Some ‘objects of thought’ are not objects - Prof Karen Green (University of Melbourne)

Hybrid (Room 01-E302 and online, contact Dr Guillermo Badia at g.badia@uq.edu.au for the Zoom link

Although it is often assumed that objects of thought are objects and so, when we think or speak about what does not exist, we are speaking and thinking about non-existent objects, it is here argued that not all objects of thought are objects. Rather, a modified Fregean account, according to which what enables us to think and speak about what does not exist is that we can think about uninstantiated concepts is defended. Properties, processes, similarities, functions, thoughts, and concepts, as well as objects, can be objects of thought. An objection, that Frege himself was committed to recognising that we refer to nothing, a non-existent object, is considered, and a slight modification to his actual views proposed. Another objection, that Frege’s claim that predicates refer to concepts is untenable, and so concepts cannot be objects of thought, is also considered and rejected. Finally, it is argued that what Meinong intended, when he spoke of the distinction between bestehen and exisenz, is illuminatingly interpreted as relating to the kind of being possessed by any concept, even one that is uninstantiated, and that possessed by a concept that is instantiated by one or more existing objects. Ultimately, it is argued, Frege provides a more adequate solution to the issues addressed by Meinong than that developed by the neo-Meinongian advocates of noneism.