object

object

a formal and meaningful category of syntax. On the level of meaning, an object is the name of a thing or person that undergoes the action of a transitive verb. The object stands in opposition to the subject, the actor in the active-voice sentence.

The formal and functional aspects of an object do not always coincide. For example, in “the driver opens the door” and “the door is opened by the driver,” the door is the object in both phrases, in spite of the fact that in the second phrase—a passive construction—the door is formally the subject.

that which stands in opposition to the subject in its objectively practical and cognitive activity. Things that exist independently of man and his consciousness become objects upon entering the sphere of human activity. For each knowing individual, objective reality appears as an object, in the form of activity, language, and knowledge (in particular, logical categories) that have evolved during the historical development of society.

The progression of knowledge from the empirical level to the theoretical is accompanied, as a rule, by the emergence of theoretical objects, which are essentially different from empirical objects. However, empirical and theoretical objects do not represent two different spheres of activity. Objects of theoretical knowledge, such as ideal gases, ideally hard bodies, and other idealizations, do not actually exist as objects of external reality: they merely provide the necessary means for constructing a theoretical language. Theoretical objects serve to isolate and define those aspects of objects that cannot be embraced by empirical knowledge in the full scope of their properties and universal relationships. The ontological status of such theoretical objects as, for example, atoms or elementary particles does not differ essentially from the status of the macrobodies with which empirical knowledge is concerned. In both cases, knowledge about a theoretical object—which is irreducible in content to empirical knowledge—is used to explain the behavior of the empirical object, for example, the explanation of certain features of the behavior of macrobodies by means of the kinetic theory of gases.

Thus, the progression of knowledge from empiricism to theory does not always represent an abandonment of the “given” object and its replacement by some content arbitrarily constructed by the subject. Rather, it is a means of reconstruction—that is, of deep theoretical reflection of the genuine content of the object, which cannot be adequately revealed on the empirical level.

This epistemological conception, which has been developed by dialectical materialism, stands in opposition to philosophical theories which assert that the knowable object is immediately given to the subject and that the subject’s activity with the “givenness” of the object is invariably a “retreat” from the object (the position of contemplative materialism, positivism, and phenomenology). Likewise, this conception stands in opposition to theories which claim that an object is an “objectification” of the inner content of the subject (Kantianism, pragmatism).