PSYCHOLOGY, ACTIVITY AND APPREHENSION OF OBJECTS: ON MEINONG'S REFUSAL OF REFLEXION

Open Access

Abstract

International audience In his 1904 paper, Über Gegenstandstheorie, Meinong said that Gegebenheit is the universal feature of objects: it is the property of being potentially given to the mind. Later, in Selbstdarstellung, Meinong stated that it is essential to objects that they could be graspable: the mind's having an object is the mind's being directed toward an object that is presented. Notions of Gerichtetsein, Meinen and Präsentation capture what it is for an object to be apprehended, and Meinong conceived of psychological states as they could insure the apprehension of objects. This view is strongly connected with the role Meinong attributed to the notion of "activity," which he distinguished from the notion of "act". I propose here an investigation about the historical, progressive and interpretative occurrence of the notion of activity in Meinong's works. This is connected with the issue concerning correct groundings of representations of relations and complexions, the refusal of reflexion and the criticisms of psychologism. In the mature period, such an activity is necessary to explain how representations are directed toward an object and why objects have to be grasped and not internally produced.