NON – EXISTENCE

This SEP article contains a review of contemporary positions and arguments, regarding fictional (imaginary) objects. Four main positions are discussed:
Possibilism: fictional objects are possible entities,
Meinungianism: fictional objects are actual entities,
Creationism: fictional objects are author dependent entities,
Anti Realism: fictional objects are not entities (they do not exist).

Russell’s approach, and Quine’s in his footsteps, fall under anti-realism concerning fictional objects. So there are (at least) two extant approaches to fictional objects beside Russell’s (= Quine’s) and Meinung’s.

The fictional entity (the mental form) as a fictional entity does not have being whereas our concept of the fictional entity (our mental activity) as a concept does.

The existence of the concept does not seem to be a solution, because it is undisputed from the start. The question is whether (e.g.) Batman himself exists in some sense, not just the concept of Batman.

Quine’s use of the fictional philosophers Wyman and McX is, to my mind, an embarrassment. If one cannot name real philosophers holding some position, then the position one criticizes is often a mere straw man.

Wyman simply interchanges use of “existence” with “actuality,” such that he (seemingly) agrees with Quine that Pegasus does not exist, but denies that nonexistence is the same as lacking being altogether.

Ontologically fictions should be treated as real (not true) precisely because they are capable of producing truths despite being false.

The claim that ‘Harry Potter is a Wizard’ is true, as is the claim that ‘Thor is the son of Odin’, but neither of them are objectively true. Harry Potter and Thor aren’t real because although there are true claims about them, there are no objectively true claims about them.

What I wish to claim, with my flat ontology, is that fictions are every bit as real as, for example, Popeye (or better yet, Twilight). This follows from my ontic principle developed in my article for The Speculative Turn. There I argue that any difference that makes a difference has a claim to reality. Clearly, when I’m claiming this, I’m not arguing that there is a physical entity like Popeye that eats, can punch people, gets strong when he eats spinach, etc. Popeye is real qua fictions. Nonetheless, Popeye the fiction is a real entity insofar as this fictional entity produces real differences within the world. In the case of Twilight, young women might model their amorous relations on these fictions. As a consequence, these fictions have real ontological efficacy in the world. They produce real differences. And honestly, why would we go to the trouble of critiquing so much myth and ideology if myths and ideologies were not genuinely efficacious in the world?

Now, leaving aside my continued perplexity over whether ‘the production of differences’ is anything more than causal efficacy (which hopefully will be cleared up by Levi’s forthcoming book), the question is what it means to say that Popeye is real ‘qua fictions’. 

We can say simply that organism O observes or perceives X; and we can then assert explicitly, if we wish, that its percept is or is not conscious.

Turning now to the notion of mental-state consciousness, the major distinction here is between phenomenal consciousness, on the one hand—which is a property of states that it is like something to be in, that have a distinctive ‘feel’ (Nagel 1974)

In this vein, for example, he tried to lay new foundations for the theory of value by going back to value-feelings (emotions) as its psychological basis. But although Meinong had constantly recognized the fundamental role of psychology in philosophy, he became more and more an opponent of psychologism. The distinction between the “psychological” (mental) content and the object of a mental act, introduced in 1899, became a hallmark of his anti-psychologism.

Mental Contents as Qualia that Can Be Introspected

Meinong in his 1906 (§11) alludes to the experiential character of content. To have a content is, as it were, to feel in a certain way. The content is an inherent particular quality, a kind of quale. “That we feel different” [dass uns anders zu Mute ist] when we see red and green, respectively, is not because of the object but because of the content. The objects red and green are not just those contents but what is grasped by them. The specific qualitative peculiarities of the whole experience depend on at least two different kinds of mental aspects: the act and the content. Meinong’s interpretation of mental content as a special way of feeling is similar to William James’ view (1890, Vol. I, Chap. IX, 245–6, 265) that each word is felt, not only as a word, but as having a meaning: “We ought to say a feeling of and, a feeling of if, a feeling of but, and a feeling of by, quite as readily as we say a feeling of blue or a feeling of cold.”

Mind as Object — Self-Presentation in Contrast to Other-Presentation

Meinong’s so-called self-presentation [Selbstpräsentation] usually counts as a mark of consciousness, of the manifest mental. Experiences, i.e., conscious mental occurrences, are able to present themselves to a self. This kind of self-presentation as a potentiality is not yet presentation of the self (in Meinong’s work, there is no discussion of the problem of the self) or self-evidence in the sense of infallibility; nor is it as yet either inner perception or self-reflection. The whole manifest mental life is self-presenting, that is, all the experiences of a subject are self-presenting to the experiencing subject. If you are happy that it is raining, you can grasp your happiness in inner perception, but not by means of a separate mental content. That your mental experiences present themselves to you means you refer to your instantaneous experiences without the intermediary of a further representation of them. You are able to reflect upon your momentary anger or upon your feeling of shame without needing a kind of mental symbol of your anger or your feeling of shame.

Usually, the objects of experiences are not constituted by their experiences: they are something mind independent and not immanent to consciousness. What is immanent to the mind (consciousness) are the experiences themselves. When you have a representation of red, for example, you are conscious of the object red. In such a representation of red, the red-content serves as a kind of sign of something, i.e., red, and is itself a mental piece of the whole representation. In order to present the red-content as object of an inner reflective experience, you do not need a further, separate representation with another content to which the red-content corresponds as object. The red-content has the capacity to present itself to your mind. In general, the reference to one’s own experiences does not require the intervention of an additional content. Meinong thinks that all inner experiences and all parts of them are able to be apprehended through self-presentation. Meinong (1910, §20, 138 [103], §43, 264 [190–1]; 1915, §33; 1917, §1) calls it the self-presentation of inner experiences in opposition to the other-presentation [Fremdpräsentation], where the content functions as sign for something else. Since experiences do not need to be brought within the range of apprehension by presentations (and contents) of their own, Meinong calls the self-presenting parts of an experience (act component and content component) and the whole self-presenting experience quasi-contents. The quasi-content coincides with the object that is to be apprehended or intended. When you desire something, it may also happen that you judge about your desire. The whole desire, then, presents itself to your judgment without any supplementary interfering content. It plays the role of a content, so to speak — hence the name “quasi-content”.

Meinong (1906, §§11 and 13; 1910, §43) thinks that we can do two different things with one and the same experience and content respectively: (1) If we direct our attention to our inner experience, for instance, to the red content of a representation of red, this very content serves for the inner perception of itself — the red-content becomes an intended object and serves for the apprehension (perception) of itself. He also says that in this case the content becomes turned inwards (introversion, [Einwärtswendung]). (2) If the content contributes to a perception or a thought of something red, the content concerns something external to the mind — it serves for the apprehension of the coordinated outer objects and can therefore be called turned outwards (extraversion, [Auswärtswendung]).

This self-consciousness is to be interpreted as inner perception, but not as a separate higher-order perception: Each mental act is primarily directed to an object (my hearing a sound has the sound as its primary object), and it is incidentally directed towards itself (my hearing a sound has itself as secondary object). (See Brentano 1874, 2. Buch, 2. Kap., §§8–9; Brentano 1982, 22–5).

Historical Roots: Alexius Meinong and the Problem of Intentionality

Philosophical writings on nonexistent objects in the 20th and 21st century usually take as their starting point the so-called “theory of objects” of the Austrian philosopher Alexius Meinong (1853–1920). Therefore, it is appropriate to give an outline of the basic principles of and motives behind this theory.

Meinong was concerned about the problem of intentional states which are not directed at anything existent. The starting point of this problem is the so-called “principle of intentionality”, which says that mental phenomena are characterized by an “intentional directedness” towards an object. For instance, to love is always to love something, to imagine is always to imagine something, and so forth. In other words, every intentional act is “about” something. The problem is that sometimes people imagine, desire or fear things that do not exist. Some people fear the devil, although the devil doesn’t exist. Many people hope for peace in the Middle East. But there is no peace in the Middle East. Ponce the Leon searched for the fountain of youth, even though it doesn’t exist. It is easy to imagine a golden mountain, even if no such thing exists.

Cases like these seem to be clear counterexamples to the principle of intentionality. However, many philosophers found this principle too appealing to be given up completely. While some came to the conclusion that intentionality is not a real relation and therefore does not require the existence of an object (see, for instance, Brentano 1874, Prior 1971, Searle 1983), Meinong offered another solution: there is indeed an object for every mental state whatsoever—if not an existent object then at least a nonexistent one.

The problem of intentionality may still count as one of the most important motivations for thinking there are nonexistent objects. But there are other motivations as well.

---

Further Motivations for Belief in Nonexistent Objects:  The Problem of Negative Singular Existence Statements

In fact, there are lots of negative existence statements that we take not only to be sensible but also to be true (or at least not to be necessarily false). Consider, for instance:

Pegasus does not exist.

Yugoslavia does not exist anymore.

The perpetual motion machine does not exist and never will exist.

One traditional reason that has been given is based on the following assumptions:

1. Only meaningful sentences can be true.
2. In a meaningful sentence, every constituent of the sentence must be meaningful.
3. If a singular term is meaningful, then it denotes something.
4. If a singular term “b” denotes something, then “b does not exist” is false.

Let’s see how these assumptions lead to a problem in light of the negative singular existence sentence “Pegasus does not exist”. If “Pegasus does not exist” is true, then it must be meaningful (by (1) above). If it is meaningful, all of its constituents must be meaningful, including the singular term “Pegasus” (by (2) above). If “Pegasus” is meaningful, then “Pegasus” denotes something (by (3) above). If “Pegasus” denotes something, then “Pegasus does not exist” is false (by (4) above). Thus, the assumption that “Pegasus does not exist” is true leads to the conclusion that this same sentence is false. So if the above premises are correct, it is impossible that “Pegasus does not exist” is true: Either “Pegasus” denotes something, in which case “Pegasus does not exist” is false; or “Pegasus” does not denote anything, in which case “Pegasus does not exist” is not even meaningful, let alone true.

Russell’s analysis, proper names like “Zeus” have to be replaced by definite descriptions, even in contexts other than existence claims. So “Zeus” would get replaced by a definite description like “the Greek god who lived on Mt. Olympus and who …”. Thus, the above true sentence would get analyzed in terms of the following false one: “There exists one and only one Greek god who lived on Mt. Olympus and who … and who was such that the ancient Greeks worshipped him.”