thing-in-itself
[ thing-in-it-self ]
/ ˌθɪŋ ɪn ɪtˈsɛlf /
noun, plural things-in-them·selves [thingz-in-th uh m-selvz] /ˌθɪŋz ɪn ðəmˈsɛlvz/. Kantianism.
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).
Origin of thing-in-itself
1650–60; translation of German
Ding an sich
Words nearby thing-in-itself
thin-layer chromatography,
thin-skinned,
thine,
thing,
thing or two,
thing-in-itself,
thingamabob,
thingamajig,
thingness,
things are looking up,
thingstead
Example sentences from the Web for thing-in-itself
British Dictionary definitions for thing-in-itself
thing-in-itself
noun
(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
Cultural definitions for thing-in-itself
thing-in-itself
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.