It is a pointer to how research in this area might be carried out. The Meanings of 'Object' Now, to the term 'object'. So, for example, though a sheep cannot be an economic subject it can be an economic object when it is sold or when its owner measures out limited winter feed. We will briefly look at each of the meanings of 'object' above and see how they can fit within the Dooyeweerdian framework. First, the connotation that 'object' refers to inanimate things, or certainly not people.
Any entity can be an object of any aspectual functioning.
And almost all the functioning we undertake as human beings involves things around us, as objects of that functioning. Now, most of the things around us are inanimate things, so we experience them as objects most of the time. An object, in this sense, is something that we use or do things to or with, and, in terms of most aspectual functioning, is passive. We also experience other people as objects in our functioning, but because they are like us, we tend to see them as able to function as subjects in the same aspects as we do. So we do not like to think of them as 'mere objects'.