In philosophy, an object is a thing, an entity, or a being. This may be taken in several senses. In its weakest sense, the word "object" is the most all-purpose of nouns, and can replace a noun in any sentence at all. (In ordinary usage, the word has something like this effect, but not as extreme.) Thus objects are things as diverse as the pyramids, Alpha Centauri, the number seven, my disbelief in predestination, and your mother's fear of dogs. Philosopher Charles S. Peirce defines the broad notion of an object as anything that we can think or talk about.[1]
In a more restricted sense, an object is something that can have properties and bear relations to other objects. On this account, properties and relations (as well as propositions) are not included among objects, but are explicitly contrasted with them, as falling into a different logical category. Sets and universals are also perhaps not objects on this account.
In a further restricted sense, objects do not include abstract objects, but only physical bodies located somehow in space and time (e.g. minds and bodies). Numbers, ideas, and the like are excluded. In yet another restricted sense, objects are often just the material objects (excluding minds), or even just the inanimate material objects (the protons, neutrons, and electrons we are made of, but not we ourselves).
Objects are often treated as types of particulars, but occasionally, philosophers see fit to speak of abstract objects (e.g. platonic forms). An abstract object is normally referred to as something that does not exist physically. It is rational to say that abstract objects exist psychically, as opposed to physically.
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