OBJECT. — From ob-icere (ob-iectum, Greek ἀντι-κλίμενον), it is that which stands opposite, which is placed before. It therefore implies, etymologically, a relation of something’s presence to someone: not, therefore, a pure reality in itself, but one considered in subject (v.). In current usage o. generally means “thing,” “subject” (e.g., o. of a discourse, of a trial).
In philosophical usage the term has two principal meanings:
a) o. is the term to which a faculty, a tendency, an act, or a habit is related (the good o. of the will, the aesthetic o. expression of art, the homage and worship of God o. of religion, etc.). Analogous is the meaning of o. when referred to a science: here the traditional distinction is between the material o. (the reality, content, or subject considered by a science) and the formal o. (the characteristic aspect under which a science considers its subject): e.g., man (material o.) studied by the sociological sciences in the expression of his relational activities (formal o.). This distinction, moreover, also applies to o. as the term of a faculty: in this sense formal o. is called by St. Thomas “illud sub cuius ratione omnia referuntur ad potentiam” (Sum. Theot., 1°, q. 1, a. 7, c.): thus color is the formal o. (sub quo) of sight, whereas colored things are its material o. St. Thomas, following Aristotle, further distinguishes the “common” o., which may be the term of faculties that are also specifically different (e.g., space, o. of sight and of touch), and the “proper” o., “quod est primo et per se cognitum a virtute cognoscitiva” (ibid., q. 85, a. 8, c.). From the formal-proper o. Thomism derives the specification of faculties and acts (ibid., q. 77, a. 3, c.; cf. 1°-2°, q. 18, a. 2 and III Sent., dist. 27, q. 2, a. 4, q. 1 ad 3).
b) O., with an essentially epistemological meaning, subject (v.) and is the content and term of knowledge. In the history of philosophy it has assumed highly diverse determinations, corresponding to the various metaphysical interpretations of knowledge itself. In medieval scholasticism the expression “esse obiectivum” frequently indicates the representative mode of being that a content has in knowledge, whereas “esse subiectivum” is the real modification that an act of knowledge entails as a form of the mind: “esse obiective idem est quod esse in prospectu intellectus” (Herveus Natalis, Quodl., I, 1; cf. M. De Wulf, Storia della filos. mediev., III, Italian translation by V. Miano, Florence 1949, pp. 58-59 and 40 [for Occam]). Alongside this meaning, however, there is already the opposite modern usage, which identifies o. with “the thing in itself,” distinguished from the knowing subject and from the representative image itself: “obiectum non potest secundum se esse praesens intellectui nostro et ideo consequitur species quae est praesens, quae supplet vicem obiecti” (Duns Scotus, Reportationes, I, 36, q. 2, 34; G. Occam, Sent., II, 15; cf. De Wulf, op. cit., p. 15). The same meaning appears in Campanella: “realiter agunt in nos obiecta” (Metaph., I, 38). In Descartes the medieval and modern meanings coexist: “a thing exists objectively or representatively in the mind, by means of its idea,” whereas “to exist formally and in fact” belongs to the causes of ideas (Medit., III; Italian translation by A. Tilgher, I, Bari 1938, pp. 122-13, 124); but at the same time o. is the reality “outside me” to which ideas may or may not be similar (ibid., pp. 109-10; cf. Princ. philos., I, 70; Passiones, I, 23). BERGER, ELIE (v.) o. is the immanent content of knowledge, that is, the idea itself (v.): “the objects of human knowledge are ideas”; “the object and sensation are the same thing and therefore one cannot be separated from the other” (Principles, Italian translation by G. Papini, Bari 1925, pp. 27-28; cf. Siris, § 292). An analogous meaning occurs in Hume (Tractise of human nature, part 4°, section 2°). In Kant there is no lack of the use of o. as an actual reality: “Spatium non est aliquid obiectivi seu realis... sed subiectivum et ideale” (De mundi sens. atque intell. forma et princ., § 15); but subsequently, in the Critique, o. is the cognitive representation (phenomenon [v.]), distinguished from the thing in itself, although related to it by means of empirical intuition (v. OGTTIVISMO). In Fichte (v.) o. is the Absolute Subject itself as the term of its own representation: “The I represents itself... and only then is it Qualcaea, an o.”; “The I originally posits its own being absolutely,” whereby “the I is necessarily the identity of Subject and O.: Subject-O.” (Wissenschaftslehre, Italian translation by A. Tilgher, 2nd ed., Bari 1925, pp. 57-58). SCHOPENHAUER, ARTHUR (v.), too, distinguishes o. from the thing in itself: “The O. is not the thing in itself; but, as empirical o., it is real”; “everything that exists for knowledge, therefore this entire world, is merely o. in relation to the subject, intuition of the one who intuits: in a word, representation” (Die Welt, etc., II, ch. 2; Italian translation by G. De Lorenzo, II, Bari 1930, p. 29 and I, ibid. 1928, pp. 3-4). N. Hartmann (Metaph. der Erkenntnis, I, ch. 8) distinguishes four meanings of o.: “that which is actually known (objectum); that which is still to be known (obijciendum); that which is not in fact known (transobjective); finally, that which is unknowable (irrational or transintelligible). From o. understood in these four senses one must distinguish the creation [the representation] realized in consciousness.”
In a realistic conception of knowledge, a fundamental distinction of o. appears necessary: the immanent o. (internal, gnoseological, actual) and the transcendent o. (external, ontological, potential). Immanent o. is the intrinsic content of cognitive representation: in this sense it coincides with the “given” of knowledge; transcendent o. is the reality in itself to which the immanent o. may be related. Knowledge admits purely immanent objects, which, as such, have no actual consistency outside consciousness (pure imaginings, logical entities, etc.). But human knowledge as a whole is related to an ontological, transcendent o.: reality in itself, the sensible-intelligible world. Nevertheless, because of the limitation, historicity, and margin of relativity inherent in human knowledge, it entails, for no real-ontological o., a full adequation and coincidence between immanent o. and transcendent o. (v. CONOSCENZA).