What is the definition of 'object' in philosophy?

Question

I have two examples in my mind that I'm unsure if they can be considered Objects:

1. The second usage of things, as in, each thing has usually a defined usage, but sometimes people use things in a second way which is not exactly the intended purpose of the creation of that thing, e.g. bending a piece of paper and using it as a funnel.
2. The contents of a trash can.

I have doubts about the first one because the definition is not a thing in itself, it doesn't define any specific thing and there is no clear way to test if a certain thing falls within the scope of that definition. The reader would need to make their personal assumptions and judgments in order to decide what it means.

I have doubts about the second one because, again, it doesn't define a specific thing. It rather defines it by the relation it has with another object, being inside it. So in fact anything could fall into that definition since one can put anything inside a trash can if it's large enough, but I feel better about this definition because at each specific point of time, it's very clear what things fall into this definition and what things don't.

Some related quotes from wikipedia:

The pragmatist Charles S. Peirce defines the broad notion of an object as anything that we can think or talk about. In a general sense it is any entity: the pyramids, Alpha Centauri, the number seven, a disbelief in predestination or the fear of cats. In a strict sense it refers to any definite being.

For example, it seems that the only way to describe an apple is by describing its properties and how it is related to other things. Its properties may include its redness, its size, and its composition, while its relations may include "on the table", "in the room" and "being bigger than other apples

Bertrand Russell updated the classical terminology with one more term, the fact; "Everything that there is in the world I call a fact." Facts, objects, are opposed to beliefs, which are "subjective" and may be errors on the part of the subject, the knower who is their source and who is certain of himself and little else. All doubt implies the possibility of error and therefore admits the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity. The knower is limited in ability to tell fact from belief, false from true objects and engages in reality testing, an activity that will result in more or less certainty regarding the reality of the object. According to Russell, "we need a description of the fact which would make a given belief true" where "Truth is a property of beliefs." Knowledge is "true beliefs". This framework of presumptions is termed the Theory of the Real.

I'd be happy to read your personal opinions on which of these two are objects in the comments.

Answer 1

The question is to decide if the following two descriptions refer to objects or not:

1. The second usage of things, as in, each thing has usually a defined usage, but sometimes people use things in a second way which is not exactly the intended purpose of the creation of that thing, e.g. bending a piece of paper and using it as a funnel.
2. The contents of a trash can.

Bradley, Rettler and Andrew M. Bailey survey the concept of object considering it from the perspective of contrast ("What, if any, is its contrast or complement?"), extension ("What is its extension?") and nature ("What is its nature?").

The contrast portion provides different ways to view objects to decide if these descriptions are objects or not.

Bradley and Bailey offer three main alternatives.

1. The Umbrella View: "every thing is an object". In particular:

A consequence of the Umbrella View is that items that appear to have little in common—universals, particulars, gods, books, possibilities, colleges, works of music (if such there are)—are in fact all united under one category: object.

From the umbrella view perspective both of the descriptions refer to objects. The first description is a property ("the second usage of things") and the second is a set of particular objects having the property of being in some trash can.

2. The Objects vs Properties View: "there are things, and there are ways those things are (we might call the latter ‘properties’)."

From this perspective, the first description presents a property of a thing having a secondary use. That would not be an object by this description. The second description describes the contents of a trash can, not the property of being in a trash can. The second description describes objects.

3. The Objects vs. Subjects View: "Each object is, roughly, an ‘it’, and each subject is a ‘you’."

From this perspective both descriptions describe objects since neither the property of being a second usage nor the contents of the trash can are normally expressed as a 'subject' or as a 'you'.

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What one can see from this is there are various ways to look at the concept 'object' and using that perspective justify if either of the two descriptions fit the concept or not.

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Rettler, Bradley and Bailey, Andrew M., "Object", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/object/.