Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/436

V. DISCUSSION. SUBJECT AND OBJECT IN PSYCHOLOGY. 1 By SHADWORTH H. HODGSON. The question which I am commissioned to bring before you this evening is what, if anything, is designated by the terms Subject and Object in psychology. The meaning of the terms in psychology is what is sought ; a question to be answered for the use and behoof of psychology. Nevertheless its settlement will require us to have recourse to philosophical considerations. There are two reasons for this : first, because the use and meaning of the terms in psychology are commonly mixed up and confused with their use and meaning in philosophy ; and secondly, because the terms are originally philosophical, by which I mean, that they belong primarily to that group of questions which relates to the nature and reality of Existence and the knowledge which we have of it, the nature and meaning of the term Existence itself. I may also be allowed to remark, that many of the most perplexing puzzles and differences of opinion arise from insufficient demarcation of the limits and boundaries of different branches of thought, and that they would often be put in a fair way of solution in the one case, and of agreement between disputants in the other, if these limits and boundaries were settled, and the terms in dispute could thus be referred to their proper niche in the World of Thought. Of this the terms Subject and Object are a striking instance. They are often used as if they were names of two sorts of supreme or ultimate entities, or even more specifically as simple equi- valents of the terms Mind and Matter. This, in my view, is robbing philosophy, without enriching, but rather thereby embarrassing, psychology. The beginning may perhaps best be made by referring to the well-known distinction of Descartes, between cogitatio and res cogitans. The first great question for psychology is What is the res cogitans ? This, whatever it be, whether material or im- material, physical or non-physical, is the Subject in psychology. Now this, the Subject, is opposed to cogitatio, its own conscious action or functioning, its own functioning so far as that function- ing is consciousness, that is, to the modes or series of states of consciousness, which attend on its action. But these are not its Object. The Subject in psychology is opposed, not to its object, 1 A Paper read to initiate a discussion, Tuesday, March 29, 1887.