ABSTRACT
Meinong’s early ontology, to the extent to which he would acknowledge it explicitly, is very lean indeed. It comprises just one main category, the category of instances. His implicit ontology, though, is much richer. There are, most importantly, complexes of instances as well as complexes of properties; for a complex of instances is not itself an instance and a complex of properties is not a complex property. They must, therefore, belong to a different category. There are, furthermore, properties and relations. Meinong, we saw, presupposes them in his theory of abstraction and for his notion of equality. Finally, his ontology contains places and moments, since these entities cannot plausibly be viewed as instances. Meinong, it is clear, can hardly be accused of having started out with a penchant for ontological excesses. It is to his credit that he soon realizes that his implicit ontology is not the same as his explicit ontology; and with this realization, he loses his blindness to his own and other philosopher’s ontological commitments. From then on, Meinong’s philosophical inquiries are primarily ontological inquiries.
