Noumena
By: Spencer Schnoor
Noumena is some event or phenomenon
that is known of without using any senses. The term noumenon is mostly commonly
linked to Kantian Philosophy by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and is rarely a
concept that the general population would understand or use due to its depth
and complexity. In the Philosophy of Kant neumonon is an object as it is in
itself independent of the mind as opposed to phenomenon. It was first used in 1796 and derives from the
Greek nooúmenon and
nous. You can never fully understand the
concept of noumena, only phenomenon. Phenomenon is anything that appears to be
or is an object of the sense, so it can be fully understood. Unlike neoumena which is an event or object
that is known without using any senses.
Noumena
by Kant:
According to Kant you can never fully describe the
concept of noumena or know what it is. Because simply trying to identify,
study, or classify noumena is in fact trying to identify, study, or classify a
phenomenon. Since noumena is an event known without the use of
any senses it cannot be observed, studied, identified, or classified. In other words our human minds can correlate
in useful and accurate ways with the structure of the universe but cannot
correlate noumena. Instead we must gather which thoughts relate to noumena
relate them to the concept of phenomena so that we may try to further our
understanding of noumena in a way that is possible. However ther is confusion
in the “exact” definition of
noumena. For example noumena is
generally defined as, some event or phenomenon that is known of without
using any senses. If there was something understood about noumena that would
mean that the human mind would have to be able to understand everything
phenomena as well as noumena. Since we aren’t capable of understanding all
things there would have to be some concept that represents the unknowable and
that is where noumena comes into play. It represents the unknowable such as the
concept of afterlife, heaven, hell, Dante inferno, and damnation.
Although
it is true that Immanuel Kant was the first person to use the term or concept
of noumena, the concept of it has been in existence for awhile and has had
history with negative critiques against the concept. Some of the most notorious critiques included
George Berkeley and Arthur Schopenhauer.
Arthur Schopenhauer criticizes the work of Immanuel Kant on noumena in
which he does so by stating the flaws of Kant’s work. Schopenhauer stated that
Kant did not distinguish between the concrete, intuitive, and perceptional
knowledge of objects and the abstract, discursive, conceptual, knowledge of
thoughts. Also Schopenhauer stated that Kant’s work was obscure and did not clearly
explain his concepts.
An example of noumena could be the concept of
purgatory (dante inferno).
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