O

OBJECT Anything that can be sensed, reacted to or thought about, either directly or indirectly. Often limited to that which stands in some relation as separate from or other than something else, but sometimes extended to include real things in themselves (independently of their relations). When taken in the first sense, objects can be distinguished from subjects. Objects may be of an intellectual (mental) nature, e.g. Plato’s conception of justice, or they may be natural (external), e.g. the hemlock that Socrates drank. Also, a goal or purpose; that for which action is taken. As a verb: to oppose or raise an objection. In the semeiotic of Charles S. Peirce, an object is anything that is represented in a sign. If the object of a sign is of the nature of a character, the sign’s interpretant will be a feeling. If the object is an existential thing or event, the interpretant will be a resistance or reaction. If the object is a law, the interpretant will be a thought. According to Peirce, signs involve two kinds of objects: immediate objects, which are just what signs represent them to be, and dynamical objects, which are instrumental in the determination of their signs but are not immediately represented in them. Signs cannot express dynamical objects but can only indicate them and leave it to interpreters to find them by ‘collateral experience’ (Peirce 1998b: 498). (NH)

OCKHAM see WILLIAM OF OCKHAM

OGDEN Charles Kay Ogden (18891957) was unquestionably a polymath, known above all for his book with Ivor A. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning (1923). As a student at Cambridge University, Ogden was one of the founders of the Heretic Society for the discussion of problems concerning not only religion but also topics related to philosophy, art, science, etc. He worked as editor of the Cambridge Magazine and subsequently of Psyche (1923-1952), a journal of general and linguistic psychology. Among his various undertakings he founded the Orthological Institute and invented Basic English, an international language comprising 850 words for people with no knowledge of English.