Objective

a. [Fr. objectif, Sp. objetivo, It. obbiettivo.]

1. Pertaining or relating to an object.
2. (Metaph.) Pertaining to, contained in, or being in the nature or position of, the object; outward; external; extrinsic;—an epithet applied to whatever is exterior to the mind, or which is the object of thought or feeling, and opposed to subjective. See SUBJECTIVE.

Objective means that which belongs to, or proceeds from, the object known, and not from the subject knowing, and thus denotes what is real, in opposition to that which is ideal—what exists in nature, in contrast to what exists merely in the thought of the individual. Sir W. Hamilton. ☞ In the middle ages, subject meant substance, and has this sense in Descartes and Spinoza; sometimes, also, in Reid. Subjective is used by Will. Occam to denote that which exists independent of mind; objective, what is formed by the mind. This shows what is meant by realitas objectiva in Descartes. Kant and Fichte have inverted the meanings. Subject is the mind which knows; object, that which is known; subjective, the varying conditions of the knowing mind; objective, that which is in the constant nature of the thing known. Trendelenburg. 3. (Gram.) Pertaining to, or designating, the case which follows a transitive verb or a preposition, being that case in which the object of the verb is placed, when denoting what is produced or affected by the act expressed by the verb. Objective point (Mil.), a point to which the operations of an army are directed. Syn.—OBJECTIVE, SUBJECTIVE. Objective is applied to things which are exterior to the mind, and objects of its attention; subjective, to the operations of the mind itself. Hence, an objective motive is some outward thing awakening desire; a subjective motive is some internal feeling or propensity. Objective views are those which are governed by outward things; subjective views are produced or modified by internal feeling. Sir Walter Scott's poetry is chiefly objective; that of Wordsworth is eminently subjective. In the philosophy of mind, subjective denotes what is to be referred to the thinking subject, the ego; objective what belongs to the object of thought, the non ego. Philosophy being the essence of knowledge, and the science of knowledge supposing, in its most fundamental and thorough-going analysis, the distinction of the subject and object of knowledge, it is evident that to philosophy the subject of knowledge would be by pre-eminence the subject, and the object of knowledge the object. It was therefore natural that the object and objective, the subject and subjective, should be employed by philosophers as simple terms, comprehendingly to denote the grand discrimination about which philosophy was constantly employed, and which no others could be found so precisely and promptly to express. Sir W. Hamilton.