Functional reality of the quasi-real: Gegenstandstheorie and cultural psychology today

The missing focus: Phenomena that do not exist

Psychology has developed as a science based on the phenomena of the psyche that have been demonstrated to exist—behaving, thinking, feeling have been reported by human beings as these have happened. Even the phenomena of the unconscious have been presumed to exist—despite that they are visible through limited and indirect evidence. Parapsychology has done its utmost—and failed—to demonstrate that “extra-sensory perception” is a real psychological phenomenon. For all intents and purposes, psychology has been deeply inherently realist—despite the mutual exclusion by different “schools” of one another’s claims that their phenomena exist. Thus, behavioral scientists have rejected claims based on introspection or psychoanalysis, all have rejected the claims by parapsychologists, and so on. The normative fight for serious scientific basis for the discipline has been to capture the field of what-is-real and make it one’s own.

This “fight for realism” is consistent with the ontological primacy in the history of psychology—assuming that “phenomenon X of the psyche” exists in some given (even if hidden, and difficult to reach) way. This axiomatic stance fits well as long as the assumption of causally based unfolding of psychological events is accepted. It can be accepted in all cases where the human agency is reduced to reaction to events from the past and excludes any possible future reference. My psychological “problems” of today can be said to be “caused” by my poor childhood, psychotrauma during being weaned, bullying by peers in school, parental divorce, or any aspect of my own personality that is already established. All these “causal factors” can be viewed as having existence—outside of me, or within my own psyche. Wherever they are they are designated as “real,” and hence—appropriate objects for psychological investigation.

The situation becomes more complex if the assumption of future-oriented nature of our life-course organization is brought into the discipline. Adding that renders the assumption of reactivity to past events become secondary—or at least contestable—as the sole basis for the unfolding of psychological phenomena. I can act in way X because of the previously existing conditions P and Q (i.e. the reactivity assumption), but I can also act in that same way without any previous “triggers,” but on the basis of my expectation (possible a false one) for some future state S that I set up as a desired goal for myself. Investing in stock markets, becoming involved in courses of studies, or getting married and wanting to have children can be examples of such future-based “triggers” of my actions today.

Bringing the focus on future to bear on psychological events unfolding in the present introduces the importance of phenomena that do not exist—yet are important in the realities of the present. No future desired state of affairs exists in the present, yet human action can be driven to that imaginary future. My university diploma—a real object symbolizing the end of my studies some years from now—does not exist at the time of my entrance into university. Yet, I enter into my studies striving toward that—at the present non-existing, but in some years from now—real—object. This is captured well in the focus on future “attractors” in the Dynamic Systems Theory applications in psychology (Lewis, 2000; Tsuda, 2001; van Geert, 1991, 1994). The causal system that has usually being projected into the past becomes projected into the future—yet, the system that is moving toward the “attractors” remains a passive follower of the causal system. The difference is only in the projected location—instead (or in addition to) the past, the “causal agents” are projected into the future. Surely there is a difference—the events of the past are “real” (= “have already happened”), while those in the future are not (yet) “real” (=“have not yet happened”). It is here where the introduction of non-existing objects as functionally relevant finds its first use.

However, the actor—person—remains a passive “target” for the past and future “forces” that attract him or her to the various functional arenas of one’s life course. Once the axiom of the active nature of the person is added to the meta-theoretical system of the discipline, the relevance of non-existing objects becomes central to any psychological analysis. Such addition highlights the willfulness of the actor—who can both act toward the “attracting” future conditions or on the basis of the “causal factors” in the past and can also act in ways that oppose any or all of these. It is here that a new class of non-existing (=non-manifest) phenomena—which actually exist in the psyche– become central. I may be expected or required to act in way X because of previous conditions P and Q and being “drawn toward” Attractor Z, but I can willfully not-act in way X. My non-action is manifest only in the context of knowledge of the expectation to act in way X and my non-action (e.g. “he should have apologized for that, but he did not”). Under all other circumstances, my non-action is not detectable—possibly also by myself. Or it may become detected in my present memory of the past (“how could I fail to act when I could?”). Such present real memory is about a non-real event—that could have happened but did not.

Under the conditions of axiomatic acceptance of intentional worlds of human beings where norms guide human action, the active defiance or neutralization of such norms makes the issue of non-existing phenomena important to consider along the existing ones. This has been attempted a century ago—in the tradition developed in the Austrian town of Graz by Alexius Meinong. The “jungle” (as it is at times called) of his classification of objects (Gegenstände) remains largely forgotten in psychology. Re-visiting the efforts of the “Graz tradition” and experiencing their efforts to differentiate real, quasi-real, non-real, and impossible objects can be a refreshing insight for contemporary cultural psychology. It is the nature of theoretical concerns in our contemporary cultural psychologies that might benefit from a look at that once-developed rich theoretical system.

What is an Object? The specific focus of Gegenstandstheorie

How to do psychology is also governed by socially normative assumptions. There exists serious historical myopia of the discipline, which is the target of this Editorial. Both of the topics present in this issue—patriotism and graffiti writing— are phenomena of high complexity. So are most other empirical examples our Journal has highlighted in its history. Theorizing about these can benefit from a consideration of the particular tradition highlighted here—Alexius Meinong’s Gegenstandstheorie. It is the focus on the object as creating a resistance condition (stand against—Gegen + stand) of the 19th to 20th centuries, as well as the seemingly ephemeral nature of these objects, that can be illuminated by Meinong’s theoretical efforts.

Obedient psychology: Too many giants on whose shoulders one can stand

Overlooking of one’s own history—while creating history of psychology as a museum for things past—is characteristic of all of psychology (Valsiner, 2012), and cultural psychology might be seen as unusually open to its history. Claims of our “standing on the shoulders of giants” such as Lev Vygotsky, George Herbert Mead, John Dewey, or Confucius are rather frequent. Bringing these historical figures into our contemporary science demonstrates our contemporary obedience in “following” these figures, but not our own creativity. My point is that these acts of following have not led to innovation of basic ideas beyond the “giants”—where is the “Vygotsky” or “Mead” of our 21st century? Where is the development of ideas of the “social” or “cultural” nature of the psyche that would go beyond simple statement of one’s theoretical positions? Where is a general elaboration of “situated activity contexts” beyond Leontiev and Lave?

While reading the manuscripts included in this issue, I had the feeling that all that is being described here is a good illustration for a basic philosophical and psychological theory that was developed a century ago, and that has become unknown even within psychologists’ “museum of history.” I saw direct possibilities to generalize from the specific themes by re-introducing Meinong’s ideas into cultural psychology. We had touched upon these ideas in a limited way over a decade ago (Josephs, Valsiner, & Surgan, 1999), but no systematic elaboration has been undertaken. Yet, it is only while working on the present text that I realized how rich in ideas was the “Graz tradition” of the turn of the 20th century, and how its richness has vanished together with the disappearance of other directions of Gestalt orientations from psychology.

The world of Alexius Meinong

Alexius Meinong (born 1853, died 1920) was a leading figure in European psychology at the turn of the 20th century. Around hundred years later, he is remembered by mostly philosophers and phenomenologists, while psychology has mostly forgotten his efforts to revolutionize the theoretical side of the discipline. Much has been written about him and his work, both by himself (Meinong, 1923) and others (Eder, 1995; Findlay, 1963; Grossmann, 1974). It is mostly philosophers who have appreciated his ideas over the past century (Albertazzi, Jacquette, & Poli, 2001). The “blind seer” ² from Graz has been accepted as being of relevant impact onto 20th century philosophy through his impacts on Bertrand Russell (Griffin & Jacquette, 2009; Russell, 1904a, 1904b, 1904c, 1905a, 1906, 1907). And, as is often the case, philosophers have also actively “buried” Meinong’s ideas, predicting that they are “dead” and would never be revived (e.g. Ryle, 1972, p. 255). In the present Editorial, I attempt to bring it back to our orbit of interests, despite the fact that very few of his books have appeared in English (Meinong, 1983) and that Meinong’s philosophical terminology in German loses its nuances in English translation. ³

The intellectual roots of Alexius Meinong go back to the interest in the Scottish philosopher David Hume (Kuehn, 2005) and are mediated by his apprenticeship with Franz Brentano in Vienna. Meinong’s two treatises on David Hume (Meinong, 1877, 1882) set up the stage for a specifically Austrian “intra-mental positivism” (Lindenfeld, 1980) which took a decisively phenomenological form (Rollinger, 2008; Smith, 1994). Brentano’s direction was important for Meinong’s ideas, but he was not a simple follower. To Brentano’s classification of psychological phenomena into ideas, judgments, and feelings, Meinong added the will. Furthermore, “While Brentano sought to reconcile scientific philosophy with religion and metaphysics, Meinong pursued scientific philosophy as an end in itself. Religion played no significant role in his thought or life” (Lindenfeld, 1980, p. 60).

While religion was irrelevant, music was not. Himself an amateur composer and avid music performer, ⁴ Meinong’s theorizing was carefully guided by his feelings-in (Einfühlung) and knowledge of music. Yet, his coverage of the psychological issues that deep knowledge of music remained “dry and unemotional” (Lindenfeld, 1980). Meinong operated within the framework of the schemes if classical logic and reached a break-through point to escape from its confines only by the end of his career. ⁵

Meinong’s theoretical perspective was co-developed by his students—Stefan Witasek, Ernst Mally (1904), Rudolf Amseder (1904a, 1904b), and Robert Saxinger (1904) Ernst Mally later—by 1920s and 1930s—developed the system of values-based logic—deontic logic—from the beginnings of the Gegenstandstheorie (Lokhorst, 2004). Development of non-classical logics in the 29th century was facilitated by the tradition of thinking of Franz Brentano and got a particular boos through the Gegenstandstheorie.

The importance of explicating assumptions

Meinong’s work on assumptions (Meinong, 1902/1910) was the main arena of dialogue with his contemporary mathematician—Bertrand Russell (1872–1970)—who in his early 30s became an active interlocutor of Meinong’s. Their goals coincided, despite differences in their axiomatic stands. Russell—a logician and philosopher of Cambridge brand—was later turned into one of the philosophical giants of the 20th century on whose shoulders gangs of philosophers declared themselves to be standing. Yet, as the young logician involved in philosophy of mathematics, Russell (1904a, 1904b, 1904c, 1905a, 1906, 1907) benefitted directly from his dialogue with Meinong, even if he ended rejecting Meinong’s Gegenstandstheorie. ⁶ Meinong’s ontological efforts were systematically mapping the whole mindscape of human feeling, judging, and assuming. Added to these three processes was the notion of desiring. This distinguished Meinong’s focus from that of Franz Brentano. In the century that followed the work of the “Graz tradition,” no clear theoretical elaboration of desiring has been advanced—aside from re-iterated psychodynamic treatises along the lines of the control efforts over the mischievous unconscious. What was started in Graz—and not followed later—was the focus on intentional desiring. The real world of human lives is filled with phenomena of such desires. These are exploited by advertises of ever new brand names of various consumer products.

Moving beyond assumptions: Gegenstandstheorie

The Gegenstandstheorie was developed by Meinong in Graz in 1904–1915, antedated by his value theory that had emerged over the previous decade. A very central contribution from the “Graz School” of psychology (as the group of collaborators of Alexius Meinong is sometimes called—Amseder, 1904a, 1904b; Mally, 1904; Saxinger, 1904) is the focus on non-existing objects—objects that we take for granted and can talk about, but which cannot be pinpointed as existing in the world. We can talk of “patriotism” but we cannot point to it, while when we talk about a “car,” it is possible to precisely locate such object in the environment and point to it (“this is a car”). Psychology is a science that deals primarily with objects that can be doubted to exist: where can one locate “the unconscious,” “the mind,” etc.? As we cannot locate these objects in the brain or in society, we may deny their existence. Hence, Meinong’s meta-psychological effort to make sense of the whole realm of objects—those that exist (Sein in German, or are characterized as Being) and those that do not exist, but subsist (So-sein in German, characterized as “Being-So”).

The “jungle of objects” is complex. Meinong’s argument brings out an interesting boundary feature—since we can talk about things that do not exist (e.g. unicorns, golden mountains, etc.), these non-existing objects have some form of being—they must subsist (bestehen) in some form. And—there are objects that truly do not exist—yet—we can make statements about these. Their existence is “out there” (Aussersein), they form the category of “homeless objects” (heimatlöse Gegenstande—Chisholm, 1972). Such heterogeneity of the realm of objects makes human use of imagination possible. The centrality of imagination has been a major epistemological stumbling block for psychology (Zittoun et al., 2013). Theorizing in any science is closely related with the non-existing objects—due to the contrast between AS-IS and AS-IF (Als-Ob in terms of Hans Vaihinger—Vaihinger, 1920) worlds. We act in our real worlds (AS-IS) in ways that are “fueled” by the non-existing world of AS-IF. Any scientific hypothesis belongs to the AS-IF world.

Meinong’s limits: Ontological effort to make sense of non-ontological world

Our world is in constant movement. Capturing its static ways of being is difficult, and Meinong’s revolutionary move to include non-existing objects was an effort that within the ontological framework was unlikely to succeed. Russell’s rejection of it is one of the examples of how assumptions of ontology do not fit with generative premises in epistemology. The latter assume that every statement about being (of X) simultaneously includes a potential for not-yet-being (not-yet-X). The not-yet-being is different from Meinong’s non-existing objects as an ontological category, as it implies potential for transformation of the object within irreversible time. The latter notion—brought in by Henri Bergson—did exist in Meinong’s time, but no impact from it is traceable in Meinong’s ontological viewpoint—despite the fact that issues of time were studied in Graz. ¹¹

From ontological classifications to developmental logic

Meinong not only set the stage for the advancement of formal logics in the 20th century but also served as an interlocutor in the efforts to build a general developmental perspective. It took James Mark Baldwin’s efforts to create a developmental (in his terms “genetic”) logic of things (Baldwin, 1906, 1908, 1911, 1915, pp. 20–10; Valsiner, 2009c, 2010). Baldwin’s developmental logic was created in connection with Meinong’s ideas. Already in the first volume of Thought and Things, Baldwin acknowledged Meinong’s notions of assumptions and Gegenstande (Baldwin, 1906, p. 40 and p. 241). In the second volume of his trilogy, Baldwin builds upon the notion of assumption, looking for the transitions from it to presumption (Baldwin, 1908, pp. 11–13), and beyond (to presuppositions). He brings the notion of irreversible time into developmental logic in general, and hence re-interprets Meinong’s assumptions as these fit into the developmental time sequences of the unfolding of sign-mediation hierarchies in development. The highest level of such mediation is esthetic meaning-making in life and art—where his developmental logic leads in the last two volumes of his work (Baldwin, 1911, 1915). In this, Baldwin returns to Meinong’s value theory (Baldwin, 1911, p. 76). Yet, in Baldwin’s focus values emerge in development—they are not just given in the person<>Gegenstand relation. Things for him did not merely exist (or non-exist), they developed. Things need to change so that we can detect the difference between what they were like before, and after—without that it is impossible to know them. They have to have “careers”:

A thing must have a career; and the length of its career is of immediate interest. We get to know the thing not only by the amount of its behavior, secured by examining a cross-section, so to speak, but also by the increase in the number of these sections which we were able to secure. The successive stages of behavior are necessary in order really to see what the behavior is. (Baldwin, 1895, p. 553)

It is important to emphasize that the connections between Baldwin’s efforts to build his developmental logic were unilateral. While Baldwin referenced Meinong’s ideas systematically in his work, there is no indication in any of Meinong’s work that he was aware of Baldwin’s efforts nor that he borrowed anything from Baldwinian logic. The ontological stance of the Graz tradition was principally blind to any developmental orientation. Likewise, there was no interest in the Meinong group in the philosophy of time of Henri Bergson, while Bertrand Russell as one of the major Meinong’s interlocutors showed such interest (Russell, 1912). Time in Graz was treated as an analog to space—a parameter within which events could be placed. The contradiction in all of the Brentano tradition (including Meinong’s) between the assumptions of inherent intentionality and time as non-irreversible has effectively blocked that tradition from breakthroughs in our knowledge.

From the Graz tradition to cultural psychology: The importance of quasi-existing objects

The classificatory focus of the Graz tradition overlooked the movement of objects between ontological categories. This was a natural “conceptual myopia,” given the exclusion of developmental focus. Yet, the contrasts between the classes of objects allow us to think of transformation of an object from one into another—a simple mountain (a real object in the environment) may become a “sacred mountain” through the cultural meaning-construction process, and may become generalized into a “golden mountain” (a non-existing object). The intermediate transformation is the set of subsisting objects (in Meinong’s terms) that could be considered quasi-objects—they both exist (in our imagination and in our meaning systems), yet they need not exist as real objects. The role of higher order objects is to provide meaning for their lower order components (if we use Meinong’s terminology—they present the “founded content”), or they are generalized and hyper-generalized signs that guide the conduct of human beings in their movement ahead in irreversible lifetime (Valsiner, 2014d, 2014e). Meinong’s contrasts between objects can be made functional in a continuously transforming universe of signs.

An interesting sub-class of quasi-existing objects are fictional characters in novels, films, and in our imagination (e.g. the Devil, the Angel, the perfect husband or wife). Anna Karenina both exists (as a character fully created by Lev Tolstoy and accepted as such by readers—on the pages of the novel) and does not exist (as a real person—Eco, 2009; Valsiner, 2009d). Cabillas (2014) gives us examples of Natalie Saraute autobiographical writing that gives us an interesting insight into the making of such quasi-existing objects.

Furthermore, in contemporary cultural psychology (Brinkmann, 2009) and long before (Heider, 1959), we can observe examples of the use of fiction writing as empirical data to illuminate relevant psychological processes. It might be time to overcome the artificial separation between our real “research participants” (whom we diligently force to sign various “consent forms”) and quasi-real ones (fortunately, we do not need to get Anna Karenina to sign such consent forms!). Psychology might be a form of literature—and literature is a form of scientific psychology, without the efforts to publicly prove that it is “hard science.”

Saraute’s autobiography of writing (Cabillas, 2014) is a good example of how the activity of writing itself takes place at the present (here-and-now)—yet, its function is to activate and integrate the constructively remembered past and link it with imagined future. The writing process is itself an activity of constructive remembering (Bartlett, 1932; Wagoner, 2012) and gives us an access to the construction of narrative trajectories. Similar processes are found in another kind of activity—drawing and writing what we consensually (and derogatively) label “graffiti.” As Hedegaard (2014) and Watzlawik (2014) show, the activity of “graffiti writing” is an act of artistic creativity that is carried out on the borders—of the “legal” and “illegal,” of the “art” and “vandalism,” and are a counter-cultural support of the very system of socially accepted meanings (and norms) that are meant to assert the social power of the society upon the acts of “borderline deviancy”—a state in which the graffiti writers are assumed to be. As we learn they are not. They are perfectly ordinary striving and creative persons who gain special thrill from the “illegal” conditions of execution of their creative efforts, and who follow a social norm system of their own (Hedegaard, 2014). There is a constant process of re-defining “graffiti” into “art”—this is a state in the development of the people who observe the graffiti in the public places. The asymmetries of power can be modified.

In a more general sense, these examples of writing—books, and “graffiti”—indicate that all human activity—if seen in the framework of time—takes place on the border (Marsico, Iannaccone, & Komatsu, 2013). The border—between what already exists (in the life of a person) and that could come into being in the next moment—is the norm, rather than exception, of human psyche. Cultural tools are invented precisely for such move toward the expected but not yet certain future. Cultural tools help to create security for the future. In that process, they stabilize the otherwise non-stable flow of events.

When seen as a cultural tool that stabilizes the future, it is not surprising that in the coverage of national histories—from nationalistic goal-oriented perspectives—we can observe the ontologization of the past histories of the countries (Lopez, Carretero, & Rodriguez-Moreno, 2014). In national narratives, historical events that never existed can be presented as if they did, and the very notion of “national identity” becomes represented as if it were timeless. Such ontological stance on national identity-encoded in most ordinary ways into mundane everyday life activities (see Figure 1)—is meant to utilize narratives of history to create continuity of the national order in the future. OPEN IN VIEWER

This may become particularly intense at times when such order is becoming challenged. As an ideologically relevant cultural “toolbox,” inclusion of history into the curriculae of educational institutions is meant to eliminate history from human minds. History teaching is not about the past of the nation, but about its possible (and politically desired—by the power holders) future.

Conclusion: History of science is a storehouse of quasi-existing ideas

Sciences usually detest their histories. It is as if everything invented today is by default better than ideas that were once tried out but fell into oblivion. Here, I have demonstrated that we can benefit from “old” ideas for taking a “new look” at our efforts in the present. Building theoretical approaches further from the Graz tradition, in the direction of abandoning its ontological axiomatics, and bringing the notion of sign mediation to the making (and breaking) of the higher order objects, might be a fruitful effort in cultural psychology. We do not “stand on the shoulders of giants,” but—through careful interest in their way of thinking—might develop new perspectives that may be rooted in these ideas, yet lead to new theoretical breakthroughs.