Men can do with and be with each other because they are able to see others and things as distinct from themselves and enter into relation with them. What distinguishes the human situation is that men can enter into a dialogue with reality. They have a capacity for for internal relationships, for knowing themselves and their worlds within themselves, they can relate as subject to object (for example, as knower to thing known) and as subject to subject, that is, as person to person. Both types of relationships are essential for genuine human existence. It is natural, in fact unavoidable, for man to relate to his world as subject to object. How could a person survive even one day without knowing and using objects? Therefore, man's abilities to abstract, objectify, conceptualize, categorize, and so forth, are necessary for everyday living. Even beyond this, the human capacity for relating to the other as object is basic to the advancement of mankind for it underlies science, art, and philosophy. It is simply one way of being human. Another mode of relating is open to men. Whenever two persons are present to each other as human beings, the possibility of intersubjective dialogue exists. Since both are subjects with the capabilities for internal relationships, they can be open, available, and knowable to each other. They can know each other within themselves. Furthermore, they can be truly with each other in the {27} intersubjective realm because while maintaining their own unique identities, they can participate in an interior union. Intersubjective relating is also necessary for human existence. For it is through his relationships with other men that a person develops his human potential and becomes a unique individual. Nursing, being an interhuman event, has within it possibilities for various types and degrees of relationships. Both nurse and patient can view themselves and the other as objects and as subjects or in any variation or combination of these ways. A person can view and relate to another person as an object, for instance as a mere function ("patient," "nurse," "supervisor," "medicine nurse," "admitting nurse," "administration") or as a case or type ("schizophrenic," "cardiac," "outpatient," "readmission," "bed patient," "wheelchair patient," "total care patient," "terminal patient"). Such subject-object or "I-It" relationships differ essentially from subject-subject or "I-Thou" relationships. As the derivation of the term indicates, an object is something placed before or opposite; it is anything that can be apprehended intellectually. Through objectification the object is de-individualized and therefore made replaceable for the purpose of study by any other object with the same properties. It is indifferent to the act by which it is thought and, therefore, the subject studying the object may also be replaced by a similar subject.