Ernst Mally's Refutation of "Idealism"

Our article centers on Ernst Mally's argument, which aims to refute "epistemological idealism" in several steps. The crucial element of Mally's argument is a paradox, that emerge in those cases, when we try to say that our thinking apprehends itself. This paradox of self-referential thinking plays for Mally crucial role in the refutation of the theses of "epistemological idealism". The first refutable "idealistic" thesis consists in saying that "object" means the same, as "that, which is conceived as conceived". The second refutable "idealistic" thesis consists in saying that every object is apprehendable. The third refutable "idealistic" thesis consists in saying that being is the same as being apprehended. "Epistemological idealism" under consideration is not identified by Mally with any kind of concrete historically given idealism (hence our employment of quotation marks in using term "idealism"). However, the so called "immanent philosophy" (Schuppe, Schubert-Soldern, Rehmke) perfectly falls under this concept, just because of its proceeding from the senselessness of any attempt to think about an object as independent from (this) thinking. As a positive consequence, Mally's argument demonstrates that epistemological position, presupposed by the meinongian "theory of objects" (so called "objectivism" (or "realism" in a loose sense)), is justified: "An object is what it is whether it is apprehended or not". Mally's argument, according to its intention, must show that object-theoretical studies, carried out in the school of A. Meinong, are devoid of even a grain of psychologism, despite the fact that the "theory of objects" is not possible without a "theory of apprehending of objects". Furthermore, rather speculative Mally's argument may be assessed as a "radical" expression of the struggle that the logic (in a form of the theory of objects) led for independence from psychologized epistemology. Mally's argument plays an important role in our understanding of the characteristic features of philosophical investigations in the school of A. Meinong. Meinong himself appreciate the paradox of self-referential thinking, exposed by Mally, as a threat for his own investigations. Meinong's theory of "defective objects" emerges precisely as a response to the paradox, exposed by Mally. Both the "Mally's paradox" and the Meinong's response to it become the points of issue for modern logicians.

Keywords

Authors

References