Meinong

Alexius Meinong was a philosopher who explored the nature of various kinds of objects and their existence. He proposed that there are many entities—such as fictional characters, ideas, and hypothetical objects—that don't exist in reality but still have a kind of "being" in our thoughts or descriptions. For example, a unicorn doesn't exist in the real world, but it can still be thought about and discussed. Meinong's theory suggests that these non-existent objects have a different kind of existence from physical things, allowing us to talk meaningfully about things that aren't actually real.