Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. In the philosophy of Kant, an object as it is in itself independent of the mind, as opposed to a phenomenon. Also called thing-in-itself.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In the Kantian philosophy:
- n. That which can be the object only of a purely intellectual intuition.
- n. Inexactly, a thing as it is apart from all thought; what remains of the object of thought after space, time, and all the categories of the understanding are abstracted from it; a thing in itself.
Wiktionary
- n. philosophy In the philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and those whom he influenced, a thing as it is independent of any conceptualization or perception by the human mind; a thing-in-itself, postulated by practical reason but existing in a condition which is in principle unknowable and unexperienceable.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Metaph.) The of itself unknown and unknowable rational object, or thing in itself, which is distinguished from the
phenomenon through which it is apprehended by the senses, and by which it is interpreted and understood; -- so used in the philosophy of Kant and his followers.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the intellectual conception of a thing as it is in itself, not as it is known through perception
Etymologies
- From Ancient Greek νοούμενον (nooumenon), passive present participle of νοέω (noeō, "I know"). (Wiktionary)
- German, from Greek nooumenon, from neuter present passive participle of noein, to perceive by thought, from nous, mind. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“If, by the term noumenon, we understand a thing so far as it is not an object of our sensuous intuition, thus making abstraction of our mode of intuiting it, this is a noumenon in the negative sense of the word.”
“What, therefore, we call noumenon must be understood by us as such in a negative sense.”
“The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only be a process of reasoning -- which is a phenomenon.”
INTERNET WIRETAP: The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce (1993 Edition)
“Behind the phenomena of human history, the noumenon is the Human”
“And we cannot call a noumenon an object of pure thought; for the representation thereof is but the problematical conception of an object for a perfectly different intuition and a perfectly different understanding from ours, both of which are consequently themselves problematical.”
“Some hold that the universal nature of things of any kind is an Idea existing (apart from the things) in the intelligible world, invisible to mortal eye and only accessible to thought; whence the Idea is called a noumenon: that only the Idea is truly real, and that the things (say, trees, bedsteads and cities) which appear to us in sense-perception, and which therefore are called phenomena, only exist by participating in, or imitating, the Idea of each kind of them.”
“Now the 'phænomenon' is in time, and an effect: but the 'noumenon' is not in time any more than it is in space.”
“Pure action, that is, the will, is a 'noumenon', and irreferable to time.”
“The substrate or 'causa invisibilis' may be the 'noumenon' or actuality,”
“Surely not the visible, tangible, accidental body, that is, a cycle of images and sensations in the imagination of the beholders; but his supersensual body, the 'noumenon' of his human nature which was united to his divine nature.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘noumenon’.
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G[r]eek
A collection of words found in English that are either purely Greek or have Greek etymology.
Please add with caution and certainty. Will be regularly updated by me.etymology, philosophy, laconic, disharmony, patriarchic, archaic, phlogiston, aether, aeon, angel, arachnid, rhythm and 346 more...
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250 More Spelling Words
More words for intermediate and advanced spellers.
melisma, dioecious, jejunity, sialogogue, zingiber, zendik, dithyramb, pneuma, kachina, agiotage, baedeker, sabulous and 238 more...
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phrontistery - n
from phrontistery.info
nacarat, nacelle, nacket, nacre, nacreous, naevus, naiant, nail, nainsook, naissant, nanism, nanization and 340 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Words for deinonychus
If you find a word that you want to share with me, this is a good place for it. I will try to look after it.
psychotronics, dolichocephalic, efficacious, scabrous, sympatidig, Ischnoceran, Amblyceran, Rhynchophthiran, Anopluran, Fahrenholz' Rule, Zlotorzycka's Rule, Eichler's Rule and 69 more...
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howtoflyhome's list
tacenda, ubiquarian, codify, velleity, psithurism, susurration, palaver, haplology, allophony, austere, popinjay, redolent and 11 more...
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philosophical concepts
Different concepts and branches of philosophy which haven't become independent fields of investigation. For example, "physicalism" is valid but not "physics", "scientism" but not "science", "cogni...
philosophy, ontology, epistemology, ethics, logic, nominalism, analytic philosophy, semiotics, structuralism, deconstructionism, postmodernism, skepticism and 40 more...
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eg's list
lexicolony
nefandous, ineffable, ultracrepidate, haecceity, quiddity, noumenon, hypokeimenon, extemporaneous, theomastix, caducity, niddering, tellurian and 16 more...
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Wunderkammer
A not-so-secret cache of wonderfilled words; may be mythical, magical, philosophical, oddball or just plain cool
thaumazein, anacampserote, cledonism, mirabile dictu, limen, sough, amaranthine, anamorphosis, lyribliring, lubberland, luciferous, madstone and 31 more...
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♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1526 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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strieale's Words
scientism, chronological, christophobia, subsurface, high culture, jeffersonian demo..., jacksonian democracy, incommensurable, rebuttal, discerning, disparate, anodyne and 156 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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Words that make you go hmmmm...
Interesting words you probably won't hear in your day-to-day.
maxwell, mooncalf, quagga, glaikit, musquash, lingam, haruspex, qindarka, chthonic, ipomoea, azimuthal, valuta and 304 more...
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Philosophical Jargon
Words philosophical writers use to give the illusion of technical competence, including up-trippingly specialised senses of words that have other jobs during daylight hours.
akrasia, akrates, particularism, particularist, mereology, deontology, cognitivism, naturalism, anti-naturalism, ethics, phenomenology, metaethics and 220 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for noumenon.
chained_bear Skipvia, I love you. :) That's hiLARious. Oct 24, 2007
vanishedone It's a while since I studied this, but as I recall my reading of Kant (i.e. not that of a recognised authority but the one I don't have to look up) was that we do experience things - i.e. the phenomenon isn't another class of thing, isn't itself an object of experience - but the way we experience them is phenomenal: for example, we experience objects as spatial, and we can't step outside geometry. So if there were no 'things in themselves', there would be no things and we wouldn't experience them in any way.
Of course that doesn't address the question of hallucinations, etc. but that one isn't specific to Kant. He does think we need a sensory component to experiences, but when it comes to arguing the point... I recall http://http-server.carleton.ca/~abrook/AMPHIBOL.htm has some comments on that:
'As he says, "without sensibility no objects would be given to us, ... thoughts without content are empty"... The trouble is, he never gets around to arguing the point--not till he gets to the Appendix on the Amphiboly. He mounts an argument that we need concepts, indeed very specific concepts, and he mounts an argument that we need the forms of intuition, space and time. But he never mounts an argument that we need sensations, empirical intuitions, what he calls the matter of knowledge...'
Unfortunately I'm not very familiar with the Amphiboly - it was never part of the lecture/discussion material when I was studying this - and I haven't time to wrestle with it at the moment. Oct 24, 2007
reesetee Actually, VanishedOne, I'm not at all sure I wanted to understand this. But thanks anyway. ;-) Oct 24, 2007
skipvia "Socrates scores, got a beautiful cross from Archimedes. The Germans are disputing it. Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx is claiming it was offside." Oct 24, 2007
yarb I think I understand, VanishedOne. Thanks.
So if a thing can only be experienced through phenomena, how do we know there is a noumenon? Why can't things be purely phenomenal? What makes Kant so sure there is something behind the scaffolding? Oct 24, 2007
vanishedone Ah, the joys of Kant.
If the phenomenon is how we experience a thing (e.g. having spatial dimensions, persisting in time and bashing into things), the noumenon is how it is 'in itself' (???, ??? and ???). We can't actually strip away the aspects our minds apply (e.g. geometry, causality) in making sense of the world, but we can recognise them as scaffolding our minds use in putting experiences together. According to Kant.
If it bothers you that causality is supposed to be purely 'phenomenal' and the noumenon is said to cause the phenomenon, yes, that's a known difficulty. Oct 24, 2007
reesetee At least Binky doesn't speak in circles. ;-) Oct 24, 2007
skipvia See, this is why I gave all that up. To quote Elwood P. Dowd, with his permission: "In this world...you must be oh, so smart or oh, so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. And you may quote me."
Listen to the voice of binky... Oct 24, 2007
reesetee Whaa...? Oct 24, 2007
skipvia From Dictionary.com: "The object, itself inaccessible to experience, to which a phenomenon is referred for the basis or cause of its sense content."
I love it when the definition leaves you even more confused than you were. Oct 24, 2007