How is a relation structured in which what happens can change the very way it is understood? What happens to the subject when the form they use determines in advance everything they can recognize as significant? These questions bring the study of subjecthood, knowing, dialogue, and the organization of activity together into a distinct direction of the project.
The foundation of this direction is the relation to another subject and the relation to reality. In both cases, subjecthood is determined by whether the subject allows for the possibility of a new distinction coming from another subject or from reality. An object-oriented relation arises when the subject assumes in advance that everything that can come from either source fits into ready-made categories.
Methodological Foundation
The subject-oriented relation in this direction is built on the method of “Holding a Distinction in the Unknown”. Another subject or reality is admitted as a source of a new distinction, which is held without being identified with a final definition. Provisional categories depending on the task may be introduced for working with it; they do not exhaust the distinction or eliminate fundamental uncertainty.
In relation to another subject and to reality, this method determines how to engage with what comes from them. A subject-oriented relation preserves the possibility of investigating a new distinction and revising working forms. An object-oriented relation closes off this possibility by assuming in advance that everything received has already been encompassed by ready-made categories.
Form and the Possibility of a New Distinction
In a subject-oriented relation, another subject or reality is admitted as a source of a new distinction capable of revealing the inadequacy of existing categories. The subject preserves the possibility of revising the very way of distinguishing, the formulation of the task, and their own action.
Concepts and models are necessary for many tasks. In the project’s ontology, they have the status of provisional working constructions: one distinction may receive different definitions depending on how it is worked with. Provisionality does not prescribe a deadline for replacing the model. It means that the model does not have the final authority to determine what exhausts reality. Fundamental uncertainty remains even when a specific task admits of an exact solution.
In an object-oriented relation, the subject assumes in advance that everything another subject or reality may offer can be placed into a ready-made category. For example, a distinction presented by another person is immediately defined as “their opinion.” The category has already explained what is happening, and the question of the distinction itself never arises. In this way, form rules out the possibility of its own revision.
The research question therefore concerns the status of form within the relation: can what happens demand its revision? A category may repeatedly prove useful and remain in use. Subjecthood does not require definitions to change constantly, but it does presuppose the possibility of discovering their limits.
Objectification and Self-Objectification
The central thesis of this direction is that, by assuming everything that might come from another subject or reality is already covered by ready-made categories, the subject also encloses the space of their own possible responses within those categories. A new distinction is excluded in advance. Their action reproduces the established form, and within this relation they themselves become its executor.
At the limit, this calls into question the very construction of a “subject facing an object”: the ability to move beyond form has been excluded from the relation on the side of the one claiming the subject’s position. In this sense, objectification turns out to be connected with self-objectification.
This thesis concerns the structure of a particular relation. It does not follow that a person is definitively an “object” or that they lack the possibility of acting otherwise. What requires investigation are the conditions of closure, its limits, and transitions between modes.
Asymmetry of Relations
The directions A → B and B → A may be structured differently. One participant allows the other to change their understanding, while the second reads everything that happens through a ready-made definition of the first. Openness on one side does not guarantee mutual dialogue.
Preserving a subject-oriented relation includes the possibility of noticing this asymmetry without reducing the other person to it. The assertion “in this response I see closure within a category” itself remains open to revision. Otherwise, the concept of the object-oriented mode becomes yet another way of classifying a person definitively.
Agreement is not a mandatory result of such a relation. Objection, refusal of a proposed task, setting a boundary, and ending the conversation are all possible. They do not in themselves prove closure: the specific course of interaction and the status given to the definitions used within it must be investigated.
Flat Mind / Deep Mind
Within this direction, the Flat Mind / Deep Mind distinction is examined through modes of relating. Flat Mind designates the closure of what happens within an established space of categories. Deep Mind preserves the possibility of changing the very space of distinctions in an encounter with what happens.
These designations apply to a mode of working in a particular situation. Turning them into definitive types of people would reproduce the very closure under investigation. The question of the limits of form also applies to the project’s own concepts.
Knowing, Dialogue, and Joint Activity
In knowing, the relation to reality is investigated: is it admitted that reality may present a distinction that does not fit the existing mode of explanation? An experiment is one way of working within this relation. Its result may require revising the very formulation of the question.
In dialogue, what matters is whether a distinction that has been presented can become a subject of consideration. The remark “that’s your opinion” sometimes replaces an investigation of the content with a classification of the speaker. Yet a single remark does not establish the structure of the entire relation: it is necessary to understand what was presented and how, precisely, it was answered.
In management and the organization of activity, the same question arises concerning roles, norms, goals, and procedures. Can a participant’s action reveal the inadequacy of the very formulation of the task? Who can revise the form of joint action, and how? In marketing, the question is whether the other person retains the possibility of changing how their situation and needs are understood, including calling the proposed solution into question.
Related Materials
- The Subject’s Relation to Their Own Activity — on how the mode of participation in work determines its meaning and can change without changing the subject matter.
- Subject–Subject and Subject–Object Relations — a separate examination of relations between subjects, work with an object, and recognition of the other’s independent position. The present direction extends the inquiry to the mode of relating to reality and the connection between objectification and self-objectification.
- Flat Mind / Deep Mind — a study of modes of thinking related to the inquiry into openness and closure of form.
- The Subject and the Gravity of Form — the connection between a subject’s action and the possibility of creating and reconstructing forms.
- The Usurpation of Meaning by Form — an investigation into how form subordinates the meaning for which it was created.
- Responsibility — related material on subjecthood and action.
This page connects existing materials and poses questions for further inquiry. The connections between them may be refined as new distinctions arise.
