation, but let’s also ignore that distinction here]. To this extent, Grossmann appears to be right to insist on drawing a sharp distinction between (unordered) sets [collectives] and bundles [complexes]. But, as Auguste Fischer tells us (see supplementary note 16 added sometime before or in 1913 to Meinong’s [1899], in Kalsi [1978], p. 202), in lectures Meinong abandoned the notion of a collective (objective collective), now understanding it to be a peculiar object of higher order, viz. a set-complex (Mengenkomplex). [Though Fischer does not state this, I presume that Meinong rejected this notion (in part) because it was too psychologistic. That is, insofar as a collective (a pseudo-object for our ideas) was understood to be the result of an individual’s collating activity, this suggested that a collective was a (mental) entity whose existence (or whatever mode of being, if any, it has) is dependent upon individual minds; but this shouldn’t be.] Among other things, Meinong’s abandonment of the notion of a collective (objective collective), in favour of the notion of a set-complex, indicates that sets (set-complexes) have a certain unity or structure absent from a “mere” bunch of objecta ; hence the use of the word ‘complex’. The notion of a set-complex appears to correspond to the notion of an ordered set. Ordered by what? By some relate (relatum) or other (since it is a complex), e.g. successor of, greater than, to the right of, etc. But then, contra Grossmann, if Meinong really did abandon the notion of a collective (objective collective) in favour of the notion of a set-complex, sets (i.e. set-complexes) are not sharply distinguished by Meinong from bundles (complexes). As far as I can tell, there is no substantive difference between a set-complex and a complex. I do admit, however, that the term ’set-complex’ is not, so are as I know, used by Meinong in his published works; and the Ergänzungsband of the Gesamtausgabe has nothing on it. However, it seems to me that I do not even need to make heavy-weather over the term ‘set-complex’ to make my point. So far as I can tell, there is little (if any) substantive difference for Meinong between a collective and a complex (i.e. even before he abandoned the former notion), in which case he does not sharply distinguish collectives (so-called “mere” sets) from complexes (so-called “bundles”) in the way Grossmann alleges.For Meinong, collectives, like complexes, are objects of higher order founded upon real or ideal (i.e. existent or nonexistent) objecta. For Meinong [1899], complexes themselves are real (existent) or ideal (nonexistent). Real complexes appear to consist of existing objecta (e.g. a body of legs, arms, organs, etc.) and a perceptible relate (e.g. attached to one another). Ideal complexes, on the other hand, appear to consist of existing or ideal objecta and ideal relates; a melody, e.g., though consisting (in part) of existing notes, is itself an ideal complex which doesn’t exist but subsists. Other examples of ideal complexes include the red square and the green rectangle, which Meinong says (in Kalsi [1978], p. 145) are not simply colour and also shape but a certain togetherness or connectedness of colour and shape, whatever precisely that might be. Such complexes (considered in abstracto) would presumably have außersein,to use Meinong’s later terminology. While it is clear that for Meinong there is no complex (real or ideal) without some relate (colloquially: without some relationship between or among the objects which constitute the complex) # in that sense no “mere” bunch of objecta is a complex for him # it is far from clear that for him there is ever a collective without some relate or other. On the contrary, it appears that for him whenever there is a collective (or objective collective) some collating principle (activity) is always involved. The members of any set (collection), no matter how seemingly diverse, are related in some way or other, if only by our placing (collecting, collating, considering, etc.) them together. If I have understood Meinong correctly, there is never a “mere” or “random” bunch of objecta; the notion might only be meaningful when we have not yet figured out how the members of the “bunch” (collective or set) are in fact related, or “intended” to be related (i.e. before knowledge comes about by psychic analysis and idea production, to use Meinong’s terminology); nevertheless, they are related. If so, what difference, if any, is there for Meinong between a collective and a complex? Well, so far as I can tell, the only difference might be terminological, viz. that whereas he uses the term ‘complex’ for both real (existent) and ideal (nonexistent) objects of higher order, the term ‘collective’ tends to be restricted to ideal (nonexistent) objects of higher order. One might object that insofar as sets (ordered or unordered) are traditionally ideal objects of higher order and subsist,if Meinong ever did flirt with (if not endorse) the idea that existents were sets of properties (property-instances), then strictly speaking they would subsist for him, not exist. In reply, I do not think that we must interpret him this way. He did hold that superiora do not necessarily inherit the mode of being of their inferiora, so that a set constructed out of existing inferiora (“individuals”, properties, etc.) and an existing relate would not necessarily exist. Nevertheless, if one succeeded in constructing a collective (i.e. its members) as existing, and one put order into it by relating its members via an existing relate, then it seems to me that one could say that a set exists for Meinong. Perhaps this is too strained and in the end the suggestion that existents for Meinong are sets is unsustainable. If so, this would not really trouble me, for the main reason that nonexistents might be different by being sets. Of course, this would then leave unresolved the question of how he understood the “nature” of existents; the two main candidates on offer would then seem to be something like Grossmann’s bundles (structures) or concrete (first-order) particulars. It would also suggest that nonexistents are not concrete (for Meinong), and I will return to this issue later.I am grateful to Kalsi for her help in clarifying points raised in this lengthy note.
[1915], pp. 222–23, quoted in Findlay [1963], p. 208. Note that Findlay translates ’vollständigen’,in its first occurrence, as concrete,not complete. But if there is no difference between concreteness and completeness, and except in rare cases there are no complete nonexistents, then Meinong’s paradigm nonexistents would not count as concrete. If they are ever concrete, it would be less misleading if we translate ’vollständigen’ as complete. Findlay, however, is quite sure that incomplete objects are abstract. See his [1963], pp. 155, 161 and 165.
Though Lewis rejects the notion of an incomplete object, for him no individual inhabits more than one world. If the denizens of possible worlds, including this one, are flesh-and-blood, and worlds are spatiotemporally disconnected from one another, it is not hard to see why Lewis holds this view.
This appears to go against Rapaport [1978], who says, ‘In our theory, on the other hand [i.e. unlike Castenada’s], actual objects turn out to be very much like bare substrates, having merely external relations to properties. On our theory, if an actual object a changes a property, we keep a and locate the change in its (external) relationships to M-objects. ... But it is the same a’ (p. 170).
Meinong’s remark about the dangerous metaphor of “filling up” an incomplete object to make it more and more complete ([1915], p. 224) also appears to imply that the properties which belong to, or constitute, incomplete objects are per se or essential to them.
See, e.g., Meinong [1877]. For a good discussion of some of the main features of the first Hume Studies,see Barber [1970]. In his [1899] he at times seems to suggest that existing individuals are cross-sections (sets) of (localized) properties, though Kalsi ([1978], p. 17f) thinks this is misleading. Meinong’s repeated insistence (in [1904], [1910], and elsewhere) on the dependence of objecta on objectives (e.g. that it is only by virtue of their inclusion in objectives that objecta come to be or not to be, that an objectum always stands in an objective, and that objecta can only be given to our assumptions and judgements by means of objectives about them) seems to count against an ontology in which substance is primary (perhaps in much the same way as Wittgenstein’s opening remarks in the Tractatus # ‘The world is all that is the case. The world is the totality of facts, not of things’ # go against it). On the other hand, objectives are said to be objects of higher order founded upon objecta. These objecta can include both “ordinary” things (“individuals”) and properties, and it is not obvious that the latter are more basic than the former. In addition, we find assertions such as the following: ’it is of the nature of a property to be a property of something’ ([1910], Heanue edition, p. 47).
I have heard the following objection. If for Meinong nonexistents were properties or sets of properties, they would have being of a sort, and indeed on his own view a fairly substantial sort, viz. the same as numbers (i.e. they would subsist). If calling them “nonexistent” only has the force of ranking them alongside numbers (or whatever else doesn’t exist because ‘exists’ is confined to spatiotemporal concrete particulars), that’s uninteresting. As I said earlier, Meinong held that superiora do not necessarily inherit the mode of being of their inferiora, in which case if the members of a set exist or subsist, it does not follow from this alone that the set itself exists or subsists; it might have außersein. [Inferiora do not even have to subsist. That the round square is different from the oval triangle itself subsists, though none of the objects here functioning as inferiora subsists (see Meinong [1917], in Kalsi edition, p. 61).] Of course, if außersein is itself a genuine mode of being for Meinong, then all sets (except perhaps those which are defective objects) do have being of a sort, so that if nonexistents such as the round square are sets, they are not literally beingless. I agree that if calling them “nonexistent” only has the force of ranking them alongside whatever else doesn’t exist, because ‘exists’ is construed rather narrowly, that is uninteresting. But as far as I can tell, that’s just what Meinong does. His paradigm nonexistents appear to be higher order, i.e. ideal (not real), objects. Whatever does not exist (is not real) but subsists is “nonexistent”. Excluding defective objects and the like, whatever does not exist or subsist has außersein,and as such is also “nonexistent”. In other moods, viz. when the focus is on the real-ideal distinction, whatever is ideal is “nonexistent”, and the distinction between subsistence and außersein plays no major role. Readers will no doubt have been wondering what, if anything, Meinong knew of set theory. Meinong does not often speak directly about sets in his written work, mainly in the second chapter of his [1917]. (He does, however, speak often about complexes.) A reading of that chapter reveals, among other things, that he was clearly aware of some of the paradoxes of set theory, in particular the Russell paradox and the Burali-Forti paradox. In that connection he notes Rüstow’s 1910 dissertation Der Lügner [The Liar],with which I presume he had some familiarity, though I do not. Kalsi has pointed out to me that in his 1918 treatise Zum Erweise des allgemeinen Kausalgesetzes Meinong distances himself from speaking about modern set theory (and in particular set-theoretic paradoxes) on account of his own ignorance. I do not consider this to be particularly damaging to my overall interpretation of him; in fact, it might count as a point in its favour. The view of “nonexistents” I will impute to him requires only the most rudimentary familiarity on his part with set-theoretic notions # little more than the notions of a set and set-membership, which he had in hand. The theory itself is not terribly sophisticated and is a bit vague at certain junctures, which is perhaps precisely the sort of thing one would expect if he had only a rudimentary understanding of set theory, and so was disinclined, if not afraid, to speak directly in set-theoretic terms. In this connection, I think it needs to be pointed out that nonexistents are not the alpha and omega of Meinong’s philosophizing, though this aspect of his thought has apparently become that for which he is most famous (infamous). Odd as it may seem, perhaps one of the chief lessons to be learned if I’m right in what follows is that too much emphasis has been placed (misplaced) on that small aspect of his work, to the exclusion of those of his ideas which might be truly interesting and exciting (e.g. his work on assumptions).
Though I myself do not think that existents are sets, the above reply could also be used against those who, appealing to commonsense, said that one does not ride a set (or class) of anything when one rides a particular existent horse, taking that to be a knock-down argument to show that individual existent things are not sets (classes). If one sharply distinguishes sets from bundles, as Grossmann does, one might say that this entire discussion of and by Routley is irrelevant. Of course existents aren’t sets; but that has nothing to do with the view (attributed by Grossmann to Meinong) that an existent horse, e.g., is a concrete bundle (structure) of properties, including a place and time.
Others seem to agree, though their pronouncements on this tend to be more guarded. E.g., Zalta ([1988], pp. 142–3) suggests, at the risk of being a ‘revisionist historian of philosophy’, that one of the things that set Meinong apart from his contemporaries was the doctrine that nonexistents are individuals, not properties or sets of properties. This appears to be one key difference between my interpretation of Meinong and his. To the extent that Zalta does not provide direct or indirect textual support for this claim (that is not really his chief concern), it is difficult to show directly that his interpretation comes out worse than mine on this score. Though Parsons (e.g. [1974] and [1980]) presents a set-theoretic reconstruction of Meinong’s theory, Meinongian objects are not strictly sets of properties; rather, sets of properties represent objects in the theory. Parsons did suggest ([1974], p. 578) that one might insist that objects just are the sets used to represent them, though he seems to imply that this is not the most faithful interpretation of Meinong. This would surely be one way of trying to get past the likely objection that if objects (especially nonexistent ones) are not identified with sets of properties, but sets of properties only represent them, then either these objects are left over to be accounted for or else there just aren’t any such objects.
Routley accepts this in [1980a], p. 6 and elsewhere. Whether the fundamental vehicle of reference to individuals is quantifiers and bound variables or singular terms is left open.
See his [1921], ch. 6, section 67. McTaggart’s definition is adopted by O’Connor ([1976], p. 271) as the definition of an individual.
Findlay ([1963], pp. 164–5) points to an ambiguity in the term ‘univeral’. By it philosophers sometimes mean incompletely determined objects such as man or triangle, and sometimes the complex of properties such as humanity or triangularity. He says that in principle Meinong’s incomplete objects do not differ from the genera and species of Aristotle. I do not doubt that for some purposes it is important to distinguish types of universals, but for my purpose here, I am just trying to show the extent to which Meinong’s incomplete objects may be universals of one sort or another.
Meinong says ([1915], p. 212) that the incomplete object, the sphere (die Kugel) is “embedded” in both particular existent objects, e.g. his friend’s billiard ball, and objects which do not exist, e.g. the ivory ball which is 10 metres in diameter. In the former case, the sphere has implexive Existenz,in the latter implexive Nichtexistenz. Meinong then goes on to say that the incomplete (impossible) object, the two-sided plane figure (das_Zweieck),is “embedded” in some (complete) Zweieck. But it is not clear just how seriously Meinong takes this latter claim. He says that it is admittedly unrealizable,for there is no object which has any determination of this kind, and so, das Zweieck has implexive Nichtsein. The text does not make it entirely clear whether Meinong means only that there is no existent or subsistent object which has any determination of the latter kind, or whether there is no object simpliciter which has such a determination. I suspect it is the latter, for Meinong immediately goes on to say that this fiction (of the incomplete Zweieck being “embedded” in some complete Zweieck) can help clarify the legitimate sense of the concepts of implexive existence and implexive subsistence.
In recent correspondence, Kalsi says that in the Hume Studien I Meinong talks about collectives, at first in the Humean sense that there is only a word, say, ‘fish’ which either stands for a particular fish or for a particular fish standing for all fish. There are no abstract ideas or the idea of the class fish. This, she says, is the early (and again the very late) Meinong. Now, in the later Meinong, as in Hume Studien II [1882], she says that the concept fish refers to a an (ideal) object of higher order, really the collective (i.e. set) of all fish. The (a) concept always refers to a general object (or universal, abstract, set) which is the collective; it is,she says, a set in the modern understanding. Now we have a collective, an object of higher order, which is thought by means of a concept, and which is a “precision object” and is always ideal. The members of that collective are members also in virtue of some relating principle, e.g. similarity in common characteristics.
If we are entitled to call the completed incomplete object, the Triangle, a nonexistent object, it follows that on Meinong’s theory at least some nonexistent objects can “have” more properties than are included or contained in their identifying descriptions. The object designated by ‘the Triangle’ has the properties of being bounded by three straight lines, having three angles, etc., insofar as it is “embedded” in particular (Euclidean) triangles, although these properties are not specifically included in the description ‘the Triangle’. Meinong says that although the Triangle is not, strictly speaking, isosceles, e.g., it may be said to have this property implexively insofar as some of the particular triangles in which it is “embedded” are isosceles. The question whether the logical consequences of properties in a set of properties should be said to belong to it is an interesting one which I do not pursue here. Meinong [1917], Kalsi edition, p. 20, seems to suggest that there is a sense in which the round square is not only round but also has corners (because it is also square).
I will be looking more closely at the sense in which nonexistents might be said to be concrete particulars in 3.3.
It is not clear that Meinong was in fact confused about this, for reasons to emerge shortly (and again in chapter 5). This membership-instantiation (exemplification) distinction corresponds to similar distinctions drawn by so-called dual-copula theorists. Castenada [1979] distinguishes consociation (also called co-objectification in [1974]) from consubstantiation (also called co-actuality in [1974]). Rapaport ([1978] and [1981], e.g.) distinguishes constitution (constituency) from exemplification. Zalta ([1983] and [1988], e.g.) distinguishes encoding from exemplification. Mally’s [1912] distinction, noted earlier, between determining and being satisfied will be discussed below.
Grossmann argues for this in a number of places. See, e.g., his [1974b], pp. 75–6, and his Introduction to [1977].
Arthur Prior made this point in connection with the property of being at once ten feet tall and not ten feet tall in his essay ‘Entities’, in [1976], p. 30. In correspondence, Grossmann tells me that since he sharply distinguishes a “bundle” from a “set” view, he cannot possibly say that the bundle (round, square) exists. Nor can he make any sense of the rest of this paragraph.
Grossmann also tells me that it makes no sense, on his ontology, to speak of what instantiates a set. Sets are never instantiated; properties and complex properties, if there are such things, are instantiated.
Pavel Tichy says that Meinong cannot distinguish an attribute’s being instantiated by a particular and the same attribute’s being a requisite of a thing-to-be. Tichy’s things-to-be are meant to correspond to Meinong’s pure objects or Soseins. Accordingly, instead of saying that Pegasus, the pure object or thing-to-be, is such that whatever is to embody it must be a horse, Meinong has to say that the pure object itself is a horse.
For Zalta, there are (nonexistent) A-objects which are incomplete with respect to the properties they encode. So, e.g., neither being red nor being not-red is a property the round square encodes. But for Zalta, A-objects (and indeed all objects) are complete with respect to the properties they exemplify. A-objects exemplify (among others) the negations of ordinary properties. So, e.g., though the round square does not exemplify the property of being red, it does exemplify the negation of this property (because abstract objects aren’t red). On my interpretation of Meinong’s nonexistents, they do not exemplify the negations of the ordinary (first-order) properties which are or are not members of the sets identified with them.
Lambert ([1972], p. 229) says that Mally produced a theory of logical space that antedates Wittgenstein’s more famous theory (and which, he says, closely resembles van Fraassen’s formal account). Cf. also Findlay [1963], pp. 111–12. In contemporary possible-worlds semantics, there is Max Cresswell’s “combinatorialism”, which (following Quine’s earlier suggestion) takes “worlds” to be set-theoretic combinatorial rearrangements of whatever basic atoms constitute this world. Rapaport [1985/6] presents a theory of Meinongian objects as “combinatorially possible” entities, in which außersein can be thought of as a “space” of “points” (some of which are occupied by actual objects or states of affairs).
0n my model, the distinction between predicate and sentential (i.e. internal and external) negation is not a distinction between two kinds of negation, but of places one can insert a negation sign.
In 5.2 (Evaluation), I will return to this way of interpreting the nuclear-extrnuclear distinction, pointing out how it easily accommodates and makes clear sense of Meinong’s distinction between being existent and existing.
The above claims are found in [1915], p. 287. That the golden mountain (the mountain that is of gold) is golden, in the Kantian analytic sense, is also found in [1910]. See, e.g., Heanue edition, p. 197. In [1917], Kalsi edition, pp. 20–1, Meinong repeats his central point, viz. that the claim that he is not justified in saying that the round square is round is mistaken if ‘round’ is construed as a constituent (Konstitutivum) of ’the round square’, but not if if it construed in the second way, and he refers his readers back to his detailed discussion of this in [1915]. I will return to this section of Meinong’s [1915] in 5.2 (Evaluation). On my view, it is important to note that these texts, which are clearly compatible with at least a tacit endorsement of a set-of-properties model for nonexistents are late ones. Certain of his pre-1915 remarks about nonexistents might then be interpreted as heading towards the model he later endorses, once he sees certain distinctions more clearly.
Kalsi casts serious doubt on whether Meinong in fact held this (or held it consistently) in ‘Incompleteness and the Tertium Non Datur’, forthcoming in Conceptus. Given the evidence she presents regarding Meinong’s apparently contradictory stance on the subsistence, and hence completeness, of objects such as the diamond ball 1 kilometer in diameter, (the) equilateral triangle and (the) rectangular triangle, it would be rather odd if he would not also have wavered or contradicted himself on the subsistence, and hence completeness, of fictional objects.
I do not pretend that this sketch is uncontroversial or unproblematic. For further details, see Lewis [1983] and [1986], ch. 4.
As far as I am aware, our old war-horse Pegasus does not get a mention in any of Meinong’s works, though it has become standard in the literature to claim that Pegasus is one of his paradigm nonexistents. Followers of Chisholm [1973] would presumably say that Pegasus, like other nonexistent, incomplete, “homeless objects” (heimatlose Gegenstände),is neither concrete nor abstract. Insofar as past things are not real but ideal for Meinong, Findlay ([1963], p. 116) is wrong to count the Colossus of Rhodes as a real object for him.
In Castenada [1979], fictional characters are in a sense no more abstract than ordinary, real individuals; they are consociational systems of “guises” constructed out of the same pool (of guises) as real individuals (consubstantiational systems). In his [1974] he seems to suggest that actual, possible and impossible individuals are concrete (p. 17), and he says (p. 23) that the concrete individuals our definite descriptions refer to are all the same whether or not they exist. But there also seems to be a distinction between concrete and material entities, for he adds that our concrete individuals are material entities when they are actualized.
I would not pretend that this by itself gets us much closer to a clear understanding of the alleged distinction between the concrete and abstract. E.g., one might well say that (on a set-of-properties model) if ‘concrete’ means instantiatable in some world or other,and this in turn means instantiatable by some concrete object(s) in that world,then to understand how a set (of properties) can be concrete one must first understand how the thing(s) which instantiate them can be concrete, in which case we’re really no closer to home. Alternatively, one might say that if ‘concrete’ means instantiatable in some world simpliciter,then the number zero, e.g., understood as the set containing the null set as its only member, is concrete, but that’s strange. In the end, I suspect that the concrete-abstract distinction is in near-total disarray, whether or not one endorses a set-of-properties model for objects, existent or nonexistent.
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Perszyk, K.J. (1993). The Nature of Meinong’s Objects: Existent and Nonexistent. In: Nonexistent Objects. Nijhoff International Philosophy Series, vol 49. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8214-8_3
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