Did I just see Romeo commit suicide? : Meinong and Blaustein on theater

english

2025

volume 34, issue 134/135

ontology   phenomenology   theater

Inštitut Nove revije - Zavod za humanistiko
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

I analyze the aesthetic experience of theatergoers in light of Meinong’s “assumptions” and Blaustein’s “imaginative presentations,” taking Brentano’s “universality thesis” as the background of my analyses. I argue that “presentations” and “judgments” go hand in hand, as far as theater experience is concerned. To put forth my main argument, I follow a two-fold line of reasoning: phenomenological and ontological. On the phenomenological level, Blaustein’s imaginative presentations, I argue, are self-sufficient. Nonetheless, on the ontological level, the theater’s represented objects emerge as having a two-sided structure that undermines the phenomenological simplicity of presentations. By characterizing represented objects’ ontology in this manner, I admit Meinong’s assumptions as a fourth class of mental phenomena, and, beyond the frameworks of both Meinong and Blaustein, incorporate judgments into the aesthetic experience of theater.

22.01.2026