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thing-in-itself

thing-in-itself

1 9.9
What something really is apart from how people see it
  • noun
  • Specialized
translation icon : cosa en sí misma
  • Immanuel Kant proposed that the thing-in-itself exists independently of our perceptions.

And he says it must be considered a thing in itself.

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Examples

  • Philosophy was thus the province of the thing-in-itself, and Kant's descriptions would count as science.

    Academic text (1990)
  • However, no seed is 100% our own or collective in nature; these are just two aspects of the same reality, the thing-in-itself.

    Blog text (8)
  • The factory is accommodated as a feature in this continuing flow; it is not a 'thing-in-itself'.

    Blog text (31)
  • There is no such thing as an 'independently existing thing-in-itself' as we commonly (mis)take ourselves to be in our popular Western worldview.

    Blog text (19)
  • This is the 'all genesis, no epigenesis' approach that conceives of the organization as a 'thing-in-itself,' and it is the thinking that underlies capitalism and sovereigntism.

    Blog text (19)
  • Though this is pure visual form-based abstraction rather than physical reality, there is no local 'thing-in-itself,' only a resonance feature within the dynamic ground; i.e., the physical reality is that the relational space of the atmosphere is continually transforming.

    Blog text (13)
  • The challenge of cultivating the conditions that are fertile for the growth of 'communism' involves transforming our worldview from the capitalist-sovereigntist 'narcissist' view of self as a 'thing-in-itself.'

    Blog text (19)
  • She argues that Nietzsche is really just being a skeptic here: our "truths" don't correspond with the thing-in-itself, i.e., the world beyond our human conceptions.

    Blog text (33)
  • Philosophers have long debated whether the thing-in-itself can ever be truly understood.

  • Many argue that the thing-in-itself remains unknowable, hidden beyond human experience.

Synonyms

noumenon
vsthing-in-itself
  • Formal
9.9

A thing as it really is, independent of how people see or feel it

is the same idea but written as a phrase rather than a single term

Surface Forms

Morphology

thing-in-itself = thing + itself (semi-transparent) = in + thing + itself

The components 'thing', 'in', and 'itself' are literal and transparent, but the Kantian technical meaning is specialized and not derivable by average learners. [Postprocessing: moved 'in' from base_words to prefix]

Etymology

Thing-in-itself comes from the German phrase Ding an sich, which means 'the thing by itself', and you can remember it by seeing thing as the object and itself as 'on its own'. So, it means the real nature of something that exists apart from how people see or think about it.