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Meinong's fundamental distinction between constitutive (nuclear) and extraconstitutive (extranuclear) properties is discussed and defended against an alternative suggestion based on Meinong's student Mally's distinction between two modes of predication for properties that are themselves undistinguished as to assumability or unassumability. Constitutive properties are ordinary properties like being red or round, whereas extraconstitutive properties are those with ontic implications, in particular involving such properties as being existent or nonexistent, relevantly predicationally complete or incomplete, possible or impossible, and the like. There is an interesting question as to whether converse intentional properties like being loved by a certain person are constitutive or extraconstitutive, that has important implications for the mind-independence of the objects in Meinong's referential semantic domain of both existent entities and nonexistent intended objects. The alternative later Mallyan suggestion that Meinong did not adopt is to consider all properties univocally with no distinction between constitutive or extraconstitutive, while distinguishing between two different ways in which objects can have properties. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of the two very different distinctions, both owing to Mally, are considered. A logical criterion based on interrelations of internal and external negations (predicate complementation and propositional negation) is developed to provide a solid basis for distinguishing between constitutive and extraconstitutive properties for a Meinongian theory of predication in the two categories.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-18075-5_5

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