subject–object dichotomy the distinction between thinkers and what they think about. The distinction is not exclusive, since subjects can also be objects, as in reflexive self-conscious thought, which takes the subject as its intended object. The dichotomy also need not be an exhaustive distinction in the strong sense that everything is either a subject or an object, since in a logically possible world in which there are no thinkers, there may yet be mind-independent things that are neither subjects nor objects. Whether there are non-thinking things that are not objects of thought in the actual world depends on whether or not it is sufficient in logic to intend every individual thing by such thoughts and expressions as ‘We can think of everything that exists’. The dichotomy is an interimplicative distinction between thinkers and what they think about, in which each presupposes the other. If there are no subjects, then neither are there objects in the true sense, and conversely.
A subject–object dichotomy is acknowledged in most Western philosophical traditions, but emphasized especially in Continental philosophy, beginning with Kant, and carrying through idealist thought in Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer. It is also prominent in intentionalist philosophy, in the empirical psychology of Brentano, the object theory of Meinong, Ernst Mally (1879–1944), and Twardowski, and the transcendental phenomenology of Husserl. Subject–object dichotomy is denied by certain mysticisms, renounced as the philosophical fiction of duality, of which Cartesian mind–body dualism is a particular instance, and criticized by mystics as a confusion that prevents mind from recognizing its essential oneness with the world, thereby contributing to unnecessary intellectual and moral dilemmas.
See also BRENTANO, CONTINENTAL PHILOS- OPHY , HUSSERL , INTENTIONALITY , PHENOME — NOLOG. D.J.