thing-in-itself

American  

[thing-in-it-self] / ˌθɪŋ ɪn ɪtˈsɛlf /

noun

Kantianism.

• things-in-themselves
  plural

1. reality as it is apart from experience; what remains to be postulated after space, time, and all the categories of the understanding are assigned to consciousness.

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thing-in-itself British  

noun

1. (in the philosophy of Kant) an element of the noumenal rather than the phenomenal world, of which the senses give no knowledge but whose bare existence can be inferred from the nature of experience

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thing-in-itself Cultural  

1. A notion in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. A thing-in-itself is an object as it would appear to us if we did not have to approach it under the conditions of space and time.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• things-in-themselves
  plural

Etymology

Origin of thing-in-itself

1650–60; translation of German Ding an sich

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

thing-in-itself things-in-themselves

Most often we end up smothering the plain eloquence of the thing-in-itself under a pile of metaphors.

From Scientific American ● Oct. 9, 2015

He sees his farm simply as an ideal place to watch life in its essentials and to try a thing-in-itself way of conveying this — which he considers a new kind of realism.

From New York Times ● Jul. 3, 2011

It is true that Kant did in some respects fail to maintain the idealistic position with the clearness of Berkeley; but his shortcoming was not in affirming a thing-in-itself beyond phenomena.

From Schopenhauer by Thomas Whittaker

Will is the thing-in-itself, the inner content, the essence of the world.

From The World As Will And Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

The thing-in-itself is, as such, free from all forms of knowledge, even the most universal, that of being an object for the subject.

From The World As Will And Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

In Kantian terminology Dialektik is the name of that portion of the Kritik d. reinen Vernunft in which Kant discusses the impossibility of applying to "things-in-themselves" the principles which are found to govern phenomena.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 "Destructors" to "Diameter" by Various

They are turned from their historical meaning and presented as unalterable and sacred things-in-themselves.

From Dictatorship vs. Democracy (Terrorism and Communism) by Leon Davidovich Trotzky

It would still remain possible for other methods of approach than this transcendental pragmatism, for instinct, perhaps, or for revelation, to bring us into contact with things-in-themselves.

From Winds Of Doctrine Studies in Contemporary Opinion by George Santayana

The nature of things-in-themselves would remain an eternal secret to us, were it not that we are able to approach it, not by knowledge of external phenomena, but by inner experience.

From Nature Mysticism by John Edward Mercer

Kant demonstrated once for all our complete enslavement by phenomena and our inability to approach things-in-themselves.

From Mountain Meditations and some subjects of the day and the war by L. (Lizzy) Lind-af-Hageby