over not only the existent and the subsistent but many other things as well (including
things such that it is impossible that they exist or subsist), to be of crucial importance
to philosophical theorizing: we ignore it at our peril. Corresponding to this outer
quantifier is a possible science (dubbed the“Theory of Objects”) whose doctrine is
focused on the fundamental principles governing the objects it ranges over. More-
over, pure mathematics should be understood as an actually developed branch of this
science. What this suggests is that the outer quantifier has as much right to be
regarded as a fundamental expression as the two inner ones countenanced by
Meinong. But then, contrary to Meinong’s claim, things ranged over by the outer
quantifier do enjoy a mode of being, which we could callQuasisein.^58 It also turns out
that everything ranged over by the two“inner”quantifiers enjoys two modes of being,
Quasisein and either existence or subsistence.
A similar worry arises for Bolzano’s (2014a: 59, 173) view, according to which
there are entities such as abstract propositions and ideal meanings that lack being.
Nonetheless, it is crucial that philosophers recognize these beingless entities. Bolzano
freely quantifies over the very entities to which he denies being, but because he
stresses the fundamental importance of quantifying over them, I worry that, if he is
correct, some highly natural quantifier ranges over them and hence, by the criterion
suggested here, they enjoy a mode of being. The worry is compounded when we note
that Bolzano (2014b: 44–6) also treatsbeingas afirst-order property.
How problematic is this? Strictly, what I have offered so far is only a criterion of
what it is to believe in modes of being rather than a criterion of what it is to be a mode
of being. But it is obvious that the criterion trades on the idea that perfectly natural
quantifiers and modes of being go hand in hand, and the criterion is unmotivated
unless this is true. So it would be good to have a response to the puzzle raised by the
real historical Meinong; we can hope that contemporary Meinongians willfind it
sensible as well. Similar remarks apply to the historical Bolzano and any of his
contemporary followers; accordingly, I will focus on Meinong.
I think the real Meinong should have just accepted Quasisein as a genuine mode of
being: as noted earlier, the generic concept of an entity is bound up with the general
concept of being, and all of Meinong’s objects fall under the generic concept of an
entity (or“object,”to use his terminology). That said, there are things that a neo-
Meinongian could say, which the real Meinong did not say, to distance themselves
from endorsing Quasisein as a genuine mode of being. First, they could say that the
outer quantifier is not a perfectly natural quantifier: although there is a sense of
“being”available for us to use, and perhaps even sometimes actually in use, according
to which there are objects that neither exist nor subsist, this sense of“being”is not
perfectly natural. If the neo-Meinongian goes this route, she should probably also
abandon the idea that this sense is crucially philosophically important in the way that
(^58) For a discussion of Meinong’s initial embrace and then rejection ofQuasisein, see Jacquette (2001).
See also Perszyk (1993: 54–67) and Vallicella (2002: 38–9).