21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T W E N T Y - O N E L E V E L S

4. Phenomena and the Noumenon

‘That of which we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence.’

Ludwig Wittgenstein — Tractatus Logico-

Philosophicus

The ‘…very being of anything, whereby it is what it is. And thus, the real internal, but generally unknown constitution of things, wherein their discoverable qualities depend, may be called their essence.’

John Locke

The noumenon was originally noumena — plural — contrasting with phenomena. Phenomena are just things that can be experienced and measured, whilst noumena are either hidden things or the hidden aspect of a phenomenon. This is all from Kant. Noumena were perhaps not therefore originally meant to be that mysterious. It is just that as humans we are limited to three dimensions of space and one of time and so are inevitably limited in what we can actually either directly experience or measure. Because things can be conceived without apparently any prior knowledge or

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