Subject (philosophy)

In philosophy, a subject is a being which has subjective experiences or a relationship with another entity (or "object"). A subject is an observer and an object is a thing observed.

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The following are examples of subjective experiences (all examples of qualia):

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• What the color red looks like to me;
• What a musical tone sounds like to me;
• What pleasure and pain feel like to me.

And their corresponding objective analogues:

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• The red surface;
• The musical instrument producing oscillations in air;
• The things that induce pleasure or pain.

The object is the thing perceived; the subject is the one who perceives.

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Subjectivity emphasizes an individual's having not just a passive relationship to the world and the sense impressions it causes, but also agency, an active engagement with that material. Agency might be thought to occur simply in the act of interpretation of sense data, making choices about how to allocate meanings to those data. Or it might be thought to occur in a stronger sense, acting upon the world and changing its organization to suit the subject's goals. In the latter case, a feedback loop of modified world - new sense data - new modification might be established, with open-ended consequences. Baldwinian evolution may be a candidate instance of such a feedback system.

Related Topics:
Passive - Agency - Sense data - Meaning - Feedback - Baldwinian evolution

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In critical theory and psychology, subjectivity is also the actions or discourses that produce individuals or 'I'; the 'I' is the subject -- the observer.

Related Topics:
Critical theory - Psychology

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Subject (philosophy): Epistemic subjectivity ►