Object level vs. Meta level is a distinction between levels of abstraction. The object level usually is about a specific issue at hand, while the meta level is about general principles, ‘arguments about arguments’, or ‘thinking about thinking’.
Example 1: “You should care about climate change because of the greenhouse effect” is an object-level argument, while “you should care about climate change because the majority of scientists agree it is a problem” is a meta-level argument.
Example 2: Planning a project is an object-level thing to do, while doing a project management course is a more meta-level thing to do.
It is often useful to move up and down the ladder of abstraction to get points across clearly. Concrete object-level examples are easy to grasp and can provide grounding, while describing a concept on the meta-level is helpful for applying it to a broad domain.
FWIW, I feel that this entry doesn’t capture all/most of how I see “meta-level” used.
Here’s my attempted description, which I wrote for another purpose. Feel free to draw on it here and/or to suggest ways it could be improved.
Meta-level and object-level = typically, “object-level” means something like “Concerning the actual topic at hand” while “Meta-level” means something like “Concerning how the topic is being tackled/researched/discussed, or concerning more general principles/categories related to this actual topic”
E.g., “Meta-level: I really appreciate this style of comment; I think you having a policy of making this sort of comment is quite useful in expectation. Object-level: I disagree with your argument because [reasons]”
One of those tags I’m surprised we didn’t already have. Good job on noticing and writing it!
Should this be “and” or “vs” in the tag title?
I’m in favour of keeping the and – it keeps the implication that a conversation can switch between meta and object level.