[2] A follower of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, he reformed the philosophy of Christian Wolff by introducing elements of John Locke's empiricist theory of knowledge.

In 1749, Meier authored Versuch eines neuen Lehrgebäudes von den Seelen der Thiere (Attempt of a new teaching structure from the souls of animals) which ascribed the same sensory perceptions to both animals and man.

[5] He granted animals imagination, intelligence, judgement, memory, language, pleasure and displeasure.

Meier believed that animals were capable of love and that their souls were eternal for God cannot destroy anything.

In contrast, Meier advocated the killing of animals due to his unusual belief that it would accelerate the rise of their souls.