thing-in-itself

thing-in-it·self (thngn-t-slf)

n. pl. things-in-them·selves (thngzn-m-slvz) Philosophy

See noumenon.

---

[Translation of German Ding an sich.]

---

thing-in-itself

n

(Philosophy) (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

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

thing-in-itself - the intellectual conception of a thing as it is in itself, not as it is known through perception noumenon cognitive content, mental object, content - the sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned