Distinction Between Noumena and Phenomena The terms phenomena and noumena are key to Kant’s Transcendental Idealism in as much as both terms help define the realm of possible knowledge as defined by Kant. That is, the world of possible knowledge is made available to us, all rational beings, only through the process of experience; the simultaneous use of intuitive data with conceptual thought. Immediately a dialectic, one that Kant hopes to reconcile, is brought about to explain knowledge, and following thus three analogous binary relationships are examined: appearances and things-in-themselves, empirical objects and transcendental objects, and phenomena and noumena. All of which have a corresponding relationship, however despite similarities no one term of the six is interchangeable with another; the belief of such interchangeability has been the downfall of many critics and led to their misunderstanding of Kant. It is within a properly defined and discussed examination with comparison of both phenomena and noumena, as Kant’s terms, that the distinction can be found and then appropriately drawn to explicate the further distinctions between appearances/things-in-themselves and empirical objects/transcendental objects.
The term phenomena, is used largely referring to the objects of experience, however the term, similarly with noumena, deals directly with the subject of experience, the rational being that is doing the experiencing. When put into different words the phenomena can be understood as the term reflecting what sensible entities the subject itself has derived from empirical data, the senses. Examined in this way one may be able to see why phenomena may be used as a synonym for appearances and empirical objects, however Kant uses the three terms to illustrate three stages of change of what seems to be the same (or very similar thing). It must be noted here for the rest of the paper that Kant absolutely asserts the difference between these six terms, that he is not merely emphasising a change in perspective of the one object, but that the object itself must change as the subject experiences it; this is a result of the indirect relationship to the thing-in-itself and the interactive nature of experience. That at one point there exists empirical objects that we can know determinately via the senses because they expound empirical information, appearances, that are in turn experienced by rational beings via concept and intuition, the result is phenomena – a determinate object of experience to which we have attached a concept. Although at once these terms may seem to be ascribed to the same thing along a path, or time, the arguments put forward within the Critique of Pure Reason show that it is important to understand the various subtle differences within each, which thus helps to explain and strengthen the distance between rational beings in the world and the things-in-themselves being in the world.

“All existence and all change in time have thus to be viewed as simply a mode of the existence of that which remains and persists. In all appearances the permanent is the object itself, that is, substance as phenomenon; everything, on the other hand, which changes or can change belongs only to the way in which substance or substances exist, and therefore to their determinations. ”

For Phenomena is a positive definition in the sense that it is something that rational beings have in terms of their experience and thus it is a term we can define and relate within language itself; consisting of attributes that are phrased and coined with the user in mind. Phenomena should be thought of in such a way that we understand it to be our avenue for possible experience and therefore knowledge, so as to understand phenomena is to understand our derivation of all our knowledge. However in this aspect it must be limited, according to Kant, so that we cannot possibly assume that there are not other means in which one may receive empirical data. That is to say that phenomena is relative to each, whom experiences, in that it is the term ascribed to the way in which appearances are conceptualised as objects within the schema of experience. To limit phenomena, or on the other hand to explore other possibilities of perception, the term noumena is created, however it is such a term that cannot be determined.

“If the objective reality of a concept cannot be in any way known, while yet the concept contains no contradiction and also at the same time is connected with other modes of knowledge that involve given concepts which it serves to limit, I entitle that concept problematic. The concept of noumena – that is, of a thing which is not to be thought of, as an object of the senses but as a thing in itself, solely through pure understanding – is not in any way contradictory. ”

Note that within the previously quoted text that Kant wishes us to think of noumena as a thing-in-itself but is not the thing-in-itself. This is largely misquoted and thus leads to a misinterpretation of noumena as the thing-in-itself, which it blatantly cannot be. For example if we substitute the term noumena in place of the thing-in-itself within the Critique of Pure Reason it becomes apparent that Kant was considering two separate ideas. For it is plainly apparent that Kant insists that there are absolutely, beyond doubt, things-in-themselves existing within reality; how can their not be, if there were not, the appearances that we perceive would not exist and there would be no empirical data. On the other hand, noumena, this assuredness of existence is not apparent; the term is used in a completely conceptual basis to compliment and limit the term phenomena and possible knowledge. For at no point in the Critique of Pure Reason is it suggested that the methods of perception, senses, that we are familiar with as rational beings are the only methods of perception and therefore are the only means by which knowledge can be gained. Therefore noumena for us cannot bring knowledge because it is not with an empirical base; all knowledge arises from experience, which is grounded within the empirical. On this side noumena is examined as objects that are thought by pure understanding alone, without empirical data, with however other concepts that play a limiting factor on the general object of the noumena.
For if the senses represent something to us merely as it appears, this something must also in itself be a thing, and an object of a non-sensible intuition, that is of the understanding. It is implied in this distinction that we place the latter, considered in their own nature, although we do not so intuit them, or that we place other possible things, which are not objects of our senses but are thought as objects merely through the understanding, in opposition to the former, and that in doing so we entitle them intelligible entities (noumena).
Therefore it is important to stress that noumena, in opposition to phenomena, is an indeterminate object because it is not at all tied to the empirical realm from which rational beings draw knowledge; true knowledge can only be determinate. Noumenon is also mistaken as the Transcendental Object and the Thing-In-Itself, however due to the definition of noumenon it cannot be, no matter how close its behaviour, neither of these things. Firstly it cannot be the transcendental object because the noumena is ascribed to the concept (intelligible entity) of the object (the expounder of appearance – the thing-in-itself) as it is, which defines noumena as a pure thought, one without multiplicity and lack of empirical content. The transcendental object may have multiplicity, needing not to exist as a pure thought object, and ultimately cannot exist as a pure self-contained object due to its determinate link to the empirical world. In this way noumena would be falsely understood as the transcendental object. In a similar vain the noumenon cannot be interpreted as the thing-in-itself, no matter how closely the negative term of noumena resembles that of the thing-in-itself in behaviour, because the noumenon is the thought of the object as engendered by the subject – the being in possession of the noumenon. In this sense the noumenon is within the subject, as thought, and therefore cannot have any direct or indirect empirical affect on the subject. The thing-in-itself does exist in the empirical realm independent of the subject that may experience the appearance of the thing-in-itself via sensory intuition, thus it has an empirical value attributed to it, something the noumenon by very definition cannot have.
If by ‘noumenon’ we mean a thing so far as it is not an object of our sensible intuition, and so abstract from our mode of intuiting it, this is a noumenon in the negative sense of the term. But if we understand by it an object of a non-sensible intuition, we thereby presuppose a special mode of intuition, namely, the intellectual, which is not that which we possess, and of which we cannot even comprehend even the possibility.
In so far as we have looked at what the noumena is not, definition in its negative sense (used as a problematic and limiting concept), it can be understood as something that we cannot understand but use in a general sense of perspective, acknowledging what we cannot know. However in a positive sense of the term noumena are the things that are apprehended by a non-receptive or non-sensible intuition. Thus to understand noumena is to understand, or exhibit, non-sensible intuition, which is impossible for us as rational beings, nevertheless we may define noumena in a relative context to that which is not phenomena. It is within the nature of noumena itself that it can only be described by what it is not, for it is a concept that is so far out of our understanding that language itself makes no exception for its inclusion – some critics attack this point in such a way, that to give a term in which nothing can be explained is as good as giving us nothing.
Noumena can come to be thought of in three distinct variations; that as it is inextricably bound to phenomena, that as it is unthought by a rational being not in possession of a non-sensible (non-receptive) intuition, and finally (ostracised from any subjective context) as a pure indeterminate thought without empirical existence. From these three variations of explaining noumena there can derive an unknown yet recognisable absence, hole of knowledge, that contains somewhere within the – ephemeral – noumena. As it is bound to the phenomena the noumena is not representative of a concept of an object but rather as a limiting tool upon our sensibility, one that should be acknowledged and used so that one can be aware of the determinability of their knowledge. For Kant argues that the only knowledge that should concern rational beings is true knowledge, and rational being can only achieve true knowledge from experience that is empirically derived.

“In order that a noumenon signify a true object, distinguishable from all phenomena, it is not enough that my thoughts about it be free of all conditions of sensible intuition. I must in addition have reason to posit another form of intuition than this sensible one, by means of which such an object could be given. Otherwise my thought of a noumenon is quite empty although without contradiction. ”

The sense of noumena as by a subject that has a non-sensible intuition is not something beings without this special intuition can comprehend, but it is something we can define, especially alluding to the means in which noumena comes about within the mind. That is to say that noumena, in its own concept, must be defined inherently with its means of apprehension. Thus in the same way that phenomena is understood inherently with sensible intuition, the noumena must be defined with its means of apprehension – non-sensible intuition. It is as though we examine yet another apprehension via the acknowledgement of our own and thus we do not discount the possibility of another form of apprehension dissimilar to our own to be available to another being. So that in this way it is to be understood that knowledge gained from noumena is not empirically based, for noumena has no grounding in empirical objects, thus noumena for us cannot bear knowledge. Therefore the existence of noumena rests on the existence of a non-sensible intuition, a truth that is impossible to know via sensible representation; and intuition that is not affected by apprehended objects.

If I remove from empirical knowledge all thought (through categories), no knowledge of any object remains. For through mere intuition nothing at all is thought, and the fact that this affection of sensibility is in me does not [by itself] amount to a relation of such representation to any object. But if, on the other hand, I leave aside all intuition, the form of thought still remains – there thus results the concept of a noumenon.

Here Kant finally breaks down noumenon into a bare concept that it can be thought of in context to phenomenon and knowledge. Effectually noumenon as concept is ultimately something that cannot be finitely assigned value, but is represented through the absolute form of thought. Arguably the form of thought is also something that exists outside reasonable fields of discussion and explanation. However if it can be accepted that with the removal of all intuition there still remains a basic framework for thought, it stands to reason that a being with non-sensible intuition would likewise also have the same, if not similar, framework for thought. In this sense we can understand noumena as a different means to phenomena that fills this framework of thought.
The distinction between phenomena and noumena is better understood when both are treated as forms (methods) in which the framework for thinking can be filled in. Phenomenon on the one hand has its intuitive basis within the empirical domain for rational beings that have a sensible intuition, whereas the noumenon has its intuitive basis independent of the empirical domain for beings that have a non-sensible intuition. “A phenomenon is an ‘object of possible experience’, whereas a noumenon is an object knowable to thought alone, and which does not make sense to be described as the object of experience.” Thus the distinction is drawn upon the line of apprehension, and the absence of sensible objects being apprehending in the course of a non-sensible intuition. The phenomena is completely knowable in principle as any object of scientific (empirical) investigation; as the noumena, for rational beings with sensible intuition, exists as a problem of sensibility, unconditioned (unempirical) knowledge, that can only be defined in a negative sense due to the limitations of a sensible institutively derived language.

Bibliography
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