noumenon

In philosophy, a noumenon (, ; from ; : noumena) is knowledge posited as an object that exists independently of human sense. The term noumenon is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to, the term phenomenon, which refers to any object of the senses. Immanuel Kant first developed the notion of the noumenon as part of his transcendental idealism, suggesting that while we know the noumenal world to exist because human sensibility is merely receptive, it is not itself sensible and must therefore remain otherwise unknowable to us. In Kantian philosophy, the noumenon is often associated with the unknowable "thing-in-itself" (). However, the nature of the relationship between the two is not made explicit in Kant's work, and remains a subject of debate among Kant scholars as a result.

== Etymology == The Greek word (plural ) is the neuter middle-passive present participle of , which in turn originates from the word , an Attic contracted form of . A rough equivalent in English would be "that which is thought", or "the object of an act of thought".