Construct · 4 fields · 8 citations
One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.
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In object-oriented programming an object is a runtime instance of a class that bundles data (its fields, or state) together with behaviour (its methods). Dahl and Nygaard introduced the idea in SIMULA in 1966, letting a program create many self-contained entities that each hold their own values and respond to messages; Booch's later account made the class-and-instance pairing the centre of design. The referent is a discrete entity inside a running program, and what marks this meaning is that the object is the thing that acts, holding the methods that do the work. It is an instance of a class, not a grammatical slot, not a loved person, and not a thing in the world.[1][2]
In grammar the object is the clause element that names the entity affected by the action of the verb, set against the subject, which names the entity performing it. Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik's A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language separates the direct object, the thing acted on, from the indirect object, the party the action is done for; Comrie's typology treats the subject and object roles as a way languages sort who does what to whom. The referent is a syntactic role, a position in a sentence, not a thing in the world. What marks this meaning is that the object is acted upon rather than acting, the reverse of the software object, and it is a slot, not a person.[3][4]
In object relations theory the object is that toward which a drive is directed, or with which the self relates, and it is most often a person (or a part of one, such as the breast) taken inside the mind as a good or bad object. Klein's Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms traced how an infant splits and internalises such objects; Greenberg and Mitchell later mapped the tradition running from Klein through Fairbairn. The referent is the human, or part-human, target of love, hate, and need. What marks this meaning is that the object is usually a person, the near-opposite of the everyday inanimate object, and it is the thing acted toward, not a slot in a sentence and not a thing in code.[5][6]
In metaphysics and epistemology an object is a thing that exists, an entity standing over against a subject: the object of thought or perception, contrasted with the knowing or perceiving mind. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason made the object something constituted for a subject rather than simply given, while a general treatment like Loux's takes objects to be the particulars that populate the world at all. The referent is any existent, or any correlate of awareness. This is the widest meaning of the word, a thing considered simply insofar as it is or insofar as it is known, not an instance in a program, not a grammatical slot, and not a loved person.[7][8]
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