Similarly for the 'object' in scholasticism, the object, curiously enough, was that which was strictly correlated to a knowing being. The object, far from being 'the thing out there', always meant the intentional object or the object of 'intention'. The esse objectivm ('objective being') is that which strictly exists for awareness. As Paul Bains comments: "For [Duns] Scotus and [John] Poinsot, something was an 'objective being' to the extent that it existed in awareness. The sun and the sea were 'objective beings,' but so were unicorns - they also existed 'in' our awareness. So, within experience, all beings were by definition objective beings. However, not all of them were physical things or events." (Bains, The Primacy of Semiosis).
That in Kant, the relation between object and subject was reversed (to roughly what we know them as today) was something of a sore point for a few thinkers of his day, who complained about the confusion sown by the reversal. — StreetlightX
I would also agree that the very fact that we can see our way to such a meta-philosophical conclusion hints at either a different way of thinking, or that we should be somewhat reticent in putting too much weight in our conclusion (as you clearly are). — photographer
The old sense of 'object' also survives -- to objectify someone is to reduce them to what you make of them. You can't objectify someone without looking at them, and trying to assimilate them into yourself, and so deny their independence (their substance, their 'subjectivity'). — The Great Whatever
Or rather - from a naturalist perspective anyway - that the appeal to 'objects' over and against 'subjects' isn't a very good strategy to the degree that objectivity itself isn't exactly 'natural'. There ought to be 'a different way of thinking'. — StreetlightX
As for Kant himself, it's true that he did in fact keep up the notion that an object is an object for a subject, but his novelty was perhaps to introduce the notion of the 'Thing-In-Itself', which pretty much gets completely overlooked or rather intentionally erased in the post-Kantian tradition that followed him up (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel...). — StreetlightX
The average thing can be either a subject or an object. It just depends on the story that's being told, right? For instance, "The ball hit the window." We all know the ball isn't supposed to have agency or any other unnatural qualities... but that's how we speak of it.
"Karen hit the window." Here we need to know more about the story to see what kind of action-maker Karen was. Was she conscious when she hit the window? Does it matter in regard to the distinction you're drawing between subject and object? — Mongrel
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