One subject may engage with a thing, a process, or another person. In every case, the subject distinguishes what is happening from its own position and develops a way of acting. However, in encountering another subject, a possibility emerges that cannot be exhausted by describing that subject’s properties and states: the other also makes distinctions, assigns meaning to what is happening, and can act from a position of their own.
Subject–object and subject–subject relations designate two ways of establishing a relationship with the one, or the thing, toward which an action is directed. The distinction between them matters precisely when another subject stands before the first: that other subject may be included in an action as an object without thereby losing their subjecthood.
Relation to an Object
In a subject–object relation, a subject identifies something as an object of observation, explanation, or change. The subject determines which properties of this object matter for the task, what kinds of intervention are possible, and by which signs the outcome is to be assessed. In this sense, the object may be a material thing, a state of the subject themselves, or another person.
Such a relation does not mean that the object lacks causality of its own or that the description is necessarily false. It means that, within this particular relationship, the source of the task and the criteria for action lies with the subject, while what is being considered serves as that which the subject works with. The object’s response can be taken into account as resistance, a change of state, or feedback, without acknowledging that it has a position of its own regarding what is happening.
When a physician measures a patient’s temperature, the physician makes the patient’s body an object of measurement. This is necessary for the task and does not, in itself, turn the patient into a “thing.” But if everything the patient says about their condition and goals is translated in advance solely into data for a ready-made scheme, the subject–object relation begins to define the entire encounter.
Relation to Another Subject
A subject–subject relation arises when the other is regarded not merely as the bearer of observable states or the performer of a prescribed role, but also as an independent source of distinction, meaning, and action. The other’s response may convey a new fact, change how the question is posed, challenge a proposed goal, or reveal the limits of the very scheme through which someone was trying to understand them.
It is not enough here to allow the other to speak if the permissible meaning of their words has already been determined by the first subject. What matters is that the relationship itself remains open to a distinction that the other is capable of introducing on their own. The first subject is not obliged to agree: disagreement, too, can preserve a subject–subject relation as long as an objection is treated as a position that must be engaged with, rather than merely an obstacle to be removed.
Such a relation does not require symmetry of knowledge, power, or responsibility. A teacher and a student may occupy different positions, yet the student remains a subject capable of understanding the task differently, discovering a contradiction, or rejecting the proposed meaning. Recognizing this possibility does not erase the difference between their roles.
One Person in Two Relations
Being an object is not a “type of being” but a position within a particular relation. Subject A may make subject B an object of observation or intervention; B nevertheless continues to distinguish the situation and act from a position of their own. At the same time, B may regard A as an obstacle to their goal. Neither of these frameworks cancels the other or fully determines who A and B are.
An encounter usually combines both ways of relating. To help a person, one may measure the state of their body, take environmental constraints into account, and agree on actions. The question is not whether objectifying operations are present at all, but whether they exhaust the relationship. If the other’s decisions are admissible only as deviations from a predetermined model, the other’s position as a subject is excluded from the construction of joint action.
The transition can also occur in the opposite direction. A conversation that began as an open exchange becomes a subject–object relation when one participant ceases to hear an independent distinction in the other’s response and sees only material to be managed. Declared respect or equality does not, by itself, guarantee a subject–subject relation; what matters is whether the other’s response can actually change the subsequent course of the interaction.
The Boundary of the Distinction
Not every unexpected response indicates a subject. A stone resists an intervention, an instrument produces an unanticipated result, and a system changes its behavior. These events may force the first subject to revise their model, but they do not, by themselves, imply that what responds occupies a meaning-bearing position of its own. Thus, the ability to change someone else’s plan is not yet a sufficient criterion of subjecthood.
Conversely, the inability to observe another’s inner position directly provides no grounds for reducing it to a set of external signs. In relations between people, the other’s subjecthood is not derived from what is convenient for the first subject, nor does it disappear when the first subject refuses to take it into account. The distinction between the two relations describes, above all, the way one relates: whether the other is given a place as a source of their own action and meaning.
Thus, a subject–object relation organizes engagement with what has been distinguished as an object of a task. A subject–subject relation preserves the possibility of encountering in the other an independent source of distinction, capable of changing not only the outcome but also the very formulation of the task.
