View source for Subject and object (philosophy)

{{short description|Philosophy terms referring to an observer versus the thing observed}}
In [[philosophy]], a '''subject''' is a being that exercises [[Agency (philosophy)|agency]], undergoes conscious experiences, and is situated in relation to other things that exist outside itself; thus, a subject is any individual, [[person]], or observer.<ref name=":0" /> An '''object''' is 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 for ''subject'' and ''object'' is: an observer versus a thing that is observed. In certain cases involving [[personhood]], 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 between [[Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy)|subjectivity 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 word ''object'' is derived from the [[Latin]] {{lang|la|objectus}} (p.p. of {{lang|la|obicere}}) with the meaning "to throw, or put before or against", from {{lang|la|ob-}}, "against", and the root {{lang|la|jacere}}, "to throw".<ref>Klein, Ernest (1969) ''A comprehensive etymological dictionary of the English language'', Vol II, Elsevier publishing company, Amsterdam, pp. 1066–1067</ref> Some other related English words include ''objectify'' (to reify), ''objective'' (a future [[reference]]), and ''objection'' (an expression of protest). ''Subject'' uses the same root, but with the prefix ''sub-'', meaning "under".

Broadly construed, the word ''object'' names a maximally general category, whose members are eligible for being referred to, quantified over and thought of. Terms similar to the broad notion of ''object'' include ''thing'', ''being'', ''entity'', ''item'', ''existent'', ''term'', ''unit'', and ''individual''.<ref name="sep">{{cite web |last1=Rettler, Bradley and Andrew M. Bailey |title=Object |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/object/ |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=29 January 2021}}</ref>

In ordinary language, one is inclined to call only a material object "object".<ref name=sep /> In certain contexts, it may be socially inappropriate to apply the word ''object'' to animate beings, especially to human beings, while the words ''entity'' and ''being'' are more acceptable.

Some authors use ''object'' in contrast to ''[[Property (philosophy)|property]]''; that is to say, an object is an entity that is not a [[Property (philosophy)|property]]. Objects differ from properties in that objects cannot be referred to by predicates. Some philosophers include [[Abstract and concrete|abstract objects]] as counting as objects, while others do not. Terms similar to such usage of ''object'' include ''substance'', ''individual'', and ''particular''.<ref name=sep />

There are two definitions of ''object''. 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.<ref name=sep />

One approach to defining an object is in terms of its properties and [[Relations (philosophy)|relations]]. 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". [[Metaphysics|Metaphysical]] frameworks also differ in whether they consider objects existing independently of their [[Property (philosophy)|properties]] and, if so, in what way.<ref name="goswick">{{cite web |last1=Goswick |first1=Dana |title=Ordinary Objects |url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396577/obo-9780195396577-0312.xml |website=oxfordbibliographies |access-date=20 April 2020 |language=en |doi=10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0312 |date=27 July 2016|isbn=978-0-19-539657-7 }}</ref> The notion of an object must address two problems: the change problems and the problems of substances. Two leading theories about objecthood are [[substance theory]], wherein substances (objects) are distinct from their properties, and [[bundle theory]], wherein objects are no more than bundles of their properties.

== In philosophy ==

=== Mahayana Buddhism ===
In the ''[[Mūlamadhyamakakārikā]]'', the Indian philosopher [[Nagarjuna]] seizes 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 of [[Buddhist]] ''[[Praxis (process)|praxis]]''. 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.<ref>[[Mūlamadhyamakakārikā#24:18.2C 24:19|''MMK'' 24:18]]</ref>

=== Cartesian dualism ===
The formal separation between subject and object in the Western world corresponds to the [[Cartesian dualism|dualistic framework]], in the [[early modern philosophy]] of [[René Descartes]], between [[Mental substance|thought]] and [[Res extensa|extension]] (in common language, [[Mind–body problem|mind and matter]]). Descartes believed that thought ([[objectivity and subjectivity|subjectivity]]) was the essence of the [[mind]], and that extension (the occupation of space) was the essence of matter.<ref>{{cite book|last=Descartes|first=René |title=The Principles of Philosophy|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4391/pg4391-images.html|section=LIII|access-date=19 July 2016}}</ref> For modern philosophers like Descartes, [[consciousness]] is a state of [[cognition]] experienced by the subject—whose existence can never be doubted as its ability to doubt (and think) [[Cogito ergo sum|proves]] that it exists. On the other hand, he argues that the object(s) which a subject perceives may not have [[reality|real]] or 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 to [[substance theory]], the answer is a substance, that which stands for the change.

According to [[substance 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 to [[David Hume]]'s [[bundle theory]], the answer is none; thus an object is merely its properties.

=== German idealism ===
''Subject'' as a key-term in thinking about human [[consciousness]] began its career with the [[German idealist]]s, in response to [[David Hume]]'s radical [[skepticism]]. 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&nbsp;– as a single ''subject''. 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.''<ref>Hume, David. {{Google books|6c3f0NqRmnUC|The Philosophical Works of David Hume (1826 edition)|page=27|19 July 2016}}</ref>

[[Immanuel Kant|Kant]], [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]] and 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 the ''[[Phenomenology of Spirit]]'' that a subject is constituted by "the process of reflectively mediating itself with itself."<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ph/phprefac.htm| title = Preface to the ''Phenomenology of Spirit''}}</ref>

Hegel begins his definition of the subject at a standpoint derived from [[Aristotelianism|Aristotelian]] physics: "the unmoved which is also ''self-moving''" (Preface, para. 22). That is, what is not moved by an outside force, but which propels itself, has a ''[[prima facie]]'' case for subjectivity. Hegel's next step, however, is to identify this power to move, this unrest that is the subject, as ''pure 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's ''modus operandi'' is therefore cutting, splitting and introducing distinctions by injecting negation into the flow of sense-perceptions. Subjectivity is thus a kind of structural effect&nbsp;– 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 Sanders Peirce|Charles S. Peirce]] of the [[late modernity|late-modern]] American philosophical school of [[pragmatism]], defines the broad notion of an object as anything that we can think or talk about.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/object.html|title=Object|last=Peirce|first=Charles S.|publisher=[[University of Helsinki]]|access-date=2009-03-19|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090214004523/http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/object.html|archive-date=2009-02-14}}</ref> In a general sense it is any [[wikt:entity|entity]]: the [[pyramids]], gods,<ref name="sep" /> [[Socrates]],<ref name="sep" /> the [[Alpha Centauri|nearest star system]], the number [[7|seven]], a disbelief in [[predestination]], or the [[fear of cats]].

=== 20th century onwards===
==== Continental philosophy<!--'Assujettissement', 'Ethopoiein', 'Split subject', 'Subjectivation', 'Subjectification', 'Post-structuralist subject' and 'Poststructuralist subject' redirect here; linked from 'Template:Deleuze-Guattari'--> ====
{{see also-text|[[Ethopoeia]]}}
The thinking of [[Karl Marx]] and [[Sigmund Freud]] provided a point of departure for questioning the notion of a unitary, autonomous Subject, which for many thinkers in the [[Continental tradition]] is seen as the foundation of the [[liberal theory]] of the [[social contract]]. These thinkers opened up the way for the [[deconstruction]] of the subject as a core-concept of [[metaphysics]].{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}

Freud's explorations of the [[unconscious mind]] added up to a wholesale indictment of [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] notions of subjectivity.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}

Among the most radical re-thinkers of human self-consciousness was [[Martin Heidegger]], whose concept of ''[[Dasein]]'' or "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.<ref>Farina, Gabriella (2014). [http://www.crossingdialogues.com/Ms-A14-07.pdf Some reflections on the phenomenological method]". ''Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neuro Sciences'', '''7'''(2):506–2.</ref>

[[Jacques Lacan]], inspired by Heidegger and [[Ferdinand de Saussure]], built on Freud's [[psychoanalytic]] model of the subject, in which the split subject is constituted by a [[double bind]]: alienated from [[jouissance]] when they leave [[the Real]], enters into [[the Imaginary (psychoanalysis)|the Imaginary]] (during the [[mirror stage]]), and separates from the [[Other (philosophy)|Other]] when they come into the realm of language, difference, and [[Demand (psychoanalysis)|demand]] in [[the Symbolic]] or the [[Name of the Father]].<ref>Elizabeth Stewart, Maire Jaanus, Richard Feldstein (eds.), ''Lacan in the German-Speaking World'', SUNY Press, 2004, p. 16.</ref>

Thinkers such as [[structural Marxist]] [[Louis Althusser]] and [[poststructuralist]] [[Michel Foucault]]<ref name=:0>{{cite web |url = http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/heartfield-james.htm |title = Postmodernism and the 'Death of the Subject' |last = Heartfield |first = James |year = 2002 |work = The Death of the Subject |access-date= 28 March 2013 }}</ref> theorize the subject as a [[social construction]], the so-called "poststructuralist subject"<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA-->.<ref>Edel Heuven, "The Poststructuralist Subject and the Paradox of Internal Coherence", M.Sc. thesis, Wageningen University and Research, 2017, p. 2.</ref>{{additional citation needed|date=January 2023}} According to Althusser, the "subject" is an [[Ideology|ideological]] construction (more exactly, constructed by the "[[Louis Althusser#Ideological state apparatuses|Ideological State Apparatuses]]"). One's subjectivity exists, "[[always-already]]" and is constituted through the process of [[Interpellation (philosophy)|interpellation]]. 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 (see [[antihumanism]]).

According to Foucault, it is the "effect" of [[power (sociology)#Foucault|power]] and "[[disciplinary institutions|disciplines]]" (see ''[[Discipline and Punish]]'': construction of the subject ('''subjectivation'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> or '''subjectification''', {{langx|fr|assujettissement}}) as student, soldier, "criminal", etc.)). Foucault believed it was possible to transform oneself; he used the word '''''ethopoiein'''''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> from the word ''[[ethos]]'' to describe the process.<ref>{{cite book | last = Foucault | first = Michel | title = The hermeneutics of the subject : lectures at the Collège de France, 1981-1982 | publisher = Picador | location = New York | year = 2006 | pages= 237 | isbn = 9780312425708 }}</ref> Subjectification was a central concept in [[Gilles Deleuze]] and [[Félix Guattari]]'s work as well.<ref>Gary Genosko (ed.), ''Deleuze and Guattari: Deleuze and Guattari'', Routledge, 2001, p. 1315.</ref>

==== Analytic philosophy ====
[[Bertrand Russell]] updated the classical terminology with a term, the ''[[fact]]'';<ref>{{harvnb|Russell|1948|p=143}}:</ref> "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."<ref>Pg. 182. Russell, Bertrand. “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism.” Essay. In Logic and Knowledge; Essays, 1901-1950, Ed. by Robert Charles Marsh. Allen, G., 1966.</ref> 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."<ref>Pg. 285-286. Russell, Bertrand. “On Propositions: What They Are and How They Mean.” Essay. In Logic and Knowledge; Essays, 1901-1950, Ed. by Robert Charles Marsh. Allen, G., 1966.</ref>

Facts, or objects, are opposed to [[belief]]s, 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,<ref>{{harvnb|Russell|1948|pp=148–149}}.</ref> "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".<ref>{{harvnb|Russell|1948|p=154}}.</ref>

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 in [[philosophy of mind]] (a related issue being the [[mind–body problem]]). In the essay "[[What Is It Like to Be a Bat?]]", [[Thomas Nagel]] famously argued that explaining [[subjective 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 book ''[[The 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 as ''[[qualia]]'' (see [[Frank Cameron Jackson]] and [[Mary's room]]).

== In other disciplines ==

=== Physics ===
Limiting discussions of objecthood to the realm of physical objects may simplify them. However, defining physical objects in terms of [[fundamental particle]]s (e.g. [[quark]]s) leaves open the question of what is the [[philosophy of physics|nature of a fundamental particle]] and thus asks what [[category of being|categories of being]] can be used to explain physical objects.{{citation needed|date=July 2012}}

=== Semantics ===
[[Symbol]]s represent objects; how they do so, the [[map–territory relation]], is the basic problem of [[semantics]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Dąmbska|first=Izydora|year=2016|title=Symbols|journal=Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences & the Humanities|volume=105|pages=201–209|via=Humanities Source}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Philosophy}}
{{div col|colwidth=18em}}
* [[Abstract object theory]]
* [[Abstraction]]
* [[Binding problem]]
* [[Category theory]]
* [[Cognitive linguistics]]
* [[Concept]]
* [[Continuous predicate]]
* [[Ethics]] and [[meta-ethics]]
* [[Hypostasis (philosophy and religion)]]
* [[Hypostatic abstraction]]
* [[List of ethics topics]]
* [[Michel Foucault]]'s critique of the subject and the oxymoron "historical subject"
* [[Neo-Kantianism]]
* [[Nonexistent object]]
* [[Noumenon]] and [[phenomenon]]
* [[Object-oriented ontology]]
* [[Observer (quantum physics)|Observer (physics)]]
* [[Open individualism]]
* [[Paramatma]]
* [[Personhood theory]]
* [[Ship of Theseus]]
* [[Sign relation]]
* [[Soul (spirit)|Soul]]
* [[Subject (grammar)]]
* [[Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy)]]
* [[Swamp man]]{{snd}}thought experiment in Donald Davidson's 1987 paper "Knowing One Own's Mind"
* [[Transcendental subject]]
* [[Vertiginous question]]
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{div col|colwidth=18em}}
{{Reflist}}
{{div col end}}

==Bibliography==
* {{citation |last=Butler |first=Judith |author-link=Judith Butler |title=Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France |year=1987 |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |isbn=0-231-06450-0 }}
* Alain de Libera, "When Did the Modern Subject Emerge?", American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 2, 2008, pp.&nbsp;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==
* {{cite book |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/object/ |title=Object |author=Bradley Retter & Andrew M. Bailey|via=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|year=2017 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University }}
* {{cite book |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects |title=Abstract objects |author= Gideon Rosen|via=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|year=2022 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University }}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.linerider.com/ |title= Even More Abstract Objects |author= Colin Smith|website=Crazy Objects And Their Affect On Reality}}
* {{cite book |first=Bertrand|last=Russell|author-link=Bertrand Russell|title=Human Knowledge Its Scope and Limits|url=https://archive.org/details/humanknowledgeit00russ|url-access=registration|location=New York|publisher=[[Simon and Schuster]]|year=1948}}

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[[Category:Concepts in epistemology]]
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