Abstract

According to Alexius Meinong, in order to give a philosophical explanation of the world we need to consider both existent and nonexistent objects, lest we fall into the "prejudice in favour of the real". The paper starts by examining some basic concepts of object theory seen as an existence-free science (modes of being, principle of independence of so-being from being, "Aussersein" and Meinong's paradox). There follows an exposition of Bertrand Russell's position, characterized by a "robust sense of reality", and afterwards an analysis of differences and similarities between the two philosophers. The paper ends with a short account of Meinongian semantics and a comparison between object theory and metaphysics.