The Wiki article on 'noumenon' says 'The Greek word νοούμενoν nooúmenon, plural νοούμενα nooúmena, is the neuter middle-passive present participle of νοεῖν noeîn "to think, to mean", which in turn originates from the word νοῦς noûs, an Attic contracted form of νόος nóos "perception, understanding, mind". A rough equivalent in English would be "something that is thought", or "the object of an act of thought" '

(Also note the word is not related to 'the numinous' which has another root and another meaning altogether.)

So I take 'the noumenon' to mean something like 'the ideal object'. The 'ideal object' would be grasped solely by the intellect and so would be grasped perfectly, in the way that an intelligible object is (such as a number), but an object of sense is only ever seen from a perspective, and not 'as it is in itself'.

I understand it to signify a limitation of the nature of cognition, i.e. we are only able to perceive sensible objects as they appear to us, not as they are in themselves. I don't see it as being the radical claim that many seem to; the fact that what we know by way of the senses is the realm of phenomena, is something that I think can't be denied. But I think it obviously poses a problem for naive or even for scientific realism, which tends not to be critically self-aware in the way required by this kind of analysis.

Also, you might appreciate this blog post

We have eyes, therefore we cannot see; we have minds, therefore we cannot understand; we have fingers therefore we cannot touch.

See also Stove's Gem.

I studied under Stove; liked him a lot but I think his 'gem' only indicates a lack of insight into Kant and idealism generally.

What quandry? Kant's thing in itself is not a real thing but a definition of a limit for possible knowledge: i.e. a thing stripped of every property, so there is simply nothing left to know about it hence "impossible" to know in a trivial sense.

Ah, so it's insight that makes one blind.

It's a quandry for me and I see it as an issue which philosophy has a requirement to address.
Presumably unless one is an idealist (and idealists might also be in this group), there is something existing beyond sensory experience and the intellect, so why not seek what philosophy can tell us about it?

Ah, so it's insight that makes one blind.

Perhaps it is thought that is the blinker.

Thanks for the link to Stove's Gem, I'll have a look.

So I take 'the noumenon' to mean something like 'the ideal object'. The 'ideal object' would be grasped solely by the intellect and so would be grasped perfectly, in the way that an intelligible object is (such as a number), but an object of sense is only ever seen from a perspective, and not 'as it is in itself'.

I'm thinking more about the object of sense, although also the ideal object in the sense that it might take a form beyond its conception in the mind of a human.

I am thinking of the quandry that philosophers talk about the impossibility of understanding or knowing the noumenon(the thing in itself), while it is rational to consider that we are that noumenon, everything we know is constituted of this noumenon and nothing else. So in a sense we are this thing we can't know. Our nature and the nature of the noumenon are the same, can a study of nature, or our nature, inform us of the nature of the noumenon, so that it can be known?

Do you accept that there is a noumenon? Do you think it can be known? Do you think that our nature is the same as the nature of the noumenon.? If philosophy can't answer these questions, are there any other ways of knowing? — Punshhh

Schopenhauer wrote a whole four volume treatise on answering this question. He thought the noumenon can be known through understanding our own psychology. If you introspect you understand that you are this being that is always in a state of wanting and needing. This seems to be part and parcel of the bigger picture which is this blind insatiable force or principle which is blind striving that is never satisfied. In fact, he thought will was not a motivational force, but was the "inner aspect" of all things and any external phenomena had a double-coined internal aspect to it that was one and the same as Will.. the phenomenal individuated world of space/time/causality and objects was actually the flipside of the unified world of the principle of striving-after-nothing.

Do you accept that there is a noumenon? — Punshhh

Yes. I just don't believe that there's any good reason to buy that noumena are any different than phenomena.

I'm thinking more about the object of sense, although also the ideal object in the sense that it might take a form beyond its conception in the mind of a human. — Punshhh

I was referring to the meaning of the term - it is from the root 'nous', so the noumenon is an 'ideal object' in the sense that it is what nous is capable of grasping. The point about that is that in the classical Western tradition of philosophy, the mind knows 'intelligible objects', in effect, by identification with them - 'in thinking, and in knowledge which is a kind of thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible' (Lloyd Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism).

So what Kant is saying, I believe, is that sensible objects (as he would call them) are not 'intelligible' in the sense above - so our knowledge of sensibles is the knowledge of phenomena, unlike knowledge of (for example) logical and mathematical proofs. That actually reflects the Platonic distinction between appearance and reality.

So "ideal object" is an object of thought, as opposed to an object of the senses. Yes I understand this, but it seems to be suggesting that the noumenon includes the contents of rational thought, hence rational thought might know the noumenon through reason?

Sensible objects have an intelligible part and an unintelligible part. The intelligible part can be known and understood by rational thought, so is in a sense expressing the ideal object? While the unintelligible part is inaccessible. I thought the noumenon was this inaccessible part, the thing in itself, this is the source of the confusion. Is it Kant who is caused this confusion do you think?

So did Schopenhauer use the classical definition of the noumenon? I understand he was critical of Kant's use of the word in saying it amounts to the thing in itself.

So did Schopenhauer use the classical definition of the noumenon? I understand he was critical of Kant's use of the word in saying it amounts to the thing in itself. — Punshhh

Yeah, he did not like the term.. replace it with Thing-in-Itself then. In terms of the world as it is intself and how it appears to us, it is similar.

Yes, it looks as though I am asking about Thing-in-itself. Is this what Schopenhauer was talking about in the work of his that you mentioned?

Yes, it looks as though I am asking about Thing-in-itself. Is this what Schopenhauer was talking about in the work of his that you mentioned? — Punshhh

Yes, in the World as Will and Representation.. These two articles are good introductions:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/

http://www.iep.utm.edu/schopenh/

Thanks, let's say there is will and representation going on. Is this in the sense in which this process results in our finding ourselves in the world we know? Or is it more in the sense that the process is in reconciling, or adjusting ourselves with our existence, or existence in this world?

Agreed.

Thanks, let's say there is will and representation going on. Is this in the sense in which this process results in our finding ourselves in the world we know? Or is it more in the sense that the process is in reconciling, or adjusting ourselves with our existence, or existence in this world? — Punshhh

Can you clarify your question? I'd like to answer, but not sure exactly what you mean by reconciling with our existence and adjusting ourselves with our existence. His idea is essentially considered "pessimistic" as our lives cannot escape the underlying suffering that drives existence. The Will is trying to objectify itself by striving for goals that can never satisfy it. All objects are gradations of this overarching Will and at some level, the internal aspect of things are equivalent to Will. Thus, he has a kind of proto-panpsychism going on. Animals have more complex manifestations of Will and humans are the most complex manifestation. There are so many layers of emotional ways of suffering in the complex human mind. Most of it, according to Schop comes from the main pursuits of our existence which seem to be motivated from little other than boredom and survival needs. From this we become highly goal-seeking, transforming our boredom into goal-seeking pursuits. These goals cause suffering in their ceaseless end.. They represent the unsatisfied Will. We are always becoming but never being.

The very idea that you can comprehend a "thing" in itself without a context defies all the physical and rational evidence and is along the lines of debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. All the evidence points to the human mind and brain being a self-organizing system that we cannot draw lines in the sand and demonstrate where the individual and their environment begin and end because a context without any content is simply a contradiction in terms.

I think of the noumenon as the raw input that our particular human kind of processing system interacts with.

We are entirely oblivious to the great majority of it--no awareness whatsoever,

Our systems respond to certain aspects of the noumenon for processing as raw material for sensory input,

Our system's standard operating practice is to filter out or ignore most of the raw material that we are capable of processing, according to what we happen to be attending to at the moment

Our experiences are the result of what our particular kind of systems generate from processing the raw material from our interaction with the noumena.

So, since we know that our experiences of things and the predicates we ascribe to them are highly processed, transduced, filtered, augmented, suppressed, organized and reorganized--essentially constructed--we have reason to infer that our experiences no more reflect what the things in themselves independently of our procesdsing are like, or even that they are individuated into discrete things, than we have to believe that the magnetic patterns in a hard drive are reflected pictures of the text, videos, etc..

A difference that makes no difference, but perhaps it's significant in some peculiar way to understand that we're humans and that's all we can be when it comes to knowing/thinking/doing anything. Not that it makes any difference.

I wouldn't use the word "comprehend," but I don't think that the notion that we can access or have knowledge by acquaintance of a thing-in-itself from a particular reference point defies any physical or "rational evidence."

Well I think we do know it because we are it, of it. Although we may not understand what it is we know.

Do you know who you are?

So it is a foil, or mirror of our evolutionarily inherited traits?

Yeah . . . I'd just avoid "comprehend" because it seems like a category error to me. Rocks and such aren't attempted to communicate with us. ;-)

The things in themselves are objectively real in the sense that they are reliably available to be be perceived. It seems obvious from experience that they do not depend on anyone's, or even everyone's, perception of them in order to be said to exist in this sense. So, I have long thought that the empirical object is merely a formal identity, a kind of independent fact. The noumenal object and the empirical object are logically identical in one sense I would say, insofar as they are both formal or logical identities, that stand for, ultimately, 'whatever it is' that appears to us as some specific object of common experience. The difference is that the empirical formal identity is, for example, 'that tree' as it is itself, whereas the noumenal formal identity is the totally empty 'whatever it is' as it is in itself, that appears to us as that tree.

So, the empirical object seems to be just the logical projection of our in-common perception and conception of objects into the 'noumenal background'; in this sense it is a legitimate, if taken pragmatically, but an illegitimate, if taken substantively, objectification of the non-objective; or perhaps it would be better to say of the proto or even meta-objective. This 'position' really is not either idealist or realist in the commonly understood sense, because I do not posit either mind or matter as constitutive.

I think of the noumenon as the raw input that our particular human kind of processing system interacts with. — Brainglitch

So, is "our particular kind of processing system" itself noumenal or phenomenal? Because if you say it is phenomenal and that we have no warrant for saying that the phenomenal reflects the noumenal at all, then it would seem that we could have no warrant to say that the phenomenal interacts with the noumenal as you have said it does.

On the other hand, if you say it is noumenal, then you again contradict the idea that we have no warrant to speak of the nature of the noumenal. So, either way your position seems to be mired in incoherence.

Do you know who you are? — Punshhh

I wonder if there's a me-in-myself I should be concerned about. People do refer to the "real me" sometimes. For example, sometimes people say something like "You don't know the real me." This seems to imply that there is another me, different from the real one. Also, people sometimes say "I know you better than you know yourself." This seems to imply that others may know who I am better than I can.

But I know who I am, yes, as far as I can being what I am. I'm content enough with that. And as I say, if there's a me that can't really be known, it makes no difference that there is such a me.