The Transject: Revising and Expanding the Subject-Object Definition

Much has been said in philosophy regarding subjects and objects over the last two thousand years. This dialogue, that has extended into the present era, has become so fixated on not only the terms subject and object in themselves, but the epistemological and ontological interpretations associated with those terms. Closer examination reveals that these terms, regardless of their widespread use, have no clear-cut definitions regarding the exactitude of what is a subject and what exactly is an object.

It can be shown quite clearly in the literature that even until the time of Descartes that the interpretation of what was a subject and what was an object is now reversed compared to our modern use of the terms. Baumgarten appears to have reversed it.

Schopenhauer highlighted that Kant did not offer any analysis of the body being the only object that the subject has internal knowledge of, and it was left to him to extend Kant’s philosophy into a Kantian-Schopenhaurian doctrine with more lucidity than Kant’s original observations.

However, Schopenhauer’s analysis, even though it emphasised the person’s subjective-objective existence, did not allude to any further dissection or clarification of whether that’s all there was, is and will be. That last sentence alludes in itself to the concept of time, which can be argued to be an illusory idea based on the premise that we can neither attain existence in any future or past, and by any logical analysis our existence is in the moment we call present which paradoxically lasts no length of time whatsoever. Anyone who argues that our existence does last more than no time at all, fails to see the logical inconsistency in the fact that if it did last any length of time whatsoever, that we would be directly experiencing the future and the past, which is patently absurd. It may be more true to say that we are the past, present and future at any given moment in time. That may not seem to make any intuitive sense, but ultimately would make more sense than saying that the past and future are inaccessible, when our only direct experience of either concept is through our memories (past) and our imagination (future), which are components at any given moment of our present self.

The subject is now generally assigned to what would seem to be two separable ideas. According to the Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy (2^nd Edition 2005) under subject n. (p.599), the subject is, “an individual mind or an individual with a mind.” Most people would not argue with that definition, even though, as will be explained later, that seems to entail two things. In the same dictionary, subjective seems to suffer the same dichotomy, where by “it is a subject’s direct experience of itself, in contrast to experience of things and states external to the subject.” The second half of this definition seems to suffer an unconquerable contradiction with it’s own dualistic definition of subject described earlier, to the extent that if a subject is also an individual with a mind, in other words an object, a piece of matter with a mind, then how can that object with a mind not be having subjective experiences of things external to the subject when nothing is really external to the subject.

All these paradoxes highlight is the inadequacy of our current terms and definitions with regards to subjects and objects. This shortcoming has unfortunately drawn us into many philosophical discussions and arguments without a clear definition of what we are actually arguing and discussing.

This leads inevitably to a few suggestions regarding a more appropriate definition of subjects, objects and transjects. Yes, we are missing a term.

1. Subject. This is the mind. All the subject is in this definition, is thinking and thoughts {and not thinking}.

2. Object. Anything external to what has been defined above as the subject and external to the subject-body {also referred to as an individual with a mind}.

3. Transject. What has up until now been known as a subject, in other words an individual with a mind. Using the revised definitions above, the transject is neither the subject described above nor the object, but it is the subject-mind and material body of which it has an inner sense. It is the subject and the subject’s body together. You are the only being that can describe yourself as a transject. You can only describe yourself as being transjective. You cannot assign this to any other sentient being, as for all intents and purposes according to these definitions, they are objects.

In Schopenhaurian philosophy the subject’s body is still referred to as an object, but only as a limitation of the terms used in that previous context. It becomes clear that a revision of this is needed to separate once and for all the subject from the object.

This creation of a new noun, the transject, highlights the ghostly nature of the subject and the object. Much like past and future, we are forced to say that the transject is the only experiential quality. As we can neither experience an object without a subject, nor be a subject (a mind) without an object (the body), the totality of our experiences can only be described as transjective. We live and experience our lives as a transject. If the terms are used in this way, it becomes clear that subject and object are much like past and future. We have no experience of being a subject alone (the mind) without the body attached and we have no experience of being an object alone that is not attached to the body. Our experience of past is consigned to our memories of what we think we experienced in the present. In the same light our experience of subject is consigned to what we experience as a transject; we have no conception of being a subject alone, just as we can have no experiential quality of being in the past, but only describe our memories as the past, as to exist in the past would mean we are in a present moment and past is only a relative term to describe a pole relative to the present. Also, our experience of future is consigned to our imagining of what we may experience based on our present experience. In the same light our experience of object is consigned to what we experience as a transject; we have no conception of being an object alone, just as we can have no experiential quality of being in the future, but only describe our imaginings of the future, as to exist in the future would mean we are in a present moment and future is only a relative term to describe a pole relative to the present.

Icarus Phaethon, author of "Au Revoir, Descartes"