Material object and formal object
The terms material object (lat. Obiectum materiale ) and formal object (lat. Obiectum formale ) go back to the epistemological and scientific theory of scholasticism . While the material object denotes “the object or the totality of all objects to which the knowledge is directed”, the formal object is understood to mean the “special respect under which the objects in question are examined”.
Both terms play a role in the definition of science. While the same material object can be explored by several sciences, the special aspect or the formal object is decisive for the demarcation of a science from another that can possibly relate to the same concrete facts.
In the scholastic tradition, this distinction is used to distinguish philosophy from the individual sciences in two ways. With regard to its material object, it differs from the individual sciences in that they each examine a specified subject area, while philosophy is not limited to a delimited area because everything comes into question as an object for it. With regard to the formal object, on the other hand, philosophy differs in its universal consideration of questions. As such, beings are often given as being in the Aristotle tradition , that is, what belongs to beings as such.
literature
- Dietrich Schlüter: material object / formal object , in: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Vol. 5, p. 870.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Harald Schöndorf : Subject / Object , in: Walter Brugger / Harald Schöndorf (Ed.): Philosophical Dictionary , Alber, Freiburg im Breisgau 2010
- ↑ See Dietrich Schlüter: material object / formal object , in: Historical dictionary of philosophy
- ↑ See e.g. B. Albert Keller : General epistemology Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 3rd ed. 2006, pp. 42–44 .
- ↑ Cf. Met. 4, 1003a 21 ff.