Abstract
Subject and object are a pair of juxtaposed categories, and each of which can only obtain its own definition in relation to the other. Every material being has an effect on others, namely, the other surrounding beings. In such actions, the one producing, initiating the effect is the subject of the effect, while the one receiving the effect, being acted upon, is the corresponding object of the effect. Since actions between things are mutual, any particular thing is both actor and acted upon, is both subject and object, and thus the distinction between subject and object has a relative character.
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Notes
- 1.
G. W. F. Hegel, The Science of Logic, quoted in V. l. Lenin. Conspectus of Hegel’s “Science of Logic”, Collected Works, Vol. XXXVIII, p. 226.
- 2.
Lenin, op. cit., p. 226.
- 3.
Ibid., p. 93.
- 4.
Denis Diderot, “Conversation Between D’ Alembert and Diderot” in Jonathan Kemp (ed.), Diderot, Interpreter of Nature: Selected Writings (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1963), p. 61.
- 5.
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (New York: Dover, 1969), Vol. I. p. 178.
- 6.
Liji-Xueji (The “Study” chapter of The Book of Rites).
- 7.
G.W.F. Hegel, Phänomenologie des Geistes (Chinese edition), Vol. I, p. 213.
- 8.
J.-J. Rousseau, Du Contrat Social, Bk. I, ch. 1.
- 9.
Marx, “Draft of ‘The German Ideology’” in Collected Works (Chinese edition), Vol. 42, p. 368.
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Guo, Z. (2013). The Course of Human Subjectivity. In: Li, D. (eds) Values of Our Times. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38259-8_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38259-8_4
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