noumenon
Americannoun
PLURAL
noumena-
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
- noumenal adjective
- noumenalism noun
- noumenalist noun
- noumenality noun
- noumenally adverb
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.
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
Kant’s term “noumenon” refers to a “thing in itself”—Ding an sich—an objective reality that will always be inaccessible to human perception.
From Scientific American
Glassley tries also to grasp something beyond: the noumenon, an ineffable inner reality in things that cannot be discerned by the senses.
From Nature
The deeper our knowledge of things goes, the more we see the perfect conformity of the apparent to the real, the more faithfully do phenomena translate noumena.
From Project Gutenberg
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 Project Gutenberg
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.
