Subject, object, mind and matter—coordinates of praxeology

Abstract

We observe again the peasant and the military officer in conversation. We have already seen that they do not simply enter into a face-to-face relation, unencumbered of previous conditions. Rather, when these two people enter into dialogue, everything they can think of and say is permeated by the social relations they have been brought up in and within which they are now situated. Every word they pronounce, every gesture they make corresponds to the limits of what they can think of. And their words and gestures derive meaning from the mental schemes each of them owns, and also from the very situation they are in. Any utterance exerts an effect in the moment they talk to each other and beyond that moment—an effect that can easily turn out to be dangerous for the peasant.