(1) A phenomenon is an object of possible experience, whereas a noumenon is an object knowable to thought alone, and which it does not make sense to describe as an object of experience.

(2) The noumenon , called suchness or absolute mind, does not exist in a pristine realm above and beyond phenomena, but expresses itself precisely as phenomena.

(3) In speaking of a social contract, therefore, we are referring not to an actual agreement between empirical selves, but to a hypothetical agreement between purely noumenal beings.

(4) Certainly, the largest religion on the census forms in the UK is u2018Christianu2019, which covers a vast number of levels of belief and commitment but bespeaks some sort of readiness to accept the existence of numinous or noumenal entities.

(5) Its basis is noumenal , or phenomenally unknowable, a function of the instruments of perception, which Kant characterizes in terms of consciousness rather than of language, by means of which our access to reality is mediated.

(6) Like Hegel, Adorno criticizes Kant's distinction between phenomena and noumena by arguing that the transcendental conditions of experience can be neither so pure nor so separate from each other as Kant seems to claim.

(7) Following this, Kant argued we were only capable of perceiving phenomenon, or appearances, while the noumena , or spiritual essence, lay eternally beyond our reach.

(8) Nietzsche rejected the Kantian distinction between a noumenal and phenomenal world.

(9) Thus he seems to have been more like a Kantian believer in unknowable noumena than like a Vienna Circle proponent of the view that talk of God is not even meaningful.

(10) In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant famously differentiated the noumenal , or ideal, realm from the phenomenal or lived world.