  Many of Reinach's fellow realist phenomenologist came to embrace the idea that either all states of affairs (Lipps 1928; Pfänder 1921) or at least negative states of affairs (Ingarden 1964–65) exist only as intentional objects. Reinach, however, embraced a realist position towards both positive and negative states of affairs. The kind of being Reinach attributed to states of affairs was that of “obtaining” (Bestehen); they do not really “exist” as do things, but neither are they simply mental or intentional objects. Reinach believed that negative states of affairs obtain precisely as do positive states of affairs; otherwise, he did not see how we could defend objective knowledge of the most basic laws of ontology and logic (specifically, the principle of contradiction and the law of the excluded middle). On the other hand he did not believe that every positive or negative sentence corresponds to some state of affairs which obtains; this applies only to those sentences which are true, and thus only to one member of any given positive and negative pair of putative states of affairs.