SE450: Subclassing: Objective/Subjective [1/35]

Objective is applied to things 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 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. --- Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

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. --Sir. W. Hamilton

Normally we think of class interface as objective: What can we do to an instance?

The subjective interface is that visible to subclasses: What can an instance do to itself?