Dynamical Object
… we have to distinguish the Immediate Object, which is the Object as the Sign itself represents it, and whose Being is thus dependent upon the Representation of it in the Sign, from the Dynamical Object, which is the Reality which by some means contrives to determine the Sign to its Representation.
… the dynamical object does not mean something out of the mind. It means something forced upon the mind in perception, but including more than perception reveals. It is an object of actual Experience.
…every sign has two objects. It has that object which it represents itself to have, its Immediate Object, which has no other being than that of being represented to be, a mere Representative Being, or as the Kantian logicians used to say a merely Objective Being; and on the other hand there is the Real Object which has really determined the sign[,] which I usually call the Dynamical Object, and which alone strictly conforms to the definition of the Object. The Object of a Sign is its progenitor, its father. The Dynamical Object is the Natural Father, The Objective Object is the putative father.
It is usual and proper to distinguish two Objects of a Sign, the Mediate without, and the Immediate within the Sign. Its Interpretant is all that the Sign conveys: acquaintance with its Object must be gained by collateral experience. The Mediate Object is the Object outside of the Sign; I call it the Dynamoid Object. The Sign must indicate it by a hint; and this hint, or its substance, is the Immediate Object. Each of these two Objects may be said to be capable of either of the three Modalities, though in the case of the Immediate Object, this is not quite literally true.
As to the Object of a Sign, it is to be observed that the Sign not only really is determined by its Object, – that is, for example, the name Charlemagne is in correspondence with the historic Emperor who live in the IXth century, or the name Othello is fitted to that Moorish general whom Shakespeare imagined, or the name “the Ghost in Hamlet” is fitted to that ghost of an ancient King of Denmark that Shakespeare imagined that Prince Hamlet either imagined or really saw, – but in addition, the Sign may be said to to pose as a representative of its Object, that is, suggests an Idea of the Object which is distinguishable from the Object in its own Being. The former I term the Dynamoid Object (for I want the word “genuine” to express something different); the latter the Immediate Object (a well-established term of logic.) Each of these may have either of the three Modalities of Being, the former in itself, the latter in representation.
… it is necessary to distinguish the Immediate Object, or the Object as the Sign represents it, from the Dynamical Object, or really efficient but not immediately present Object.
We must distinguish between the Immediate Object, - i.e., the Object as represented in the sign, - and the Real (no, because perhaps the Object is altogether fictive, I must choose a different term; therefore:), say rather the Dynamical Object, which, from the nature of things, the Sign cannot express, which it can only indicate and leave the interpreter to find out by collateral experience.
As to the Object, that may mean the Object as cognized in the Sign and therefore an Idea, or it may be the Object as it is regardless of any particular aspect of it, the Object in such relations as unlimited and final study would show it to be. The former I call the Immediate Object, the latter the Dynamical Object. For the latter is the Object that Dynamical Science (or what at this day would be called “Objective” science) can investigate.