noumenon
Americannoun
-
noumena
plural
-
the object, itself inaccessible to experience, to which a phenomenon is referred for the basis or cause of its sense content.
-
a thing in itself, as distinguished from a phenomenon or thing as it appears.
-
Kantianism. something that can be the object only of a purely intellectual, nonsensuous intuition.
noun
-
(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
-
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
But what that something is, what is the noumenon which underlies the phenomenon, it is impossible for us to know.
From What is Darwinism? by Charles Hodge
Coexistence and sequence, therefore, may be affirmed or denied not only between phenomena, but between noumena, or between a noumenon and phenomena.
From A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive (Vol. 1 of 2) by John Stuart Mill
He contents himself with saying we must acknowledge the reality of an unknown something which is the cause of all things,—the noumenon of all phenomena.
From What is Darwinism? by Charles Hodge
By Ontology we may designate the standing controversies of the intellectual powers—perception, innate ideas, nominalism versus realism, and noumenon versus phenomenon.
From Practical Essays by Alexander Bain
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
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
"I seek after noumena," repeated Chaffery with great satisfaction, and gesticulated with his hand, waving away everything but that.
From Love and Mr. Lewisham by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
With Kant, as has been seen, the categories were still subjective, not as being forms of the individual subject, but as having over against them the world of noumena to which they were inapplicable.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 5 "Cat" to "Celt" by Various
Nevertheless, the discovery and exposition of noumena offer a rich field for what Lewes calls "the endless variety and excitement of philosophic thought."
From The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
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.
