In Francesco Berto’s words, the term “Serious Actualism” is used for the position “that any object must exist in every circumstance in which it has any property – the thesis that predication, or the having of properties as such, entails existence.” (“Modal Meinongianism and Fiction: The Best of Three Worlds”, Philosophical Studies 152, 2011, 324f.) Berto agrees with Nathan Salmon that Serious Actualism is “a confused and misguided prejudice” (Salmon, “Nonexistence”, Noûs 32, 1998, 290). The aim of this paper is (...) to defend the doctrine of Serious Actualism against this verdict. (shrink)

States of affairs raise, among others, the following questions: What kind of entity are they (if there are any)? Are they contingent, causally efficacious, spatio-temporal and perceivable entities, or are they abstract objects? What are their constituents and their identity conditions? What are the functions that states of affairs are able to fulfil in a viable theory, and which problems and prima facie counterintuitive consequences arise out of an ontological commitment to them? Are there merely possible (non-actual, non-obtaining) states of (...) affairs? Are there molecular (i.e., negative, conjunctive, disjunctive etc.) states of affairs? Are there modal and tensed states of affairs? In this volume, these and other questions are addressed by David M. Armstrong, Marian David, Herbert Hochberg, Uwe Meixner, L. Nathan Oaklander, Peter Simons, Erwin Tegtmeier and Mark Textor. (shrink)

Dieses Buch ist eine bewusst systematisch orientierte Einführung in die grundlegendsten Fragen der philosophischen Ästhetik. Es richtet sich in erster Linie an Studierende der Philosophie, aber auch an interessierte Laien und Vertreter/innen anderer Disziplinen. Zusammenfassungen, Übungsaufgaben und Literaturhinweise am Ende jedes Kapitels machen es auch für das Selbststudium geeignet. Aus dem Inhalt: I. Was ist philosophische Ästhetik? – Auf der Suche nach einer Definition der philosophischen Ästhetik – Die Gegenstände der philosophischen Ästhetik – Die Fragen der philosophischen Ästhetik – Die (...) Methoden der philosophischen Ästhetik II. Das ästhetische Erlebnis und die ästhetische Einstellung – Die Bestandteile ästhetischer Erlebnisse – Die subjektive und die objektive Erklärung der ästhetischen Erfahrung – Interesselosigkeit und psychische Distanz – Einwände gegen die Theorie der Interesselosigkeit und der psychischen Distanz III. Ästhetische Eigenschaften, ästhetische Werturteile und ästhetische Gegenstände – Ästhetische Eigenschaften und ästhetische Prädikate – Ästhetischer Realismus versus ästhetischer Anti-Realismus – Nonkognitivismus, Subjektivismus, Naturalismus – Das Erkennen ästhetischer Wertqualitäten IV. Die Ontologie des Kunstwerks – Was für eine Art von Gegenständen sind Kunstwerke? – Die Abstraktheit literarischer und musikalischer Werke – Sind Werke der bildenden Kunst materielle Gegenstände? – Fiktive Gegenstände und dargestellte Welten V. Was ist Kunst? – Die Darstellungstheorie – Die Ausdruckstheorie – Der kunstästhetische Formalismus – Die Institutionstheorie – Die Theorie der Familienähnlichkeit – Kunst als ästhetische Kommunikation. (shrink)

In this book, a general type ontology of works is defended and developed in detail. A wide concept of “work” is used here, such that “work” roughly corresponds to “artefact”. Though the focus is on works of art, the theory is meant to be applicable, in principle, to works of science and technology and to everyday items of all sorts as well. Among others, the following questions are discussed: To what ontological category or categories do works belong? Is there a (...) principled ontological divide between linguistic and musical works, on the one hand, and works of the visual arts on the other? What is the relationship between works and such diverse things as performances, manuscripts, scores, blueprints, stagings, film screenings, printing plates, data carriers, and others? What is the relationship between works and interpretations? In what way do works come into existence? Can works, once they are finished, be changed and/or cease to exist, and if so, under what conditions? Which sorts of parts can be distinguished within a work? Is the context of origin constitutive of a work’s identity? Can a translation be identical with the original linguistic work? Who is the author of a computer-generated work? The central thesis is that works of all kinds are abstract artefacts, i. e., types that are instantiated in concrete particulars, that is, in material or mental objects and events. The relationship between works and their “realizations” is defined by means of a modes of predication distinction, as it is used in a variety of Meinongian logics. An extensive chapter is dedicated to the relation between “representing works” and their represented worlds, with a focus on fictitious worlds and their objects. The latter are modeled as parts of fictional works. (shrink)

Those who are – in the tradition of Meinong – willing to accept the claim that there are objects that do not exist usually argue that the ontological commitment to nonexistent objects allows to resolve a variety of problems of reference and intentionality, such as: the problem of singular negative existential statements, the problem of discourse on past and future objects, the problem of discourse on fictitious objects, the problem of counterfactual existentials, the problem of allegedly necessary truths on nonexistent (...) objects (e. g., "The round square is round".) It seems that the ontological commitment to nonexistent objects enables us to explain both the obvious truth of many predicative sentences whose subject terms do not denote anything existent and the possibility of intentional acts whose objects do not exist. The aim of this paper is to show that the commitment to nonexistents does not resolve any of these problems. Furthermore, some alternative solutions are delineated. (shrink)

ABSTRACT. In this paper, I defend a strong version of actual intentionalism. First, I argue against meaning subjectivism, conventionalism and contextualism. Second, I discuss what I take to be the most important rival to actual intentionalism, namely hypothetical intentionalism. I argue that, although hypothetical intentionalism might be acceptable as a definition of the concept of utterance meaning, it does not provide an acceptable answer to the question of what determines an utterance’s meaning. Third, I deal with the most serious objection (...) against actual intentionalism, namely the failure objection. I argue that the failure objection can be overcome within a framework of full-blown actual intentionalism if one distinguishes between categorial and semantic intentions. Moreover, I show how this version of actual intentionalism accounts for the possibility of innovative metaphors and other implicatures. Finally, I demonstrate that actual intentionalism – thus construed – makes it possible to distinguish between communicative failures and the intentional breaking of conventions. (shrink)

The paper deals with the question whether musical works are created or discovered. In the preliminaries some ontological presuppositions concerning the nature of a musical work setting the stage for the whole debate and the Creationist and Platonist views are discussed. The psychological concepts of creation and discovery are distinguished from their ontological counterparts and it turns out that only the ontological ones are relevant in this context and that the Creationist arguments fail to prove the point in question. Finally (...) it is argued that there is not necessaryly a conflict between the positions of the creationist and the Platonist, if they are construed in an appropriate way. The Creationist view that to compose is to create and the Platonist that to compose is to discover are compatible, at least if creation is understood in a quite natural and common sense way. (shrink)

In a paper entitled “Computer Composition and Works of Music: Variation on a Theme of Ingarden” (1988), Peter Simons explores some ontological problems that ensue from the use of certain forms of composition software, where the final outcome (the score) is the product of random processes within the computer. Such a method of composition raises, among others, the following questions: What kind of work (if any) has been created? Is it a work of music in the first place? Who is (...) the composer/author? Is it the software programmer, the user, the one who selects a particular score for public performance, the computer? What is the relationship of distinct products of the same programme? Are they instances of the same work? In this paper, I shall re-examine these questions. (shrink)

Christian von Ehrenfels (1859–1932) was a student of Franz Brentano and Alexius Meinong. The topic of this paper is Ehrenfels’ relation to Brentano, in particular Brentano’s influence on his philosophical work. After a sketch of Ehrenfels’ most important contributions to philosophy (which belong to the fields of philosophical psychology and value theory), I present those passages within Ehrenfels’ work in which he explicitly deals with Brentano. These concern, in particular, Brentano’s theory of love and hate as well as his theory (...) of intensity and his theory of preferring and adequate emotions. (shrink)

In diesem Beitrag wird zunächst erläutert, worin das ontologische Problem fiktiver Gegenstände besteht. Dies geschieht, indem zwei Typen von Paradoxien vorgestellt werden. In Abschnitt 2 werden die wichtigsten antirealistischen Theorien fiktiver Gegenstände übersichtlich dargestellt, und es wird erläutert, auf welche Weise Vertreter dieser Theorien die eingangs entwickelten Paradoxien aufzulösen versuchen. In Abschnitt 3 werden Einwände gegen diese antirealistischen Theorien formuliert. In Abschnitt 4 werden die wichtigsten realistischen Theorien fiktiver Gegenstände übersichtlich dargestellt, und es wird gezeigt, wie man mit Hilfe dieser (...) Theorien die Paradoxien auflösen kann. In Abschnitt 5 werden Einwände gegen realistische Theorien fiktiver Gegenstände vorgebracht. Im sechsten und letzten Abschnitt wird für eine bestimmte realistische Theorie argumentiert; im Zuge dieser Argumentation werden Entgegnungen auf die in Abschnitt 5 dargestellten Einwände vorgebracht. (shrink)

Jeder wissenschaftlichen Theorie und jedem alltäglichen Weltbild liegen "ontologische Festlegungen" zugrunde, also Annahmen betreffend die Existenz bestimmter Gegenstände. Manchmal widersprechen implizite Existenzannahmen expliziten Überzeugungen und sind in diesem Sinne unerwünscht. Unerwünschte ontologische Festlegungen werfen unter anderem die folgenden Fragen auf: Nach welchen Kriterien kann entschieden werden, worauf jemand ontologisch festgelegt ist? Gibt es so etwas wie ein "ontologisch neutrales" Sprechen? Gibt es verschiedene "Weisen des Seins"? Wie können unerwünschte Festlegungen (etwa auf abstrakte, fiktive oder vergangene Gegenstände) vermieden werden? Welche Rolle (...) spielen dabei Paraphrasierungen, nicht-gegenständliche Deutungen der Quantifikation oder existenzfreie Logiken? Aus dem Inhalt: I. Ontologische Festlegung – 1. Was ist ontologische Festlegung? – 2. Ontologische Festlegung und Wirklichkeit – 3. Carnaps ontologischer Pragmatismus – 4. Prinzipien der ontologischen Festlegung. II. Gibt es ontologisch neutrale Äußerungen? – 1. Die Paraphrasierungsstrategie – 2. "Kontextuelle Semantik" – 3. Ist die Objektsprache ontologisch neutral? – 4. Seinsweisen. III. Ontologie und Logik – 1. Natürliche und reglementierte Sprachen – 2. Ontologisch neutrale versus gegenständliche Quantifikation – 3. Existenzfreie Logiken – 4. Ist Existenz ein Prädikat? IV. Probleme der ontologischen Festlegung – 1. Fiktive Gegenstände – 2. Das Problem der nichtexistierenden intentionalen Gegenstände – 3. Das Problem der vergangenen und zukünftigen Gegenstände – 4. Das Problem der möglichen und unmöglichen Gegenstände. (shrink)

Jochen BRIESEN verteidigt in diesem Buch einen Dispositionalismus in Bezug auf ästhetische Eigenschaften und eine „hybride“ Auffassung in Bezug auf ästhetische Urteile: Er vertritt die Ansicht, dass mit jedem ästhetischen Urteil zwei Sprechakte vollzogen werden, nämlich ein expressiver und ein assertiver Sprechakt. Mit dem assertiven Sprechakt wird dem Gegenstand eine ästhetische Eigenschaft zugeschrieben. Die ästhetische Eigenschaft ist eine dispositionelle Eigenschaft, nämlich die Disposition, unter bestimmten (idealen) Bedingungen in einem Rezipienten einen bestimmten mentalen Zustand zu verursachen. Dieser mentale Zustand ist die (...) Manifestation der ästhetischen Eigenschaft. Der expressive Sprechakt soll genau jenen mentalen Zustand ausdrücken, in dem sich die dispositionelle Eigenschaft manifestiert. (shrink)

This article is a critical review of Dale Jacquette's "Meinongian Logic. The Semantics of Existence and Nonexistence" (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996). Every consistent Meinongian semantics contains either a distinction of two kinds of properties – "nuclear" and "extranuclear" ones – (Terence Parsons) or a modes of predication distinction (William Rapaport, Edward N. Zalta, and others). Jacquette claims that the former is conceptually prior to the latter and that only the former rids Meinong's theory of objects of some paradoxes. I argue (...) against these priority claims. Furthermore, I offer definitions of both distinctions, based on Meinong's concept of so-being. (shrink)

This article is a critical review of Dale Jacquette's "Meinongian Logic. The Semantics of Existence and Nonexistence" (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996). Every consistent Meinongian semantics contains either a distinction of two kinds of properties – "nuclear" and "extranuclear" ones – (Terence Parsons) or a modes of predication distinction (William Rapaport, Edward N. Zalta, and others). Jacquette claims that the former is conceptually prior to the latter and that only the former rids Meinong's theory of objects of some paradoxes. I argue (...) against these priority claims. Furthermore, I offer definitions of both distinctions, based on Meinong's concept of so-being. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to investigate the nature and ontological status of fictional characters on the one hand (i. e., entities like Sherlock Holmes, Hamlet, or Anna Karenina) and literary works on the other. The overall question is: What kinds of objects are fictional characters and literary works, and how are they related to our everyday world? Thomasson advocates a realist, non-reductionist theory of fictitious objects whose main principles are: Fictional characters exist – just as literary works exist. (...) Fictional characters as well as literary works are abstract objects (i. e., lack spatiotemporal location), are created (and thus contingent), are brought into existence through the intentional acts of an author, can go on existing without intentional acts of an author, and are existentially dependent objects in a variety of ways. Thomasson develops a subtle theory of ontological dependence. The review contains a detailed account of Thomasson's "artifactual theory" as well as detailed criticism of some pivotal points. While I am, in principle, sympathetic to the non-reductionist approach, I object against some of Thomasson's specific dependency claims. Furthermore, I defend so-called "Meinongian" theories of fiction against Thomasson's objections. Finally, I raise questions concerning, among other things, the relation between a literary work and its "text", the proposed identity conditions for literary works, the relation between a literary work and its (fictitious) objects. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to investigate the nature and ontological status of fictional characters on the one hand (i. e., entities like Sherlock Holmes, Hamlet, or Anna Karenina) and literary works on the other. The overall question is: What kinds of objects are fictional characters and literary works, and how are they related to our everyday world? Thomasson advocates a realist, non-reductionist theory of fictitious objects whose main principles are: Fictional characters exist – just as literary works exist. (...) Fictional characters as well as literary works are abstract objects (i. e., lack spatiotemporal location), are created (and thus contingent), are brought into existence through the intentional acts of an author, can go on existing without intentional acts of an author, and are existentially dependent objects in a variety of ways. Thomasson develops a subtle theory of ontological dependence. The review contains a detailed account of Thomasson's "artifactual theory" as well as detailed criticism of some pivotal points. While I am, in principle, sympathetic to the non-reductionist approach, I object against some of Thomasson's specific dependency claims. Furthermore, I defend so-called "Meinongian" theories of fiction against Thomasson's objections. Finally, I raise questions concerning, among other things, the relation between a literary work and its "text", the proposed identity conditions for literary works, the relation between a literary work and its (fictitious) objects. (shrink)