Abstract

Meinongianism takes non-existent objects to actually possess the qualities they are characterised as possessing. But many of these qualities are existence entailing. Priest and Berto’s modal Meinongianism tries to circumvent this problem by taking Pegasus to possess the property of being winged in some nonactual world. I argue that modal Meingongianism’s individuation criterion for fictional and imaginary entities doesn’t allow us to rule out that Emma Woodhouse and Batman are identical. I further argue that depending on the status of the ‘other worlds’ it posits, modal Meinongianism either trivialises Meinongianism’s ‘characterisation principle’ or replaces it with something no less objectionable. Priest and Berto’s view, I conclude, if it is tenable, is not a form of Meinongianism; but arguably it is something better: a structuralist account of non-existent objects.