The division between the subject and object does not require that the known is defined in relation to what is proper to the subject. To be so defined is proper to an intention known by sensation.
November 26, 2009 at 9:59 am (Uncategorized)
Just Thomism 
John said,
November 30, 2009 at 2:03 am
I don’t know if this applies to your particular “subject” and “object” but if I meditate and listen to thoughts and watch imaginings I find neither subject nor object. Consider inner speech, when meditating “I” hear the words but who is doing the talking? Well, obviously “me” but “me” is in the words that “I” am hearing. One simple resolution to this confusion of terms is to spot that “I” am conscious experience and that conscious experience is extended in time* as well as space. This resolves the subject-object distinction because that distinction arises from asking how a thought at one moment can give rise to a thought at another moment: the answer is that if conscious experience is both moments then there is no “giving rise” within it – it is both thoughts. To ask how one thought “gives rise” to the next is like asking how a dash gives rise to a dot in the 2D form “-.-.-.”, obviously it is absurd to claim that the dash is the object of the dot.
Berkeley spotted this aspect of conscious experience. He made the most pertinent observation on conscious experience when he noted that “ideas” (eg: the content of experience) are passive. Nowadays it is almost certain that the content comes from the information processing parts of the brain which are non-conscious and do the “giving rise” bit of experience. They also paint “-.-.-.” when they create this form in your imagination.
I agree with Einstein that “I” am a temporal path but would extend the path to a web of paths.
* – note: space and dimensional time together have an unexpected geometrical form akin to a point observation.