Meinong, Alexius, Ritter von Handschuchsheim

Meinong, Alexius, Ritter (knight) von Handschuchsheim

(born July 17, 1853, Lemberg, Galicia, Austrian Empire—died Nov. 27, 1920, Graz, Austria) Austrian philosopher and psychologist. He taught at the University of Graz from 1889 until his death. Like his teacher Franz Brentano, Meinong considered intentionality, or object-directedness, to be the basic feature of mental states. He maintained that objects of thought have a kind of character or nature (Sosein; sometimes rendered “subsistence”) that is distinct from being, or existence (Sein), which they may lack; thus the golden mountain or the round square “subsist” as objects of thought, though they do not exist in the world of sense experience. Meinong's view briefly influenced Bertrand Russell. His major writings include On Possibility and Probability (1915) and On Emotional Presentation (1917).