noumenon
Americannoun
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the object, itself inaccessible to experience, to which a phenomenon is referred for the basis or cause of its sense content.
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a thing in itself, as distinguished from a phenomenon or thing as it appears.
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Kantianism. something that can be the object only of a purely intellectual, nonsensuous intuition.
noun
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(in the philosophy of Kant) a thing as it is in itself, not perceived or interpreted, incapable of being known, but only inferred from the nature of experience Compare phenomenon See also thing-in-itself
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the object of a purely intellectual intuition
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of noumenon
1790–1800; < Greek nooúmenon a thing being perceived, noun use of neuter of present participle passive of noeîn to perceive; akin to nous
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Glassley tries also to grasp something beyond: the noumenon, an ineffable inner reality in things that cannot be discerned by the senses.
From Nature • Feb. 5, 2018
In the philosophy of Kant, phenomenon means an object as we envisage or represent it to ourselves, in opposition to the noumenon, or a thing as it is in itself.
From Christianity and Greek Philosophy or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His Apostles by Cocker, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin)
It is a noumenon and belongs properly to the unknowable—that is to say, according to the sense in which it is understood.
From Tragic Sense Of Life by Flitch, J. E. Crawford (John Ernest Crawford)
Now this necessity, it is objectivity itself; it is the only noumenon that we are authorised to seek behind phenomena in Nature, and behind the manifestations of pure reason in spirit.
From Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion based on Psychology and History by Sabatier, Auguste
They wrote against substance assumed as the "noumenon lying underneath all phenomena—the substratum supporting all qualities—the something in which all accidents inhere."
From Heresy: Its Utility And Morality A Plea And A Justification by Bradlaugh, Charles
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
