The Foundation of the Subject-Object Dichotomy: Quxiang Bilei as a Unified Field Theory of Human Cognition

For four hundred years, Western philosophy has been confined within the subject-object dichotomy, persistently asking how the subject accesses the object, yet rarely tracing the genesis of this very division. This paper addresses that fundamental question from a genetic perspective, constructing a unified theory of human cognition. Its core stance is that cognition does not passively represent a pre-given world, but participates in the generation and stabilization of the world. First, it establishes Quxiang Bilei as the meta-operation of human cognition, constituting a closed loop of “Quxiang (extracting stable structural differences) → Bilei (analogical correlation) → verification → feedback”. Second, it reveals that the evolution of the “image” (xiang) entails both continuity and rupture, progressing through four stages—primordial image, symbolised image, formalised image, and algorithmic image—all unified by the same underlying logic of the Quxiang Bilei loop. Third, it clarifies the genetic path of the subject-object dichotomy: primordial differentiation operation → symbol fixation → generation of the self-image → theoretical misplacement. Finally, it offers a dialogical reinterpretation of Descartes, Kant, and Hegel: Descartes’ cogito is a structural displacement of the lived body by the symbolically derived self-image; Kant’s a priori categories are converged operational paradigms solidified through long-term survival verification within the cognitive loop; and Hegel’s absolute spirit is a totalising expansion of cognition that forgets the unimageable field. This paper provides a genetic grounding for the presupposition of the subject-object dichotomy in Western epistemology, delimits the essential boundary of artificial intelligence cognition, and reveals that reality is a generative structure continuously stabilized through the Quxiang Bilei loop, ultimately unified under this meta-epistemological structure. What is constructed is the image (xiang), not reality itself.