Abstract

Meinong, like other noteworthy philosophers from central Europe, began his career in philosophy under the guidance of Franz Brentano. Though Meinong's philosophical investigations from early on were very Brentanian in character, he came to develop views that diverged from certain doctrines of his mentor. In epistemology Meinong introduced the notion of immediate evidence of surmise in his views on memory and perception, whereas Brentano found this notion unacceptable. In descriptive psychology Meinong regarded feelings and desires as two distinct classes and introduced an additional class of mental phenomena called "assumptions". Thus he opposed Brentano's classification of mental phenomena into presentations, judgments, and acts of love and hate. In ontology Meinong allowed for non-real objects. In value theory he even introduced the notion of special irrealia corresponding to feelings and desires. Brentano, however, came to reject irrealia altogether. Such differences are discussed here, but attention is also given to the underlying and enduring philosophical affinity between Meinong and Brentano, namely their commitment to the ideal of scientific philosophy as attainable through descriptive psychology (what might be called "descriptive phenomenology"), which is concerned with intentionally directed consciousness as its subject matter and does not in any way differ methodologically from natural science.