Meinong, Alexius von

(1853–1920)

Austrian psychologist and philosopher. A pupil of Brentano at the university of Vienna, Meinong taught at Graz from 1882 until his death. He there established a laboratory for experimental psychology, and in the tradition of Brentano his philosophical interests derived very largely from the problems of establishing a satisfactory psychology. Meinong's most famous doctrine derives from the problem of intentionality, which led him to countenance objects, such as the golden mountain, that are capable of being the object of thought, although they do not actually exist. This doctrine was one of the principal targets of Russell's theory of definite descriptions . However, it came as part of a complex and interesting package of concepts in the theory of meaning, and scholars are not united in supposing that Russell was fair to it. Meinong's works include Über Annahmen (1907, trs. as On Assumptions, 1983) and Über Möglichkeit und Wahrscheinlichkeit (1915).