noumenon
Americannoun
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noumena
plural
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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
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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.
See Examples For:
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
Later, in his movement towards Positivism, he strongly repudiates Kant’s separation of phenomenon from noumenon, and affirms that our intellect is capable of grasping the whole reality.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 8 "Dubner" to "Dyeing" by Various
But don't you think, Ont," Upt replied, "that you are confusing the noumenon with the phenomenon?
From The Unthinking Destroyer by W. E. Terry
The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only be a process of reasoning—which is a phenomenon.
From The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
Way, more, to make his argument the more plausible, he entirely ignores in it that noumenon of which he speaks as underlying all phenomena, and uses each phenomenon as a separate existence.
From Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With The Freethinkers." by Charles Bradlaugh
Those kinds of questions, and that kind of connection to the noumena of travel, would never arise from a downloaded file on a digital device.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 17, 2022
Kant is not so much concerned to prove the nonexistence of noumena, things-in-themselves, as he is to prove that the very conception is an empty one.
From An Introduction to Philosophy by George Stuart Fullerton
All noumena are there before we arrive at an understanding of them.
From The Unthinking Destroyer by W. E. Terry
The various awe-compelling phenomena soon ceased to have any connection with the anthropomorphic noumena they had begotten.
From The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell
My reason is no infallible plummet to sound the sea of phenomena and touch noumena.
From Beulah by Augusta J. (Augusta Jane) Evans
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.
