thingsinthemselves

Things-in themselves (Dinge an sich) is a philosophical term for objects as they exist independently of perception, interpretation, or cognitive structures. The term is most closely associated with Immanuel Kant, who argued that human knowledge is limited to appearances rather than things as they are in themselves.

In Kant's view, sensibility gives us intuitions of space and time, and understanding supplies categories that shape these intuitions. The resulting phenomena are the objects as we can know them; the things-in-themselves or noumena lie beyond possible experience and cannot be known directly, though they may be posited as the source of appearances or as a regulative idea guiding inquiry.

The claim has epistemological and metaphysical consequences, including the claim that the external world is not accessible in its ultimate nature through human cognition. The distinction has been subject to criticism and debate, notably by G. W. F. Hegel, who argued that Kant's sharp separation cannot be maintained, and by later phenomenologists who reinterpret experience as always perspective-laden.

In contemporary philosophy, discussions of things-in themselves often arise in debates about realism, perception, and the limits of science, sometimes used to frame questions about whether there is a mind-independent reality beyond appearances.

Related topics include Kant, the noumenon, the phenomenon, epistemology, and metaphysics.