Philosophy & ThoughtGreek → English
Noumenon
/ˈnuːmɪnɒn/noun
A thing as it is in itself, independent of how it appears to any observer.
The Greek roots
νοούμενον
nooúmenon
that which is thought
Literally: “the thing being thought”
Follow a root:νοούμενον1 word
The story of the word
Kant's term for the thing in itself, set opposite the phenomenon, the thing as it shows up in experience. The Greek is a passive participle, 'that which is being thought', from the verb behind νοῦς, mind. Plato's forms are the ancestor of the idea, but Kant reversed its value: for Plato the intelligible world is what can truly be known, and for Kant the noumenon is precisely what cannot.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → German → English
- First recorded
- late 18th century
Same family
phenomenonnousnoeticparanoia
In a sentence
He kept insisting that the noumenon is a limit on knowledge, not a hidden object behind a curtain.
Two centuries of philosophy have been spent deciding whether the noumenon is needed at all.