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thing-in-itself

[ thing-in-it-self ]

noun

, Kantianism.
, plural things-in-them·selves [thingz-in-, th, uh, m-, selvz].
  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. Compare noumenon ( def 3 ).


thing-in-itself

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
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


thing-in-itself

  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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Word History and Origins

Origin of thing-in-itself1

1650–60; translation of German Ding an sich
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Example Sentences

As a philosopher, he is interesting for his criticism of the theory of the “thing-in-itself” (Ding-an-sich).

As thing-in-itself, the Will is exempt even from the first of the forms of knowledge, the form of being 'object for a subject.'

For the will, though the nearest we can get to the thing-in-itself, is in truth a partially phenomenalised expression of this.

On the other hand, everything as thing-in-itself is free; for 'freedom' means only non-subjection to that law.

Ultimately, freedom is a mystery, and takes us beyond even will as the name for the thing-in-itself.

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