Object, and its correlative, SUBJECT, are terms used in a perplexing multiplicity of senses, the same author, philosophical or semi-philosophical, being frequently inconsistent in the meaning attached by him to the words. Thus, it may be said that while ordinarily the subject is the knowing mind, the object is that which is known, thought, felt, seen, imagined—the psychological corresponding fairly with the grammatical usage. At another time the subject is the ego, while the object is the non-ego, the external world, with an implication that the objective has a firmer, surer ground, if not wholly independent of the subjective, then at least less liable to vary or fluctuate. On the other hand, if the noumenon, the subject, is the truly real, the phenomenal object is comparatively an accident. Yet again, that which is the law of the consciousness, which is prior to experience, is by some regarded as more indefeasible and objective than the fleeting elements of conscious experience. For some, objective is that which is common to all minds (and to the absolute mind) at all times, and the subjective that which is peculiar to my mind or any given mind at any given time. Thus the essence of the subjective becomes the most objective thing in existence; really objective truth is that which from the nature of the case is prior to and independent of experience. It is needless to point out that, when the subject thinks of itself, the subject may be said to become its own object. In general, however, that is objective which deals much with the external world, and that subjective which is mainly based on introspection of mental states.
In addition to the possibility of confusion arising out of current usage, it should be remembered that in the middle ages, and even in Descartes and Spinoza, subject nearly meant the same as substance (something highly real); and in William of Ockham objective is that which the mind feigns, the image or representative idea as opposed to the real object which exists independently. Object used as 'end,' 'aim,' 'purpose' ('with the object of doing so and so') is a barbarous but irrepressible abuse. Coleridge is by no means the only writer who fails to make himself clear about the distinction between 'omm-jective' and 'summ-jective,' as Carlyle represents him.