And so even science and medicine have not been able to discover our noumenon, our substance, the ego, even today. |
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Kant contrasted it to the noumenon, or thing-in-itself, to which the categories do not apply. |
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The noumenon, called suchness or absolute mind, does not exist in a pristine realm above and beyond phenomena, but expresses itself precisely as phenomena. |
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The noumenon is undifferentiated and uncaused but is the underlying reality behind all existence. |
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Though the noumenal holds the contents of the intelligible world, Kant claimed that man's speculative reason can only know phenomena and can never penetrate to the noumenon. |
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The relationship of noumenon to phenomenon in Kant's philosophy has engaged philosophers for nearly two centuries, and some have judged his passages on these topics to be irreconcilable. |
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In the modern West, Immanuel Kant created the term noumenon to signify unknowable reality, which he distinguished from phenomenon, the appearance of reality. |
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We have no specific concept of the noumenon, but think of it merely as whatever the object may be apart from the manner in which our knowledge exhibits it. |
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