Subject and object (philosophy)

The distinction betweensubjectandobjectis a basic idea ofphilosophy.

• Asubjectis a being that exercisesagency,undergoes conscious experiences, is situated in relation to other things that exist outside itself; thus, a subject is any individual,person,or observer
• Anobjectis any of the things observed or experienced by a subject, which may even include other beings (thus, from their own points of view: other subjects)

A simple common differentiation forsubjectandobjectis: an observer versus a thing that is observed. In certain cases involvingpersonhood,subjects and objects can be considered interchangeable where each label is applied only from one or the other point of view. Subjects and objects are related to the philosophical distinction betweensubjectivity and objectivity:the existence of knowledge, ideas, or information either dependent upon a subject (subjectivity) or independent from any subject (objectivity).

Etymology

In English the wordobjectis derived from theLatinobjectus(p.p. ofobicere) with the meaning "to throw, or put before or against", fromob-,"against", and the rootjacere,"to throw".Some other related English words includeobjectify(to reify),objective(a futurereference), andobjection(an expression of protest).Subjectuses the same root, but with the prefixsub-,meaning "under".

Broadly construed, the wordobjectnames a maximally general category, whose members are eligible for being referred to, quantified over and thought of. Terms similar to the broad notion ofobjectincludething,being,entity,item,existent,term,unit,andindividual.

In ordinary language, one is inclined to call only a material object "object".In certain contexts, it may be socially inappropriate to apply the wordobjectto animate beings, especially to human beings, while the wordsentityandbeingare more acceptable.

Some authors useobjectin contrast toproperty;that is to say, an object is an entity that is not aproperty.Objects differ from properties in that objects cannot be referred to by predicates. Some philosophers includeabstract objectsas counting as objects, while others do not. Terms similar to such usage ofobjectincludesubstance,individual,andparticular.

There are two definitions ofobject.The first definition holds that an object is an entity that fails to experience and that is not conscious. The second definition holds that an object is an entity experienced. The second definition differs from the first one in that the second definition allows for a subject to be an object at the same time.

One approach to defining an object is in terms of its properties andrelations.Descriptions of all bodies, minds, and persons must be in terms of their properties and relations. For example, it seems that the only way to describe an apple is by describing its properties and how it is related to other things, such as its shape, size, composition, color, temperature, etc., while its relations may include "on the table", "in the room" and "being bigger than other apples".Metaphysicalframeworks also differ in whether they consider objects existing independently of theirpropertiesand, if so, in what way.The notion of an object must address two problems: the change problems and the problems of substances. Two leading theories about objecthood aresubstance theory,wherein substances (objects) are distinct from their properties, andbundle theory,wherein objects are no more than bundles of their properties.

Historical periods

Modern philosophy

Cartesian dualism

The formal separation between subject and object in the Western world corresponds to thedualistic framework,in theearly modern philosophyofRené Descartes,betweenthoughtandextension(in common language,mind and matter). Descartes believed that thought (subjectivity) was the essence of themind,and that extension (the occupation of space) was the essence of matter.For modern philosophers like Descartes,consciousnessis a state ofcognitionexperienced by the subject—whose existence can never be doubted as its ability to doubt (and think)provesthat it exists. On the other hand, he argues that the object(s) which a subject perceives may not haverealor full existence or value, independent of that observing subject.

Substance theory

An attribute of an object is called a property if it can be experienced (e.g. its color, size, weight, smell, taste, and location). Objects manifest themselves through their properties. These manifestations seem to change in a regular and unified way, suggesting that something underlies the properties. The change problem asks what that underlying thing is. According tosubstance theory,the answer is a substance, that which stands for the change.

According tosubstance theory,because substances are only experienced through their properties a substance itself is never directly experienced. The problem of substance asks on what basis can one conclude the existence of a substance that cannot be seen or scientifically verified. According toDavid Hume'sbundle theory,the answer is none; thus an object is merely its properties.

German idealism

Subjectas a key-term in thinking about humanconsciousnessbegan its career with theGerman idealists,in response toDavid Hume's radicalskepticism.The idealists' starting point is Hume's conclusion that there is nothing to the self over and above a big, fleeting bundle of perceptions. The next step was to ask how this undifferentiated bundle comes to be experienced as a unity – as a singlesubject.Hume had offered the following proposal:

"...the imagination must by long custom acquire the same method of thinking, and run along the parts of space and time in conceiving its objects.

Kant,Hegeland their successors sought to flesh out the process by which the subject is constituted out of the flow of sense impressions. Hegel, for example, stated in his Preface to thePhenomenology of Spiritthat a subject is constituted by "the process of reflectively mediating itself with itself."

Hegel begins his definition of the subject at a standpoint derived fromAristotelianphysics: "the unmoved which is alsoself-moving"(Preface, para. 22). That is, what is not moved by an outside force, but which propels itself, has aprima faciecase for subjectivity. Hegel's next step, however, is to identify this power to move, this unrest that is the subject, aspure negativity.Subjective self-motion, for Hegel, comes not from any pure or simple kernel of authentic individuality, but rather, it is

"...the bifurcation of the simple; it is the doubling which sets up opposition, and then again the negation of this indifferent diversity and of its anti-thesis" (Preface, para. 18).

The Hegelian subject'smodus operandiis therefore cutting, splitting and introducing distinctions by injecting negation into the flow of sense-perceptions. Subjectivity is thus a kind of structural effect – what happens when Nature is diffused, refracted around a field of negativity and the "unity of the subject" for Hegel, is in fact a second-order effect, a "negation of negation". The subject experiences itself as a unity only by purposively negating the very diversity it itself had produced. The Hegelian subject may therefore be characterized either as "self-restoring sameness" or else as "reflection in otherness within itself" (Preface, para. 18).

American pragmatism

Charles S. Peirceof thelate-modernAmerican philosophical school ofpragmatism,defines the broad notion of an object as anything that we can think or talk about.In a general sense it is anyentity:thepyramids,gods,Socrates,thenearest star system,the numberseven,a disbelief inpredestination,or thefear of cats.

Mahayana Buddhism

In theMūlamadhyamakakārikā,the Indian philosopherNagarjunaseizes upon the dichotomy between objects as collections of properties or as separate from those properties to demonstrate that both assertions fall apart under analysis. By uncovering this paradox he then provides a solution (pratītyasamutpāda– "dependent origination" ) that lies at the very root ofBuddhistpraxis.Although Pratītyasamutpāda is normally limited to caused objects, Nagarjuna extends his argument to objects in general by differentiating two distinct ideas – dependent designation and dependent origination. He proposes that all objects are dependent upon designation, and therefore any discussion regarding the nature of objects can only be made in light of the context. The validity of objects can only be established within those conventions that assert them.

Contemporary philosophy

InContinental philosophy,the subject is a central term in debates over the nature of theself.Inanalytic philosophyof the Anglo-American tradition, the subject is also central in debates over the nature ofsubjective experience.

Continental philosophy

See also:Ethopoeia

The thinking ofKarl MarxandSigmund Freudprovided a point of departure for questioning the notion of a unitary, autonomous Subject, which for many thinkers in theContinental traditionis seen as the foundation of theliberal theoryof thesocial contract.These thinkers opened up the way for thedeconstructionof the subject as a core-concept ofmetaphysics.

Freud's explorations of theunconscious mindadded up to a wholesale indictment ofEnlightenmentnotions of subjectivity.

Among the most radical re-thinkers of human self-consciousness wasMartin Heidegger,whose concept ofDaseinor "Being-there" displaces traditional notions of the personal subject altogether. With Heidegger, phenomenology tries to go beyond the classical dichotomy between subject and object, because they are linked by an inseparable and original relationship, in the sense that there can be no world without a subject, nor the subject without world.

Jacques Lacan,inspired by Heidegger andFerdinand de Saussure,built on Freud'spsychoanalyticmodel of the subject, in which the split subject is constituted by adouble bind:alienated fromjouissancewhen they leavethe Real,enters intothe Imaginary(during themirror stage), and separates from theOtherwhen they come into the realm of language, difference, anddemandinthe Symbolicor theName of the Father.

Thinkers such asstructural MarxistLouis AlthusserandpoststructuralistMichel Foucaulttheorize the subject as asocial construction,the so-called "poststructuralist subject".According to Althusser, the "subject" is anideologicalconstruction (more exactly, constructed by the "Ideological State Apparatuses"). One's subjectivity exists,"always-already"and is constituted through the process ofinterpellation.Ideology inaugurates one into being a subject, and every ideology is intended to maintain and glorify its idealized subject, as well as the metaphysical category of the subject itself (seeantihumanism).

According to Foucault, it is the "effect" ofpowerand "disciplines"(seeDiscipline and Punish:construction of the subject (subjectivationorsubjectification,French:assujettissement) as student, soldier, "criminal", etc.)). Foucault believed it was possible to transform oneself; he used the wordethopoieinfrom the wordethosto describe the process.Subjectification was a central concept inGilles DeleuzeandFélix Guattari's work as well.

Analytic philosophy

Bertrand Russellupdated the classical terminology with a term, thefact;"Everything that there is in the world I call a fact." Russell uses the term "fact" in two distinct senses. In 1918, facts are distinct from objects. "I want you to realize that when I speak of a fact I do not mean a particular existing thing, such as Socrates or the rain or the sun. Socrates himself does not render any statement true or false. You might be inclined to suppose that all by himself he would give truth to the statement ‘Socrates existed’, but as a matter of fact that is a mistake."But in 1919, he identified facts with objects. "I mean by ‘fact’ anything complex. If the world contains no simples, then whatever it contains is a fact; if it contains any simples, then facts are whatever it contains except simples... That Socrates was Greek, that he married Xantippe [sic], that he died of drinking the hemlock, are facts that all have something in common, namely, that they are ‘about’ Socrates, who is accordingly said to be a constituent of each of them. "

Facts, or objects, are opposed tobeliefs,which are "subjective" and may be errors on the part of the subject, the knower who is their source and who is certain of himself and little else. All doubt implies the possibility of error and therefore admits the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity. The knower is limited in ability to tell fact from belief, false from true objects and engages in reality testing, an activity that will result in more or less certainty regarding the reality of the object. According to Russell,"we need a description of the fact which would make a given belief true" where "Truth is a property of beliefs." Knowledge is "true beliefs".

In contemporary analytic philosophy, the issue of subject—and more specifically the "point of view" of the subject, or "subjectivity" —has received attention as one of the major intractable problems inphilosophy of mind(a related issue being themind–body problem). In the essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?",Thomas Nagelfamously argued that explainingsubjective experience—the "what it is like" to be something—is currently beyond the reach of scientific inquiry, because scientific understanding by definition requires an objective perspective, which, according to Nagel, is diametrically opposed to the subjective first-person point of view. Furthermore, one cannot have a definition of objectivity without being connected to subjectivity in the first place since they are mutual and interlocked.

In Nagel's bookThe View from Nowhere,he asks: "What kind of fact is it that I am Thomas Nagel?". Subjects have a perspective but each subject has a unique perspective and this seems to be a fact in Nagel's view from nowhere (i.e. the birds-eye view of the objective description in the universe). The Indian view of "Brahman" suggests that the ultimate and fundamental subject is existence itself, through which each of us as it were "looks out" as an aspect of a frozen and timeless everything, experienced subjectively due to our separated sensory and memory apparatuses. These additional features of subjective experience are often referred to asqualia(seeFrank Cameron JacksonandMary's room).

Disciplines

Physics

Limiting discussions of objecthood to the realm of physical objects may simplify them. However, defining physical objects in terms offundamental particles(e.g.quarks) leaves open the question of what is thenature of a fundamental particleand thus asks whatcategories of beingcan be used to explain physical objects.

Semantics

Symbolsrepresent objects; how they do so, themap–territory relation,is the basic problem ofsemantics.

See also

• Abstract object theory
• Abstraction
• Binding problem
• Category theory
• Cognitive linguistics
• Concept
• Continuous predicate
• Donald Davidson'sswamp manthought experiment (in "Knowing One Own's Mind", 1987 paper)
• Ethicsandmeta-ethics
• Hypostasis (philosophy and religion)
• Hypostatic abstraction
• List of ethics topics
• Michel Foucault's critique of the subject and the oxymoron "historical subject"
• Moral relativism
• Neo-Kantianism
• Nonexistent object
• Noumenonandphenomenon
• Object-oriented ontology
• Observer (physics)
• Open individualism
• Paramatma
• Personhood theory
• Ship of Theseus
• Sign relation
• Soul
• Subject (grammar)
• Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy)
• Transcendental subject
• Vertiginous question

Bibliography

• Butler, Judith(1987),Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France,New York: Columbia University Press,ISBN0-231-06450-0
• Alain de Libera, "When Did the Modern Subject Emerge?", American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 2, 2008, pp. 181–220.
• Robert B. Pippin,The Persistence of Subjectivity. On the Kantian Aftermath,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• Udo Thiel,The Early Modern Subject. Self-Consciousness and Personal Identity from Descartes to Hume,New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

External links

• Bradley Retter & Andrew M. Bailey (2017).Object.Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University – via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Gideon Rosen (2022).Abstract objects.Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University – via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Colin Smith."Even More Abstract Objects".Crazy Objects And Their Affect On Reality.
• Russell, Bertrand(1948).Human Knowledge Its Scope and Limits.New York:Simon and Schuster.