On imaginary entities or chimeras and their relation to reality 1
Anita Kasabova
South-East European Center for Semiotic Studies, New Bulgarian University, Sofia
Abstract
I discuss the nature of imaginary entities and argue that, although they inhabit
possible worlds, they interact with us in the real world by means of language and
narrative. I sustain a non-pictorial view of mental images and I argue for this claim
by way of Quintilian’s theory of enargeia. I then reconstruct two relatively unknown
semiotic theories, formulated by B. Bolzano and A. Meinong who contribute to the
contemporary discussion by examining the problem how the referential relation can
obtain when the relatum does not exist. They argue that imaginary entities stand in a
signifying relation to reality - which is projected or assumed by a narrator and an
addressee. Like Bolzano (1837) and the early Meinong (1894-9), I remain
ontologically parsimonious: by assuming that ‘there are chimera’, we do not have to
assume a separate universe for characters which do not physically exist in our actual
world, in order to imagine them or talk about them. I take my lead from them, as
well as from linguist and Gestalt psychologist K. Bühler (1934), semiotician and
linguist R. Jakobson (1975) and linguist J. Lyons (1975) and distinguish between three
levels of existence: a virtual or possible level for ideal, mathematical and logical
objects, an actual level for perceived objects and a real or linguistic level of
signification which grounds the other two.
Keywords: imaginary entities, chimeras, mental images, possible, real, existing
1. Introducing the problem of chimeras
Imaginary entities, such as chimeras, are said to be non-existent, for ‘exists’ is
usually predicated of entities that are ‘perceived’ or ‘seen’. I may imagine or visualize
a chimera, though I am not actually seeing a chimera in front of me. Thus, imaginary
entities may not be actually visible, yet we imagine, talk, write and sing about them
and read numerous texts about them, from mythology to mathematics. First,
chimeras are somehow presented to us in a way which resembles perception but
lacks external stimuli – and, it seems, existence. Second, we understand what
chimeras are, since we can describe them or say what they are like – but how can that
be, since chimeras do not exist?
1
My thanks go to Vladimir Marinov, Georgi Gochev and Dimitar Trendafilov who have stood by me through
real and imaginary worlds. I also thank the anonymous referee for his or her comments and valuable suggestions,
although I beg to disagree with his or her neo-Meinongian stance. I focus on the early Meinong (1894) and I
reconstruct his views in regard to the signifying relation and the problem of objectuality (Gegenständlichkeit)
which do not require ontological commitments because, in that text, the problem of existence is semantic and
semiotic. Last but not least, I thank Peter Dimitrov for his astute critical comments on the penultimate version of
this paper, which helped me to re-think and re-formulate some important issues.
I argue that imaginary entities or chimeras interact with realia as objects of
communication between utterers or narrators and addressees. My claim is that the
dispute about the (non-)existence of imaginary entities is actually a debate about the
nature of imaginary entities - to imagine or present something to the mind is to
signify or to refer to that thing as an object. Imaginings provide referential relations
to objects because imagining is a presenting which objectifies something – that is,
imagining provides a thing with the shape of an object, thus enabling a referring
relation in which an object is delineated and named or a property is predicated of
something. On a linguistic level, that which is named by a name or expressed by an
assertion, is the significance or meaning of something, regardless of whether that
thing actually exists or not: it is posited as a thing which may, could or would exist.
These entities are posited by us (by a first- second- or third-person narrator). When I
imagine a chimera, I present it – to myself and to an addressee who grasps it by
imagining and understanding it. In a communication situation, this imagining or
presenting is a linguistic action: (1) as a product (praxis) and a creation (poesis) of
linguistic phenomena. A speech action is doing or achieving something by talking: it
can be enacted in a child’s play or in resolving a problem by discussing it. (2)
Imagining is a linguistic act in the sense that an imaginary entity is named in a
speech act which has the quality of a sense-conferring act – because it posits signs.
Signs are expressed by a speaker, signal or appeal to an addressee and present an
object (signs stand for an object) on which the speaker and addressee are coordinated
– by means of the signs posited in the sense-conferring speech act. Thus imaginary
entities are fixed constructs (Gebilde) in a linguistic system (Bühler, 1934, 51-68). 2
Thus we make or create imaginary entities which are grammatical subjects of a
sentence in a communication situation and thus they emerge in an imaginary space
of absent things which become present for us as we become aware of them. The
narrative ‘I’ which ‘here’ and ‘now’ imagines a chimaera is its coordinate source –
that is how chimaeras are posited in a linguistically marked space-time of the
utterance (the egocentric system of subjective orientation according to Bühler, 1934,
ch.7) and placed in discourse by means of the temporal and spatial deictic markers
‘now’, ‘then’ and ‘here’ or ‘there’, respectively. The addressee imagines the chimaera
from the narrator’s point of view as they jointly attend to and mentally coordinate on
the object presented by a linguistic act in an imaginary space-time. 3
I refer to Karl Bühler’s axiom C, concerning the four-field linguistic pattern of act, work, action and
structure which combines Humboldt’s dichotomy between energeia and ergon with de Saussure’s
dichotomy between la parole and la langue in a fourfold group with six interrelations. (1934, 48-51).
3 Bühler explains: “The object named by a name is intentionally aimed at and also more or less
intentionally reached in concrete speech-experiences; this is the case every time a member of a
linguistic community himself uses the name meaningfully (sinnvoll) and correctly as sender, or
correctly understands it as the receiver of a verbal message in which it is used.” (1934: 164, my
translation).
2
2
2. On causal relations between us, chimaeras and ‘reality’
I claim that there are causal relations between things which do not exist,
existing things and our (re)presentations of them and their properties in the world in
which we live. I argue that imaginings generate and cause affective and emotional
responses: thus a little girl may fear an imaginary monster and the roving interest of
a teenager may be caught by an ad for a new mobile operator enhancing his or her
self-image as a cool, urban being. These responses are not distinct cognitive attitudes;
rather they are liminal conscious states that turn on fear (as in the first case) and
desire (and the promise of satisfaction, as in the second case). 4 Although they are not
(yet) cognized, liminal states involve emotionally salient and significant objects
which are registered by the brain without full conscious awareness. For the sake of
this argument, let us assume that emotions are feelings (following J. Prinz, 2004, 5
and what he calls “the somatic feeling theory”). An imaginative experience need not
be fully conscious and yet we experience emotions – dreams are a good example.
Dreams involve imagining or having images and can provoke feelings of fear or
pleasure, although they are experienced below the threshold of phenomenal
awareness and they are not subject to the will (pace McGinn, 2004). A dreamer having
a nightmare - like a fully conscious person imagining a horrible scenario – can be
aware of the fact that he or she is dreaming. However, this awareness or realization
may not stop him from continuing to dream (unlike the fully conscious person whose
will can intervene to stop the imaginary scenario). The upshot is that, in both cases,
images plus emotions interact with cognition in belief-formation.
On a recent view in cognitive neuroscience, emotional reactions to stimuli
influence subsequent behaviour because they “imbue the ongoing cognitive
evaluation of the stimulus” and thus play a role in motivating belief-formation (M.L.
Spezio & R. Adolphs, 2009, 88-89). 5 If we relate this view to our problem of
imaginary entities and their relation to reality, we may have a basis for arguing that
imaginary entities are believable entities although they may not (yet) be known, for
they elicit emotional responses. I suggest that imaginary entities elicit emotional
responses because they are emotionally salient - they provide reasons or motivations
for engaging our attention and interest and that is how they interact with what we
call the real world. The task of this paper is to examine the semantic and semiotic
aspects of this interaction between us, chimaeras and ‘reality’.
For a discussion of the relations between imagination and emotion, see T. Schroeder and C.
Matheson (2006, 19-39).
5
M.L. Spezio and R. Adolphs (2009) propose a model of belief-formation according to which both
emotion and cognition are necessary for beliefs, decisions and subsequent actions. They call for a
greater attention to appraisal theory (investigations of affective intelligence) in moral psychology,
arguing that emotion and cognition come into play at various points in time and mutually influence
one another and that emotional processing contributes to judgment.
4
3
According to a well-known philosophical view (Priest, 2005), non-existent
objects cannot have existence-entailing properties.6 I disagree with that view.
Consider the symbolic capital in stock markets and real investments in chimerical
interests, investments which result in real profits or losses. Or consider internet
games such as the Mafia Wars or Farm-Ville where real players participate in a
possible world which has potential or virtual reality. In addition, there are virtual
teaching programs where real students study online and get a ‘real’ education and a
valid degree. My point is that today the boundaries between ‘reality’ and ‘virtual
reality’ have become very thin and hence the topic of imaginary entities or chimeras
is quite real.
Let me formulate the problem: since there are possible worlds in which there
are chimeras, it is possible that there are chimeras. 7 For chimeras appear in classical
Greek literature, art and mythology – they are cultural phenomena posited or
assumed as existing in a certain socio-cultural domain where they are presented and
represented, verbally and pictorially. Thus chimeras virtually exist for me in my
imagination and become actual in the imaginary world of narrative. To put it
differently, chimeras follow from the discourse about chimeras. On this view,
imaginary entities are possibilia de re and this possibility follows from their being
named or believed de dicto. 8 If I name it or believe it, I can make it real. At least
“Purely fictional objects, like Holmes and Zeus, do not enter into causal chains with respect to us”.
(Towards Non-Being, 2005, OUP, 82, 136)
7 The chimera appears in Homer’s Iliad 6, 18. “In front a lion, in the rear a serpent, in the middle a
goat”. The well-known distinction between real and chimerical ideas was formulated by Leibniz
(1765, L.II.30, § 1), though the philosophical discussion about chimeras goes back to the scholastics.
The latter considered chimera not only as non-entia, but as impossible entia and from their point of
view, the problem was how the term ‘chimera’ could be significative (present something to the mind)
since that which it signifies is impossible to understand.
8 I thank the anonymous referee for pointing out the distinction between de re and de dicto modes of
possibility. I think that imaginary entities are possible de re because they have been posited or
assumed as possible de dicto. I also think that linguistic and deictic existence has priority over existence
de re because these entities are posited under a description, by means of deictic referring expressions
such as ‘this chimera, over there’ (the underlying predicate structure is ‘chimera (be) here’) and that is
how their existence emerges from the joint perspective of the utterer (or narrator) and addressee. The
indicated entity is seen under a particular description – it is interpreted in a certain way because the
speaker gets the addressee to view it (and to believe it) that way – in the case of the chimera, the
addressee visualizes the indicated entity in an imaginary space of absent things. Needless to add,
‘emerging’ is a fundamental sense of the verb exsistere.
To resume: my reply to the anonymous referee concerning the metaphysical question about the nature
of such entities is that imaginary entities are assumed (or possible de dicto) and emerge as possible de re
in a communication situation. I would not commit to a Neo-Meinongian account on which imaginary
entities subsist rather than exist because they are constituted of their properties – my daughter’s belief
in a monster called Torbalan is not simply based on the Torbalan’s being composed of certain
properties – rather, her fear of (and belief in) the Torbalan (as a whole, a man-made artefact, if you
like) entails the emergence of this imaginary entity which is made-to-believe-in. The properties of the
Torbalan emerge under a particular description of the monster in question – they are developed in a
narration and contribute to her belief in this imaginary entity. Thus on my view the semantic category
[Torbalan] underwrites the ontological category [Torbalan] and not vice versa.
6
4
according to Sony, the Japanese manufacturer of consumer electronics whose slogan
for the aptly named ‘make.believe’ products is: « Believe that anything you imagine,
you can make real ». 9 It seems that yesterday’s mythological creatures in the domain
of Greek mythology are today’s virtual creatures in the digital domain of the internet
and they interact with internet users who experience them as cultural products, via
networks, search engines, mailing lists, blogs, etc. Through this interaction,
imaginary entities acquire causal powers. If the addressee believes in them, he or she
will act accordingly (they will buy the advertised product). 10 Not surprisingly,
‘make.believe’ products have a narrative character, just like nymphs, Zeus, Cerberus
or the chimera. In addition, they are easily distributed – and sold. They are
incomplete and auxiliary objects or target-objects: they appear when they are
believed, talked about or looked at online. If nobody talks about them, they
disappear.
2.1.
Interactions between the possible and the real: the role of mental
images in believing and predicting
In what follows I first reconstruct Quintilian’s theory of vividness (enargeia),
apply them to a few examples and then discuss Bolzano and Meinong’s semiotics of
chimeras. 11 These old philosophical views are applicable to the contemporary
Sony.com/makedotbelieve
As Milena Hristova-Markova (2011) shows in her examination of brand communication in
advertising campaigns such as Axe deodorants, Danone activia, Nescafé 3in1, the Loop mobile
operator and others.
11
I thank the anonymous referee for pointing out the importance of the ontological question in the
later Meinong, although for the purposes of this paper I avoid the lengthy discussion concerning
Meinong’s jungle. I agree with Jaakko Hintikka (1989, 40): “If you ask ‘Where are the non-existent
objects?’ the answer is, ‘Each in its own possible world.’ The only trouble with that notorious thicket,
Meinong's jungle, is that it has not been zoned, plotted and divided into manageable lots, better
known as possible worlds.” As the early Meinong (1894) puts it in his article on intentional objects:
« Es gibt Gegenstände, von denen gilt, daß es dergleichen Gegenstände nicht gibt » (1894, § 9). I
discuss the early Meinong (1894) who cites Bolzano (1837). The ‘conflict’ between Bolzano and
Meinong is chimerical, being largely a fruit of the commentators. The main difference between the two
authors is that the former is a logician and mathematician whereas the latter is an ontologist. Thus the
former speaks of nymphs as presentations (Vorstellungen) which can be accompanied by an image,
whereas the latter speaks of nymphs as objects (Gegenstände) with a figural character.
I try to give a non-traditional reading of Meinong (1894) and Bolzano (1837), showing that both
authors, from their different perspectives, deal with the epistemological question of how knowledge a
priori is possible, by examining the referring or signifying relation (i) when it entails existence and (ii)
when the relatum does not fall under an existential or particular quantifier. For example: there are no
triangles but there could be, but there is no body limited by 24 equilateral triangles, though we can
imagine one. Hence Bolzano says that the first presentation is real (it has an object) whereas the
second one is merely imaginary because it has an impossible object). (1837, § 70 note 1). I think
Bolzano rightly claims that we can imagine (or think) impossibilia – but on his view impossibilia are
presentations (Vorstellungen) and not objects (Gegenstände). Meinong agrees: the former are valid
9
10
5
interaction of the virtual and the real. While the rhetorician Quintilian examines how
we paint in words, Bolzano and Meinong’s theories deal with the problem of the socalled objectless presentations such as [green virtue] or [golden mountain]. In
addition I reconstruct their answers to the epistemological question: are chimeras
knowable a priori and, if so, how? This epistemological question is important for
previsions or visualizing what will, should or may be, that is, for assuming and
believing that x is possible for P and for making predictions about the future
existence of x which is necessary, probable, possible (or impossible) for P.
Predictions contain modal verbs expressing probability or possibility and
these latter have an existential import. If you are a woman suffering from breast
cancer and (can afford to) take tamoxifen, it is possible that you will be cured. If you
are an investor wanting a failsafe option for their money, you should invest in gold
and if you do, you may just keep your savings. Predictive statements are
assumptions containing objectless presentations: that a possible event y will happen
to me or that I will do x or possess x – and therefore, either the prevision is fulfilled
and the prediction obtains, or it doesn’t. To cite two Bolzanian examples (1837, § 70):
there are no roses which blossom only in winter but, with sufficient genetic mutation,
there could be. So the presentation [roses which blossom only in winter] is chimerical
because it has no actual object and the referential relation between this presentation
and its referent is not applied – but, under the appropriate conditions, it would be
applicable. Likewise, if medical research in genetics and epigenetics has positive
results, there might be a man who is 997 years old (or there might have been, if you
believe the Old Testament). For now, this presentation is chimerical but, being
chimerical, it allows us to think, imagine, talk about or assume a non-entium.
I think that the problem of chimerical presentations, as dealt with semiotically
by Bolzano and Meinong, respectively, provides a way into imaginary entities which
does not rely on the current claim sustained by cognitive scientists (Kosslyn,
Thompson & Ganis 2006) that mental images are pictures in the brain based on
sensory input and past experience. On another cognitive view defended and
experimentally proved by Pylyshyn (2002, 2003), mental images have a non-pictorial
nature. Pylyshyn takes up a position elaborated by Bühler (1907, 1934) and the
forgotten tradition of the Würzburg and Graz schools of Gestalt psychology, who
sustained the view that thoughts are not pictures and that mental images have a
concepts because they are constructible and provable, whereas the latter are invalid (1894, § 8).
However, both possible and impossible presentations have objectuality (Gegenständlichkeit) which is
assumed or projected – and here Bolzano and Meinong (1894) are also in agreement: the relatum
stands in a signifying relation, regardless of whether it falls (or not) under an existential or particular
quantifier. The problem, for logicians and ontologists alike, is that this relation cannot obtain – but
semioticians do not have this problem because, for them, the signifying relation determines the
relatum and “[t]he question of existence or nonexistence is situated on the level of the sentence.”
(Jakobson, 1972, 319). The early Meinong concurs that existence merely appears as a predicate of the
grammatical subject; rather, it expresses that the predicate ‘validity’ (Geltung) befits (zukommt) the
subject-presentation of the grammatical existential statement (1894, § 13). In other words, the problem
of existence is semantic and semiotic and consequently I remain ontologically neutral.
6
symbol-structure – as Bolzano and Meinong assumed. I agree with Pylyshyn that
mental images do not come in a pictorial format, nor are they ‘scanned by the mind’,
because they do not have a spatial structure which is synaptically stored by neurons
in the brain. Thinking is ‘seeing with the mind’s eye’ but it has a different format
from seeing because it involves considering non-visual properties of things or
situations, such as understanding an action or explaining what makes me happy
which require no pictures relying on specifying locations, rotation of objects or
configuration of points in space - characteristics of depictive formats. In order to
imagine or think of the number ‘400’, you do not need to enumerate 400 points, nor
do you picture ‘400’, yet you can represent and understand a collection of 400
because you understand (roughly) the mathematical and linguistic rules of how this
object is configured and formed – and you can project a non-pictorial ‘400’ through
our imagination – because you can become aware of the content of the concept [400]
without picturing it. Mental images participate in reasoning precisely because they
have a symbol-structure, a structure which is semantic and semiotic and relies on the
linguistic categories of meaning and sense. However, as I mentioned above, since
imaginative experience is liminal, we can only make theoretical assumptions when
trying to explain this process because scientific research has not yet yielded definite
results about how information is encoded, transmitted and decoded by human
beings – or which are the ultimate units containing information (pace Kosslyn and
Pylyshyn).
Consider happiness – an important non-pictorial category unique to human
beings. This category connects the ideal and the real by means of modalities that rely
on imagination. The abstract noun [happiness] denotes an imaginary situation which
can become real, but this situation is inappropriately described by means of mental
pictures, for it has no sensory input corresponding to it. It is a possible situation
which can be actualized (or pictured), either when it is lived (experienced) or when it
is re-lived by means of narrative. Narrative relies on internal perspective and our
capacity of imagining for projecting possible situations to us. Let me formulate my
main claim like this: imaginary entities or chimeras are inhabitants of narrative
worlds which are possible worlds that interact with the real world of our perception
and experience on a liminal level - a level we might neither know nor be aware of.
Possible worlds are counterfactual imaginary worlds that create alternatives to
reality (Byrne, 2007). In my view, these worlds have a narrative structure rather than
a pictorial one – and narrative structure grounds counterfactual situations. By
narrative structure I mean the order and manner (including features such as
introducing the characters, the time-line of the story, complication and resolution) in
which a dramatic action is presented to a reader. This presenting is an imitation of
reality which can also be pictorial, as in movies – but the narrative structure (the
ordering of events, how and when they occur) is not pictorial per se.
Let me give you an example from my own experience: when my daughter was
four years old, she was terrified of a monster called Torbalan (derived from the
Bulgarian word ‘торба’ – ‘bag’) who was hiding behind the curtains and she would
7
not allow us to switch off the light, for fear that the monster would take her away in
a bag. When I asked her to describe or draw this monster, she could not do so – she
had no mental picture of it, but she knew it was “there”, and felt its presence. She
experienced the presence of the monster she could not see or visualize and she would
tell me about it – how it came to peoples’ houses at night and kidnapped young
children. I later found out that the babysitter had been telling her this Bulgarian
folktale to keep her in line when she was being capricious. Of course, I fired the
babysitter, but it took years to erase this fearful mental image from my child’s mind.
Such is the power of narration and narrative to make an imaginary being real.
2.2.
Quintilian: painting a scene in words
I argue that narration is painting in words and that narrative involves making
pictures in the mind or vividness (enargeia, imitating reality) as Quintilian says. How
does that work? Let us note that vivid illustrations, mental imagery or mental representations are important instruments in rhetoric, the art of persuasion which is
underwritten by good narration. According to Quintilian (Institutio Oratoria, 8.3.61.),
mental imagining is closely related to reading, seeing or listening to narration. In his
time, reading aloud was a common social activity. He holds that in rhetoric the
imagination (phantasia) is an internal representation or something which clearly
represents itself before the mind and “somehow shows itself off”. It is a great virtue
to express our subject clearly and in such a way that it seems to be actually seen […]
and displayed to [the] mind’s eye”. Mental imagery in rhetoric thus involves
presenting a situation or action as if it were real – representing it or displaying it to
the mind’s eye. An orator tries to affect another person’s imagination by creating a
mental image, re-presenting a situation for us or for our minds. By means of enargeia
“a whole scene is somehow painted in words”.
Quintilian says “[t]hat which the Greeks call phantasiai and we may call clear
visions are those things through which the image of things not present are so represented to the soul that we seem to see them with our very eyes and have them
before us” (4.2.29-30). Phantasia is thus related to repraesentare. Cicero even translates
phantasia as ‘visum’ (Academics, 1.11.40). Quintilian counsels orators to learn to
construct “an image of the matters which is, in a way, painted by the words”. 12 He
praises Cicero’s ability as an orator and quotes from the orations “Against Verres”:
“’[t]here stood the praetor of the Roman people in his slippers, with a purple
cloak and a tunic down to his heels, leaning on one of his women on the beach
…’. Could anyone be so unimaginative as not to feel that he is seeing the
persons and the place and the dress, and to add some unspoken details fo
himself into the bargain? I certainly imagine that I can see the face, the eyes,
12
„rerum imago quodammodo verbis depingitur” (IV.ii.63).
8
the disgusting endearments of the pair, and the silent loathing and abashed
fear of the bystanders.” (VIII.iii.64).
Of course the mental seeing of such a scene varies from person to person, as each
addressee uses his or her imagination to connect the dots composing the message.
That is to say, everyone fills in the particular details for him or herself to complete
the picture outlined by the words – and thus there are as many variants of a scene as
there are addressees. No particular image can completely represent all possible
tokens or variations of an invariant scheme – which acts as a type. This type is
instantiated each time and by each individual who listens to, or reads a narrative.
That is a further reason why mental images have a symbolic rather than a pictorial
nature. We can solve a problem by imagining how a situation develops – but this
development is a sequence of events which is inappropriately described in terms of
pictures because the sequence is governed by non-pictorial principles (even cartoons
have a story-line). It seems that narrative has a schematic or situational generality
which is not universal but specific and recognizable by different individuals at
different times through changes of context or system of reference.
This situational generality is achieved in narrative because the latter relies on
what Quintilian calls figures of thought (schemata dianoias) (VI.iii.70) or rhetorical
figures or such as metaphors, metonymy or synecdoche which do not have a pictorial
base. Yet they enable us to conjure a ship plowing the sea, or to imagine a war (or
wars) when looking at a memorial of the unknown soldier, because they act as rules
applying a schema which can be instantiated in numerous variations by means of
imagination. The unknown soldier is a monument which signifies all soldiers who
perished in a war. We understand that this memorial stands for all soldiers, even
though we see the statue of only one soldier. The sense of the memorial is nonpictorial or symbolical and we grasp it because we are semiotic animals which can
recognize the memorial as a distinctive sign which stands for or represents all fallen
soldiers. The memorial merely serves to transpose the sense of a past event, whereas
the synecdoche operates on the memorial as a motif of a whole event.
Likewise, narratives of the past, such as autobiographical accounts or
memoirs, say of Holocaust survivors such as Five Chimneys by Olga Lengyel (1947) or
Se questo è un uomo by Primo Levi (1958) open a window to the past for younger
generations who did not witness these atrocities because they are used in the present,
as models for possible situations with new agents. Autobiographical narratives are
dramatic processes, enabling an addressee to affectively react to a past event, by
reliving the eye-witnesses’ emotions in their imagination, since their tragic narrative
affects the addressee by inciting her empathy and fear. By means of this semantic
transposition operated by synecdoche, today’s addressees can envisage the idea that,
in different temporal and spatial circumstances, they might not only have suffered
the genocide but committed it – because these addressees are able to re-identify the
past event at present. 13 Whether this is really possible for us (of the good fortune of
13
I argue for this in Kasabova (2008).
9
having been born long after those horrors took place) is another question. A
comment posted on the amazon.co.uk web-page of the English translation of Primo
Levi’s book drew my attention and stopped my thoughts: “It will give you an
insight, you might think you understand, you might think you feel the pain, you
might think you feel the fear, but you are not even close. Reflect on this while you
enjoy your comforts and thank God it was not you.”
Another way of imagining possible or counterfactual situations is the ‘if only’
mode of narration: consider an accident or a fatal disease which has killed a number
of people. You imagine an alternative scenario: ‘if only Jane hadn’t taken a right turn
that day, she wouldn’t have crashed into the truck that was coming her way’ or: ‘if
only we had had the vaccine for swine flu, we could have saved the lives of a number
of people’(Byrne, 2007). Thus imagining is envisaging ideas, counterfactual situations
or possible worlds inhabited by chimerical entities which can become real for us
today and now, even though we have no past experience of them. Likewise,
imagining enables us to predict future situations which are possible situations that
may (or may not) become actual without drawing on our past experience, by reliving
others’ past experience in the counterfactual ‘as if’ mode or simulating them.
3. Bolzano and Meinong: signifying non-entia
I now examine the issue of how imaginings become real by means of language
and turn to reconstructing two venerable semiotic views. Bolzano (1837) and
Meinong (1894) use the problem of chimeras, non-entia and objectless presentations
(Vorstellungen) to clarify the relation between linguistic signs, what they signify and
their object (Gegenstand) (what is signified or the grammatical subject of which
something is predicated).
Meinong (1894) quotes Bolzano (1837, § 67) in the article “Intentional Objects”
(Intentionale Gegenstände): “If we […] assume that to each presentation (Vorstellung)
belongs a significational content (Bedeutungsgehalt), there remains the much more
difficult question, whether each presentation is also applicable to objects
(Gegenstände).” (1894, § 1, my translation). For, as Bolzano argues, not every
presentation has an object – hence there are so-called objectless presentations which
do not have a corresponding object, although they present (vorstellen) an object. Put
differently, they refer or signify but do not indicate because the object is not actually
present. That is why not every presentation (Vorstellung) has an object (Gegenstand),
although every presentation (Vorstellung) signifies (bedeutet). Bolzano and Meinong
agree that the relation of a presentation (Vorstellung) to an object (Gegenstand) is that
of referral, either by virtue of the object’s visibility or contiguity, or by virtue of the
object’s assumption under a hypothesis in which the said object is posited. The
Gegenstand of the presentation is presented (vorgestellt), intended or signified.
Presentations of chimeras or round squares present or intend or signify an object,
although there is no actually corresponding object. Thus Bolzano considers
10
presentations of imaginary objects, such as [golden mountain] as a special kind of
objectless presentation (1837, §§ 66, 70). Likewise, presentations of science, literature,
boundaries, shadows or academic titles lack an actual corresponding object, though
an object is assumed or presented. (Meinong, 1894, § 1).
Bolzano admits that it may sound strange to speak of presentations which no
one presents (sich vorstellt), but he blames this incongruity on the lack of an
appropriate name for something that we inappropriately associate with a mental
change (1837, § 50.3). Whereas subjective presentations are mental or linguistic acts,
he considers objective presentations or presentations as such as constituent parts of
propositions (1837, § 50) and as significations (Bedeutungen) of signs. Thus both
authors distinguish between subjective and objective presentations (Vorstellungen). I
translate Vorstellung as presentation because for Bolzano and Meinong, a Vorstellung
is not necessarily a mental presentation – it may also be a signification or a sense
(Vorstellung an sich) which acts as a sign for, or signifies an object or Gegenstand. In
addition, both authors distinguish between percepts which directly present their
object and imaginary presentations which re-present their object. Hence
representation is appropriate only for a type of Vorstellungen – namely, subjective
presentations which are mental acts that re-present their object. Other mental acts,
such as percepts and concepts, directly present their object. In addition, contents of
mental acts and their objects (Gegenstände) either exist or do not exist. The latter are
significations (Bedeutungen) of subjective presentations and they name their object
(Gegenstand). 14 We should note that both authors also distinguish between object
(Objekt) and (Gegenstand) – a distinction which, unfortunately, is not an option in
English. Objects are something mental or physical towards which thoughts,
perceptions or actions are directed, whereas a Gegenstand, in addition, is a signatum,
that which is signified – denoted and designated – by linguistic signs (sign-bearers,
signifier or signans) and words, at least for our two authors. There are three ways of
human expression; voice, letters and drawing pictures. In addition, according to
semiotic theory, signs have a substitutive function – they stand for the object they
present. 15
„Wenn wir aber sagen, „die Vorstellung Löwe stellt einen Gegenstand vor“, so figuriert nicht die
subjektive, sondern die ‚objektive’ Vorstellung als Träger der Beziehung [...] die Beziehung auf den
Gegenstand werde bei jeder (subjektiven) Vorstellung vermittelt durch ihren ‚Inhalt’, d.i. ihre
Bedeutung.“ (1894, § 12)
15 The words “signans” and “signatum“ belong to Roman Jakobson (1975, 443)’s terminology –
another Prague semiotician who claims that every sign is a referral – and one of the very few authors
who discusses Bolzano as a contributor to semiotics. As Jakobson points out, the main linguistic and
semiotic theory is, of course, Saussure’s (1916, 1957), who distinguishes between the sign, the signifier
and the signified and applies the theory of signs to the phonic level of language, foreseeing the
discipline called phonétique sémiologique. He describes “the relationship between sound and idea, the
semiological value of the phenomenon [which] can and should be studied outside all historical
preoccupations, [since] study of the state of language on the same level is perfectly justified […]
insofar as we are dealing with semiologic facts.” (cited in Jakobson, 1975, 445).
14
11
For them, presentations are signans or sign-bearers - they signify: thus the
presentation [lion] signifies a lion and the presentation [chimera] signifies a chimera.
The signification [lion] mediates the relation between this word (or thought) on one
hand and the thing of which ‘being a lion’ is predicated, on the other. If I say “that
thing is a chimera”, I predicate the property of being a chimera of that thing – so
there is an object (Gegenstand) such as a chimera, even though it does not exist
empirically in the particulars, unlike a lion. However, chimeras are nameable,
thinkable and presentable and by naming it, I fabricate such an object (linguistically,
not empirically). Or I can draw a composite animal which is a lion in front, a goat in
the middle and a serpent at the rear for an addressee to see.
To resume: both authors are eager to dissociate linguistic signifying from
mental events, acts or contents, for signifying is that by virtue of which a sign refers
to its object but, as Bolzano says, the signification (Bedeutung) is not the object
(Gegenstand) of the presentation. (1837, §§ 67, 285). Nor is a signification a mental
picture by means of which a presentation relates to its object, as Meinong points out:
“I should like to get to know these ‘mental pictures’ (geistige Abbilder) which
supposedly inhabit the concepts of art, literature, science, etc., […] or the mental
pictures […] which hover before a mathematician whilst reading a treatise full of
complicated formal systems.” (1894, § 1, my translation).
3.1.
Bolzano and Meinong distinguish between different levels of
existence (first- second- and third-order)
Bolzano (1837) and Meinong (1894) develop semantics of chimeras and other
non-entia and thus contribute to the discussion about existing and non-existing
entities and the underlying issue of whether non-existing entities are probable or
possible, improbable or impossible entities. The two authors focus on different
aspects of non-entia: Bolzano (1837) examines objectless presentations (gegenstandslose
Vorstellungen) so as to clarify the notion of presentation, while Meinong (1894)
analyses the objectuality (Gegenständlichkeit) of non-entia. Objectuality is what is
signified (or presented) by a name. Bolzano is concerned with Gegenständlichkeit as a
property of presentations: a presentation is objectual when it has (presents) an object
and it is objectless when its object is imaginary, impossible or absent. The subjective
presentation [round square] has no object or objective presentation [round square],
that is, the subjective presentation has no referent which fits the ascription of
contradictory properties (1837, § 271) but a presentation has a referential relation to
its object despite the fact that there are different types of objectless presentations
which lack a referent, such as imaginary presentations, or presentations which have
an object (Gegenstand) lacking any claims to reality or possibility, such as the
presentation designated by the words ‘a mathematical truth’. (1837, § 70-71).
Objectless presentations can be either real (or simple) or chimerical (or complex) and
the relation between an objectless presentation and its object is ‘referential’, that is, it
12
has no actual referent but it could have a referent – possibly, probably or necessarily
(1837, § 66.5. note 1). 16 Meinong agrees with Bolzano: there are presentations which
present objects but these objects do not actually exist, since they are either impossible
or fictional (1894, §1). Nonetheless we can (and do) make judgments about chimeras
and other monsters and we can expect, fear or wish them.
Both authors, it seems, distinguish between three levels of existence or ‘being’.
There is (es gibt) a virtual or possible level for ideal, mathematical and logical objects,
an actual level for perceived (angeschaute) objects and a real level for the signification
of objectless presentation and their referential relation to an object. A presentation
has objectuality (Gegenständlichkeit) if it names something or refers to something or
predicates a property of something. For example, a triangle truly exists (hat wahrhaft
Existenz) as a figure that is looked at (angeschaute Gestalt) and assists the geometer. I
take figure in the sense of form as shape or schema (which translates Gestalt), but not as
image. A chiliagon, on the other hand, can only be imagined: a geometrical figure
presents (vorstellt) a non-existing object, an object which merely has presented
existence, by virtue of definition “bloß vorgestellte Existenz, die Existenz vermöge
der Definition und gültigen Deduktion aus den axiomatischen Grundlagen” (1894, §
8). In other words, immanent objects are visible to the senses (hence the assumption,
that it truly exists, that is, outside the mind), whereas intentional, thought or
imagined objects are invisible to the human eye (and hence their existence is
assumed by definition and derived from axioms). Meinong (ibid) says that there is an
unbridgeable gap (unüberbückare Kluft) between observed and thought entities
(unlike Descartes, for whom there is merely a difference in clarity and distinctness
between a triangle and a chiliagon).
Bolzano agrees with Meinong on this but, as a mathematician and logician, he
accepts that a presentation can be real even if it does not have an actual object
(wirklichen Gegenstand). The concept “a regular 10-chiliagon (Zehntausendeck) is real
but it only contains the thought (Gedanke) of a mere possibility (Möglichkeit) of such
an object and not the thought of its reality (Wirklichkeit)” (1837, § 70.4). 17 A
geometrical figure with ten-thousand angles is a possible object but it neither actually
« Unter dem Gegenstande einer Vorstellung verstehe ich immer nur denjenigen, auf den sie sich in der
That bezieht, d.h. nur durch sie vorgestellt wird. Ganz etwas Anderes aber ist der Gegenstand, auf den
ein denkendes Subject eine gewisse Vorstellung so eben beziehet, oder (allgemeiner zu reden) der
Gegenstand, auf den eine gewisse Vorstellung als Prädicat in einem gegebenen Satze (gleichviel ob er
gedacht oder nicht gedacht wird) bezogen angewandt wird. » (1834, Bolzano-Exner Korrespondenz, 80).
17 „und ich nenne daher z.B. den Begriff eines regulären Zehntausendecks real, auch wenn es keinen
wirklichen Gegenstand gibt, der ein solches Zehntausendeck wäre; denn in jenem Begriffe kommt wie
in allen Begriffen von Räumen nicht der Gedanke der Wirklichkeit, sondern nur der einer blossen
Möglichkeit eines so beschaffenen Gegenstandes vor.“ (1837, § 70.4) Other simple presentations are
syncategorema or parts of speech that do not name: conjuncts such as [and], [or], negations [not] or
[nothing], articles such as [der], relative pronouns such as [who] or indeterminate adjectives such as
[each] or [every] (1837, § § 57.note, 58.5-6). They are parts of presentations which modify the latters’
signification although they are not significations (or presentations) themselves but Bezeichnungen or
indicative signs (which indicate presentations) (1837, § 57.note).
16
13
exists, nor is it thought to actually exist. It is merely assumed and its existence
follows from that assumption as a consequence. Meinong explains that
“[m]athematical existence and non-existence is also existence and non-existence
under certain assumptions: existential statements, as all mathematical statements,
are, as a whole, incomplete. They are mere consecutive statements of hypothetical
statements with always the same presupposition (1894 § 9).
In addition, there is the real level of ‘linguistic existence’ (which accounts for
all levels of existence, including the so-called ficta). On this level, objectuality is that
which is named by a name and expressed in an assertion. 18 Bolzano and Meinong
agree that predication presupposes or implies a linguistic system in which a
presentation is segmented into a subject- and predicate- signification or, as Bolzano
says, a subject-presentation (Subjectvorstellung) and predicate-presentation
(Prädicatvorstellung) which he sometimes calls grammatical subject (Unterlage) and
grammatical predicate (Aussageteil) (1837, §§ 128, 136, 137). After all, for Bolzano, a
Vorstellung is, strictly speaking, nothing but the component of a proposition (or
sentence) which is not yet a proposition (or sentence). (1837, §§ 48, 128). And
Meinong holds that every predication has a double referential relation: one in the
subject and one in the predicate. These latter have a (re)presentative function – they
are substitutable signs or place-holders for something which they refer to or act as
signs of (1894, § 14). 19
Linguistic expressions predicate existence but the reference to, or imagination
of, unicorns or the Oxford murders, do not have actual or first-order objects that can
be located by an utterer and an addressee in physical space/time. Nonetheless,
existence is predicated of angels, unicorns or natural numbers in the domain (or set)
of imaginary objects or numbers, respectively. I wish to remain non-committal on the
ontological positions concerning existence and I follow John Lyons (1975, 79) in
claiming that so-called existential sentences denoting the ‘there is’ or ‘there are’
construction (as in ‘there is a unicorn in the room’) are incomplete expressions
informing the addressee that some x is being referred to. This referent “can be
located in relation to the here-and-now of utterance” (Lyons, 1975, 79). Such location
does not imply assuming a universe in which unicorns, Cerberus or natural numbers
exist by default just because they lack physical existence in our world. Rather,
existential sentences “are derivable from structures in which the underlying subject
is, typically, an indefinite noun phrase and the underlying predicate a locative.”
(Lyons, 1975, 79). These constructions are distinct from the locative deictic adverb
there (in that place), an existential adverb which is a complete linguistic expression
„Ein Name nennt etwas, d.i. es gehört ihm eine Vorstellung zu, deren Gegenstand eben das ist, was
er nennt.“ (Meinong, 1894, § 8).
19 Both authors hold that some words express objectless presentations, namely those parts of speech
which are neither subject- nor predicate-presentations and do not name anything: ‘has’ conjuncts such
as ‘or’ ‘and’ (1837, § 127), as well as the indeterminate article, for example in the attributive
presentation [a horse] „Man beachte, daß auch das Wörtchen ‘ein’ zur Bedeutung beiträgt und frage
dann was durch dieses Bedeutungsmoment am Pferd selbst abgebildet sei. (1894, § 14).
18
14
that may be complemented by a post-verbal noun phrase, as in ‘there was Philip,
staring at me’). By contrast, the there is/are expression is incomplete and, especially in
cases of indefinite noun phrases, may provide a variable which can be bound by an
existential quantifier.
However that may be – whether the noun phrase is indefinite or definite –
existential sentences are appropriately interpreted in terms of deictic existence and
existential quantification is satisfactorily interpreted in terms of a basically locative
predicate. Both kinds of constructions involve the notion of location in a deictic
context. The coordinates of the deictic context are established by the utterance of the
sentence, with the zero-point being the moment and place of utterance. Existential
sentences (‘there is’ expressions and expressions using the locative deictic adverb
‘there’) instruct or invite “the addressee to direct his attention to a particular region
of the deictic space in order to find the referent” (Lyons, 1975, 79). Thus the referent
is located on the linguistic level in a deictic context. There exists at least one x such as
angel(x): ( x) angel(x) means that there locates at least one such x such as angel(x)
which an addressee is asked to look at under the description ‘this angel’. This also
holds for my daughter’s deictic expression: “there (behind the curtain) is a monster
called Torbalan”. Hence presentations such as [angel] or [Torbalan] are signifying
expressions which have objectuality or a content, although they have no available or
extant object (1837, §§ 67, 137, 271). Such objectuality, however, does not entail actual
existence in our world and Meinong rightly rejects “the unclear talk about different
domains of existence, different ‘worlds’ (universes of discourse) which make different
uses of the existence or non-existence of the same object” (1894, § 9, my translation).
The point is, that existential statements about angels, chimera or God, as in
« God exists », “there is a hierarchy of angels” or “the chimera is a composite animal”
оr « there is an (х) such as К(х) », are not assertions of existence but presuppositions
or appositions of existence. According to Meinong, the relative clause formation is
conditional: existential sentences are final clauses of hypothetical statements
depending on the hypothetical assumption of the underlying principles. We assert
that ‘in Greek mythology’ there are nymphs, following the hypothetical assumption
of an existential domain ‘Greek mythology’, or we assert that squares exist in defined
space (1894, § 9). In such statements, the existence of the item in question is not
asserted but assumed.
According to Bolzano and Meinong, therefore, ficta can be referred to, but
‘referring to’ entails neither reality nor actual existence in our world. Fictional entities
do not have to exist, in order for us to talk about them, but our talking about them
attributes them a hypothetical mode of being which follows from our positing or
assuming them. Fictional entities are imaginary entia and hence they neither actually
exist, nor do they have reality, although they are posited (in imagination) or assumed
by whoever talks about them. For example, a chimera does not exist, but I have just
named it. In addition, ‘is a chimera’ can be predicated of a composite animal which I
can imagine or fear, describe or draw. So it virtually exists for me in my imagination
15
and becomes actual in the imaginary world of narrative an it can be grasped by my
addressees.
Chimeras and other ficta are real only insofar as we have images, pictures or
texts about them, without our meeting their instances in our experiential world. In
other words, they are cultural phenomena. In the case of the chimera, however, we
might argue that the platypus is a real instance of this three-composite animal: a
duck-billed, egg-laying mammal with webbed feet and a tail. So the chimera and the
sphinx are not only possible as imaginary beings, but are real or actually existing
animals. The only other species in its actual vicinity are aptly named echidna, that is,
(she-)monsters. If a chimera is real, then it is a monster (or a miracle, depending on
how you look at it). Speaking of monsters, this is how ficta can be experienced in a
possible world which is a separate region of objects. 20 Consequently, if my daughter
is scared of the monster looming in the dark behind the curtain, she experiences that
monster as real, even though her reference to the object she points out ‘there, outside
the window’ does not pick out an actually existing object. That is why Meinong
argues that the entire distinction between existence and non-existence entails our
speaking as if our judgments were unconditional, that is, it entails our use of absolute
existential statements when we should be using hypothetical statements with those
existential statements as their consecutive clauses (1894, § 9).
Or, to pick a Bolzanian example: “the concept of an angel has objectuality (hat
Gegenständlichkeit) is a statement which does not express the first-order existence of
angels but posits or assumes their virtual existence. This statement recently received
an actual update by Lev Grossman, a journalist with Time Magazine (March 15, 2010,
44): “Lately we’ve been fighting off an infestation of angels. Swarms of these winged
pests have invaded the movie Legion, the video game Bayonetta and the TV series
Super-natural, and now they’ve turned up in a book called Angelology by Danielle
Trussoni. They’re like cicadas.” 21 Believe it or not, angels are experienced as real.
3.2.
Bolzano and Meinong on ampliatio, suppositio and the modifying
force of the attribute ‘presented’
In this section I reconstruct Bolzano and Meinong’s views on how a
grammatical modification regulates our use of the linguistic expression “presented”
which is applicable to real as well as to imaginary objects. The crux of their views is
that imaginary objects are projected, assumed or posited as real, even though they
are not actually present. Meinong points out the modifying force of the attribute
“presented” (vorgestellt). „For the modification points everywhere to an inactual use
of the expression which essentially modifies the normal meaning (Bedeutung) and
function of a grammatical attribute in any relation whatsoever.” (1894, § 6, my
20
21
Cf. Husserl (PhBE, 1922-3), appendix LXI, 565.
www.time.com
16
translation). 22 Bolzano calls it ‘amplification’ (Ausdehnung) which he considers
applicable to objectless presentations (1837, § 108). Meinong and Bolzano pick up this
thread from late scholastic theories which dealt with non-entia in their logic of terms
(proprietates terminorum). 23
Roughly, the difference between the assertions: „I see x“, and „I present x” is
that the latter verb has an ampliative force: it has a possible or virtual referent
(whereas the former has an actual referent and no ampliative force). The verbs “see”
and “present” have different presuppositions, as do their corresponding attributes [a
seen lion] and [a presented lion]. The mathematical presentations [2 – 2 = 0], [1/√ - 1
= -√-1] and the presentation [a being without a single positive property
(Beschaffenheit)] have an ampliative force. As Bolzano says, the former are used in
equivalences and also in mutual exclusions: the presentations [a body with five equal
and even lateral surfaces] and [a body with seven equal and even lateral surfaces] are
said to be mutually exclusive, although neither presentation has an existing object
(1837, § 108).
The presentation [a being without a single positive property] is used in
subordinate conditional clauses such as ‘if…then’ in what the late medieval
scholastics called suppositio: assuming or supposing a thought or statement as
subordinated under another thought from which it can be inferred. Thus ‘if there is
no being without a single positive property, then there is not a single man without at
least one positive property, because the presentation [a man without a single positive
property] is subordinate to the presentation [a being without a single positive
property] (1837, § 108). Meinong (1894 who mentions the scholastics at § 1) also uses
suppositio – his own notion of assumption (Assumption) is derived from it – even
etymologically, since suppositio or subpositio is late Latin for supposition (Annahme) or
hypothesis. 24 Meinong explains the hypothetical character of existential statements
„überall weist die Modifikation auf eine Uneigentlichkeit der Ausdrucksweise hin, die die normale
Bedeutung und Funktion eines grammatischen Attributs in irgendeiner Beziehung wesentlich
ändern“ (1894, § 6). “dieses fordert als nicht-modifizierendes Prädikat das ihm normal zugehörige
Subjekt” [....] „jenes aber als modifizierendes Prädikat fordert das anomale Subjekt; [...] es fordert
einen Subjektausdruck, dessen Bedeutung gerade nicht [...] die Subjektbedeutung, sondern der
Subjektgegenstand sein soll, und zwar für das nicht ausgesprochene Prädikat ‚gilt’. (1894, § 13).
23 For example, William of Sherwood and Buridan. Cf. Priest (2005, 68-81)’s discussion of medieval
accounts of intentionality.
24 Meinong (1902, 175) develops this ‘assumption-view’:
in order to apprehend or assume an
imaginary entity, one has to place oneself in a situation where there is such a thing. Then he or she
judges whether or not that thing exists – and, in the case of entities such as golden mountains or
phlogiston, a person may judge that there are no such existent objects. N.B. Meinong does not claim
that these objects must exist if they are to be the grammatical subjects of assumptions. He gives the
following example of negative existentials: “But what if someone intended something like
‘phlogiston’, in order to make this judgment about it: that there isn’t anything of the sort? […] aside
from presentations, assumptions play a quite essential role in the apprehending of objecta in such
cases. This is also in thorough accord with the testimony of direct observation. It tallies with our clearcut experiences in many cases, that in order to give a thing some thought, a person ‘places himself in
the situation in which there is such a thing’.”
22
17
about imaginary or non-entia as the mere subordination under the conditioning
assumption (“die bloße Unterordnung unter die bedingende Assumption”) (1894, § 8).
Existential statements about nymphs or mathematical entities follow from
hypothetical statements. Suppositio also has another function, in the scholastic
formula supponit aliquid pro aliquo or ‘something which stands for (or serves in place
of) something else (Kneale & Kneale, 1962, 250). The relation between aliquid and
aliquo or signans and signatum, is signification, or referral by virtue of.
When this relation acquires a modificatory or ampliative force, it relates signs
(or sign-bearers) and non-entia, since that which a sign or name serves in place of,
may or may not exist. Suppositio and ampliatio are a characteristic feature of
participles of the so-called verba dicendi in active and passive configurations,
participles such as believed, promised, wished, thought, cited, or remembered. Verbal
tenses (past and future) also have an ampliative or modifying force: past and future
tenses can modify the grammatical subject so that it refers to what was, will be as
well as what is. In “Caesar ran” or, as William of Sherwood (Introductiones, 84) says :
“Homo cucurrit verum est pro Caesare”, the past perfect tense of the verb ‘curro’
modifies “Caesar” to supposit or assume a subject which does not exist at the time of
utterance. Likewise, verbs with a direct object and governed by the accusative posit
their objects: “x remembers F”, or “x researches F”. In addition, verbs in the
conditional and in the subjunctive mood posit counterfactuals: “I think there might
be a chimera in this room” or “if there were a chimera in this room, it would surprise
us”. Or, to use Meinong’s example: “The ancient Greeks believed there was a god
Zeus who was the highest of their equally assumed Olympic Gods, etc.” This
statement sounds better in German due to the subjunctive which is regrettably
unavailable in English: „Die alten Griechen glaubten, es gäbe einen Gott Zeus,
derselbe sei der oberste der von ihnen ebenfalls angenommenen olympischen Götter
u.dgl.“ (1894, § 6, Meinong’s italics). „Obviously”, says Meinong, “whoever makes
judgments about mythical objects places himself on the ground of myth without,
however, making that ground truly his own.” 25 This judgment is modified because it
only appear to be about presented mythical objects insofar as we assume their
existence by positing or imagining ourselves on the ground of the existence of those
objects. We judge as if those objects existed, thus projecting a perspective which
grounds those objects. 26 This modified judgment is not explicit but whoever talks
about mythical objects accepts that the ancient Greeks believed that there was a god
named Zeus whom they assumed to be the highest god. In other words, those objects
obtain their objectuality (Gegenständlichkeit) through attribution in oratio obliqua – the
“Es ist selbstverständlich, dass, wer über mythische Objekte urteilt, sich auf den Boden des Mythos
stellt, ohne sich ihn doch wahrhaft zu eigen zu machen.“ (1894, § 6, my translation).
26 „Aber explizit urteilen wir das nicht, wir urteilen über die Gegenstände; aber unser Urteilen ist dann
ein ‚modifiziertes’, ein Scheinurteil über vorgestellte Gegenstände, sofern wir uns auf den Boden der
Existenz der Objekte stellen (hineinphantasieren u.dgl.), auf dem wir in Wahrheit gar nicht stehen.“
(1894, § 6).
25
18
modified judgment that there was a god named Zeus who was assumed to be the
highest god is implicit in the statement in oratio recta which names or presents Zeus.
4. Bolzano and Meinong on imaginary presentations and/or imaginary objects
and how we can come to know them
In this section I reconstruct Bolzano’s and Meinong’s claim that chimeras as
imaginary entia are cognizable (erkennbar): they can be known either by description or
by acquaintance. This is the epistemological enjeu of their semantic theories: if
imaginary entities can be presented, then the reality of these presentations is
assumed and presupposed and, possibly, it can be proved. Bolzano’s claim that
truths as such are cognizable is well-known: an object is cognizable if it can be the
matter (Stoff) of a cognition (Erkenntnis) or a true judgment. (1837, § 26).
Consider the chimerical presentation [quark] – a postulated entity in
subatomic physics which is assumed to be a building block of a bulkier (or thicker)
subatomic particle called ‘hadron’. 27 Physicists predicate flavours and colours of
quarks called ‘beauty’ or ‘charm’ and they even give names to anti-quarks, such as
‘minus-red’ or ‘minus-green’. These presentations refer, although the existence of
their referents is questionable, at best. One might argue that the possibility of
knowledge need not stop at ‘things’ but could include non-entia which are in the
process of becoming entia, that is to say, emergent entia, such as changes, processes,
speech flow, my swimming in the Black Sea or the movement of bodies under the
effect of forces. Other emergent entia are processes in which changes come about due
to the effects of forces, such as variations in the sound-levels of musical
presentations; interactions, such as various forms of communication: a dialogue
between colleagues or discussions on web-forums and blogs. Another kind of
interaction occurs between texts and paintings in which one and the same cultural or
mythical object appears as sujet such as nymphs and Botticelli’s painting Primavera
(1482) whose occurrence, just as the occurrence of unicorns or angels, depends on the
force of the conviction with which we believe in those chimera which are projected in
imagination. As Quintilian points out: “[w]e shall succeed in making the facts
evident, if they are plausible; it will even be legitimate to invent things of the kind
that usually occur.” (VIII.iii.70). What is plausible is evident, because it is taken as
true with a certain degree of belief. The degree of this belief has a higher or lesser
degree of subjective probability and is based on the assumption that ‘there are
nymphs’ on the ground of myth (otherwise nymphs would be homeless). In the
domain of myth, however, nymphs not only are not homeless, but gain new ground,
Incidentally, Jakobson (1972, 319) uses the example of quarks when discussing the boundary
between logic and linguistics and the problem of nonexisting things: “Something can exist here and
now (hic et nunc) or in scientific hypotheses or in fairy tales, etc. An example of this is the introduction
of a new term in physics: ‘quark’. […] The existing particles […] may be divided into smaller final
subunits which are called quarks. So one can say, The quark exists in such and such a physical theory.”
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in pictorial representation. Certain events are also possible entia, such as my wish to
go to the seaside or my daughter’s desire for a computer with an internet connection.
Strictly speaking, past events, such as the two world- (and many other) wars are also
non-entia or at least doubtful entia as, for example, determining the borders of France
at the time of the Merovingians.
A (possible) Bolzanian reply concerning the presentations [quark], [minusred], [minus-green] and [the borders of France at the time of the Merovingians] is
that a presentation is chimerical or imaginary, if and only if in that presentation is
assumed the actuality of each and every one of its absent and corresponding objects.
(1837, § 70, note 4). [Minus-red] and [minus-green] are chimerical presentations
without an actual object but in these presentations the concept of actuality is
assumed, based on the subatomic theory. That theory presupposes that there could
be subatomic particles such as quarks.
According to Bolzano, the distinction between real (real) and imaginary
(imaginär, eingebildet) presentation corresponds to the distinction between possible
and impossible images. Like Meinong, he rejects the notion that a presentation must
necessarily be accompanied by an image or be made sensory (versinnlicht) (1837, §
70.note 1). 28 He does, however, admit the possibility that some imaginary
presentations have an accompanying image which “hovers (schwebt) before us”, an
image painted by my sensory and creative ability (sinnliches Dichtungsvermögen). Of
this kind is the presentation [the borders of France at the time of the Merovingians],
an accompanying image of which hovers before us, an image of an object which
would have had the property expressed in that judgment. (1837, § 70 note 4). 29
Bolzano points out that one can have an image of an object, regardless of whether the
object is real or not. For instance, one can imagine a body limited by 24 equilateral
triangles, as well as a body limited by 20 equilateral triangles, though the first object
is impossible whereas the second object is possible and hence the first presentation is
imaginary whereas the second presentation is real (1837, § 70 note 1). Since the object
of the presentation [the borders of France at the time of the Merovingians] is possible,
this presentation is not imaginary, but real – regardless of the image hovering before
us which acts as if there were such an object or makes believe that there is such an
object.
Bolzano says that ordinarily we do not animate imaginary presentations by
clothing (Bekleidung) them in a sensory image, which is usually possible with real
presentations. Our inability to animate certain imaginary presentations such as
[round square] or [blue yellow], due to their contradictory properties, is not a
sufficient reason to discard them. He argues that this is no sufficient reason for us not
« Die imaginäre Vorstellung muss also so beschaffen seyn, dass es wohl scheint, sie habe irgend
einen Gegenstand, während sie ihn doch wirklich nicht hat » (1837, § 70 note 3).
29 Husserl (1912, PhBE) uses the same terminology (‘als ob’, schwebt vor) when discussing ficta which
hover before us, as if they were real, because they are posited (gesetzt) before us. Relating
presentations to their objects via productive imagination is, of course, the problem of Kant’s
schematism – but, for lack of time I shall not discuss it here.
28
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to consider imaginary presentations as valid. For it is not even a necessary condition
of a presentation to be thinkable, let alone to be made sensory (versinnlicht) by means
of a certain image (Bild) (1837, § 70 note 1). Owing to chimerical presentations, the
domain of what can be known is extended beyond the actual because they signify or
refer to non-entia which may have been or may yet become actual. That which
‘hovers’ before us is not even an image but a (Kantian) schema – an outline or pattern
which orients an addressee on that which is named by a presentation.
Whoever has not seen the borders of France at the time of the Merovingians,
may wonder what and where they are – since they do not even figure on
geographical maps. Whatever image one has of them is a shadowy surrogate (or
schema), which serves to coordinate a narrator and an addressee on an object. Those
borders are assumed or posited in the narrative about France at the time of the
Merovingians which is a literary sujet representing the subject “France at the time of
the Merovingians”. The appearance or pictorial function of this schema is to depict
the subject for an addressee to grasp and understand in the coordinate system of the
narrative. Meinong (1899, §§2–7) as well as the later Meinong (after 1904), would
probably call [the borders of France at the time of the Merovingians] a higher-order
object, a superius which supervenes on inferior founding objects or Gestalt of France
which does not have a corresponding object given to the senses but is assumed in the
tales or legends about France.
On Meinong’s view, the distinction between realia and chimera is a distinction
between mathematical existence and non-existence which is based on a distinction
between ‘valid’ concepts, the existence of which is provable and invalid concepts
which cannot be proved ‘non-provable’. [Square] or [triangle] are valid concepts:
their reality or existence can be proved by constructing the corresponding
geometrical figures – actually there are no squares or triangles, but there could be. A
round square, however, cannot be constructed (although it might be constructible as
a polygon on spheres) (1894, § 8). Hence, according to Meinong, the actuality of valid
geometrical concepts is a mathematical projection or an assumption, from which
their (mathematical) existence follows as a consequence, just as the existence of
nymphs follows from their assumption on the ground of myths.
The difference between Bolzano and Meinong is that the former speaks of
nymphs as presentations (Vorstellungen), whereas the latter speaks of nymphs as
objects (Gegenstände). For Bolzano, the presentation (Vorstellung) of a nymph can be
accompanied by an image, whilst Meinong would say that the object (Gegenstand)
named ‘nymph’ has a figurative character. Perhaps a painter like Botticelli would
agree with Meinong, since he painted nymphs as objects (Gegenstände) and not as
presentations. The objectuality (Gegenständlichkeit) is assumed, projected or depicted
(re-presented). Nonetheless, Meinong and Bolzano agree that presentations and their
non-existing or imaginary objects (Gegenstände) stand in a referential or signifying
relation which is the essential determination of presentations (1894, § 12). Bolzano
concurs that a presentation such as [the mathematician who first used the concept [√1] certainly contains the imaginary presentation [√-1] as a part, yet it is undeniably an
21
objectual presentation (gegenständliche Vorstellung) (1837, § 71.2). Regardless of
whether we call imaginary entities [objects] or [presentations] and whether or not we
actually see or visualize them, they acquire reality by means of the signifying relation
which grounds their existence in language and hence their interaction with what we
call the real world.
Conclusion
The aim of this paper is to show the various levels of interaction between
ourselves, imaginary entities and our reality. I argue that chimaeras are assumed in
the domain (or linguistic situation) of mythology and emerge in our actual world as
we read or talk about them, based on reconstructions of older views from rhetoric,
philosophy, semantics and semiotics. I show that these views are applicable to
analysing the interaction between the possible and the real in various situations of
communication, from myths to advertising, advancing the claim that the basic units
of imaginary entities are semantic and semiotic. However, the process of how these
entities (and information in general) is formatted and transmitted by human beings is
still an open question in the sciences.
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