The thing-in-itself is the inner essence of the thing, inaccessible to human cognition; man is only able to cognize phenomena, for he is limited by both a priori forms of cognition peculiar to him and by certain sense organs. This is the central concept of Kant's philosophy. According to Kant, only things in themselves have true being, they are simple, indivisible unities. From the world of things in themselves, Kant strictly separates the world of phenomena, in which everything is continuous and everything happens in accordance with the laws established by mathematical physics.

"Things in themselves" for Kant is the world taken "from within", while phenomena are the world perceived "from outside". The thing-in-itself is, in fact, the monad (in Leibniz); only Kant does not consider it possible to cognize the essence of the monad, since, from his point of view, an intellectual construction that is not based on experience is not cognition.

In the usual distinction between a phenomenon and a thing in itself, a distinction that Kant calls empirical, the thing in itself meant an essence not given to us in direct sensory perception, or the cause of what appears to direct perception as a manifestation or effect. Indeed, we say that the cause or essence of sound consists in the vibration of the air; that the cause of the rainbow is directly invisible to us raindrops, illuminated by the sun at a certain angle, etc.

Understood in this way, the thing-in-itself differs from the phenomenon not fundamentally: it is possible to create such an experiment in which the cause of this phenomenon also becomes visible (sometimes in a literal sense, but mostly by analogy). As for the transcendental distinction between the appearance and the thing-in-itself, here the thing-in-itself is separated from the appearance by an impassable line. If Kant had admitted the possibility of speculative cognition, he would have said that the thing-in-itself is accessible only to pure thinking, without any recourse to contemplation; the thing-in-itself is something indivisible, and the indivisible cannot be seen or perceived by the senses in any other way, for it is accessible only to thought.

Not recognizing any rights behind pure speculation, Kant does not even agree with the definition of the thing-in-itself that Leibniz gave, calling it a monad (ie, "one"). According to Kant, we know nothing about the thing-in-itself; the very categories of unity and plurality can rightly be applied only to objects given in contemplation, and therefore we have no right to attribute even the attribute of indivisibility to the thing-in-itself.

Since Kant rejected the realistic interpretation of the world of phenomena, which was one of Leibniz's options for explaining the connection between discrete monads and the continuity of spatial phenomena, he had only one option left: to interpret phenomena idealistically (phenomenalistically) as the result of the impact of things in themselves on human sensibility, then exists as a "phenomenological spot" that appears to our gaze instead of "discrete metaphysical points" that exist on their own. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant speaks not of "things in themselves", but of "things in themselves", although he himself understands that in this way he gives rise to naturalization, to the empirical interpretation of the "unknowable X".

Between "things in themselves" and phenomena, the relation of cause and effect is preserved: in that and only in the sense in which there can be no effect without a cause - without things in themselves there can be no phenomena. Here is Kant's unequivocal explanation on this issue: "... Considering, as it should be, the objects of senses as simple phenomena, we nevertheless recognize that they are based on the thing in itself, although we do not know it itself, but only its appearance, i.e., the way in which this unknown something acts on our senses. Thus, the understanding, accepting appearances, thereby recognizes the existence of things in themselves, so that we can say that the representation of such essences underlying phenomena, i.e. pure mental essences, is not only permissible, but also inevitable.

But at the same time, Kant is perfectly aware of the fact that in the strict sense of the word the categories of cause and effect are products of the understanding and therefore can only be applied to objects of experience and, consequently, we have no right to apply them to things in themselves.

In the section of the Critique of Pure Reason, which bears the title "On the basis of the distinction of all objects in general into phaenomena and noumena," Kant tries to answer the naturally arising question: what is the thing-in-itself, and what reason do we have to speak of it at all? as soon as it turns out to be unclear how it is connected with the world of phenomena - after all, we also have no right to consider it the "cause of sensations".

In the transcendental doctrine of principles, Kant includes his philosophical views on transcendental aesthetics, transcendental logic, which is divided into transcendental analytics and transcendental dialectics.

By transcendental aesthetics, Kant understood the science of all a priori principles. Sensual contemplation is the beginning of all knowledge. But here questions immediately arise about its source. His relation to the outside world and composition.

Kant asserts that beyond the limits of sensory phenomena there exists an unknowable reality, of which in the theory of knowledge there is only an extremely abstract "pure" concept (poitenon). Noumena do not provide anything for the knowledge of things in themselves, but allow them to be thought of as intelligible entities and nothing more. Kant is firmly convinced that the world of things-in-itself exists, but claims that the thing-in-itself (as the concept of the existence of such) performs several different and, in its own way, quite definite functions. There are four main functions:

The first meaning of the concept of "thing in itself" in Kant's philosophy is intended to indicate the presence of an external stimulus of our sensations and ideas.

Kant's second meaning of the "thing in itself" is that it is any, in principle, unknowable object.

The third meaning of "thing in itself" encompasses everything that lies in the transcendental realm, i.e. is outside of experience and the realm of the transcendental.

The fourth and, in general, idealistic meaning of the “thing in itself” is as the realm of unattainable ideals in general, and this realm as a whole turns out to be the cognitive ideal of the unconditional – the highest synthesis. The thing-in-itself in this case turns out to be an object of faith.

In ethics, as in other areas, there is a tradition not only of conservatism and stagnation, but also of radical transformation. The latter is not connected with the “growth and further improvement” of certain virtues (after all, the corresponding vices accompanying them “grow and improve” along with them), but with a decisive purification and radical renewal of consciousness, as if with the second birth of the soul. In this second tradition a prominent place belongs to the author of the Critique of Practical Reason. The Copernican revolution he made in philosophy also concerns ethics, where Kant develops the doctrine of the autonomy of morality: asserting freedom, a person acts as the creator of his own moral world, he prescribes the law of actions to himself.

Kant proclaims a moral attitude, the nature of which, the laws of which differ significantly from those that prevail in periods of calm and measured, gradual development, are distinguished by the radicalism of the requirements: “these laws command unconditionally, whatever the outcome of their execution, moreover, they even make you completely distract from it”; for people “it is enough that they fulfill their duty, no matter what happens to earthly life, and even if, perhaps, happiness and its worthiness never coincided in it”

Unlike optional, only relative and conditional rules of conduct, duty is, by its very nature, an absolute requirement, which, like a law, must be followed unconditionally. It is very important that in an atmosphere of heated discussions and loud demands for rights - human rights, his freedoms - Kant, with his categorical imperative, recalled the requirement to always act in such a way that the maxim of an act could at the same time become the principle of universal legislation. Action not "in accordance with duty" but "from a sense of duty" is what has true moral value. A person is truly moral only when he performs his duty, not for the sake of any external goal, but for the sake of the duty itself.

Behavior, the law of which coincides with the law of nature, has, according to Kant, nothing to do with the moral law. What is not: in natural law, is an internal compulsion. Kant calls the moral ability of “free self-coercion” a virtue, and an act proceeding from such a state of mind (out of respect for the law) a virtuous (ethical) act. “Virtue is the firmness of a person’s maxim while observing one’s duty.” Every firmness is recognized through the obstacles that it can overcome; for virtue, such obstacles are natural inclinations that can come into conflict with moral intention ... Every duty contains the concept of coercion with side of the law; ethical duty contains such coercion, for which only internal legislation is possible.

Kant cares about a purely intellectual, “rigorous way of thinking”, subordinating empirical judgments and actions “to the principle of excluding everything in between good and evil”, about moral “rigorism”, irreconcilable to reconciliations of good and evil: “For the doctrine of morality in general, it is very important not allow, as far as possible, no moral middle ground either in actions or in human characters, since with such a duality all maxims are in danger of losing certainty and stability.

Cantu cited a number of examples from history, poetry and sagas, proving that actions that, according to formal ethics, according to generally accepted moral ideas, could seem like a crime, are in fact an expression of high human morality.

The attempt to borrow in any certainty presents an insurmountable difficulty for the Kantian system. But even if it were allowed, all the same, duty, in whatever hypostasis of virtue it may appear, would turn out to be a limited virtue that excludes others, and this inevitably leads to conflicts between them. According to Kant, such collisions are easily eliminated. Of the two virtues, if they conflict with each other, only one can really be a virtue, that which constitutes duty. Either duty cannot contradict duty, or it is not true duty, and can relate to the realm of morality only as negative, immoral. Kant is aware of the natural dialectic that destroys the dictates of duty, by which he means “the tendency to think contrary to the strict laws of duty and question them strength, at least their purity and severity, and also, wherever possible, to make them more in line with our desires and inclinations, i.e. radically undermine them and deprive them of all their dignity, which in the end even ordinary practical reason cannot approve. But Kant also knows another dialectic, which also arises in ordinary moral consciousness when it develops its own culture and goes back to (practical) philosophy in order to get rid of the ambiguity that undermines moral principles.

Kant's doctrine of duty in it is transformed from an independent element into a vanishing moment of a broad and many-sided synthesis.

Kant's categorical imperative is allowed only insofar as it abolishes itself: it is "removed" in advance and accepted in advance in the aspect of its non-autonomy. According to Kant, duty - one-sided and strong integrity - is a real alternative to moral softness and opposes the latter, as adherence to principles - compromises, as strictness - vagueness and uncertainty, flabbiness and connivance, as asceticism - hedonism, as consistency - half-heartedness, as decisiveness - spinelessness.

School. In the strict sense, it means a thing from the side of those of its properties that do not depend on human perception and its specific conditions (despite the fact that they may well depend on the conditions of divine contemplation).

Kant distinguishes between transcendental and physical things in themselves. The physical "thing in itself" is the constant parameters of the world of experience. The transcendental thing-in-itself, or "thing-in-itself" in the strict sense, opposes the appearance as that which, from the formal point of view, is wholly determined by the subjective conditions of sensibility. Kant believes that the concept of a thing in itself arises as a correlate of the concept of appearance. Having proved that the objects of experience in their spatio-temporal form exist only in human perception, we simultaneously think something that retains its existence beyond perception. This is the concept of a thing in itself, or in itself (noumena). However, the existence of such objects does not automatically follow from this "boundary" concept. In different periods of his work, Kant interpreted the question of the existence and cognizability of things in themselves in different ways. Thus, in his dissertation of 1770 “On the form and principles of the sensuously perceived and intelligible world”, Kant allowed the cognizability of noumena. The "critical turn" that took place in the early seventies changed his views diametrically. In the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant essentially denies the provability even of the existence of "things in themselves." However, in the second edition of the Critique, Kant calls it a "scandal for philosophy" to take on faith the existence of objects external to consciousness and puts forward a program of "refutation of idealism", aimed ultimately at confirming the reality of things in themselves. The thesis about the unknowability of "things in themselves" was put forward by Kant at a critical period in his philosophy in connection with the study of the conditions for the possibility of a priori synthetic cognition. A priori knowledge is possible only when human concepts contain the conditions for the possibility of certain objects. Things in themselves cannot be such things (our reason is not divine). Therefore, their a priori knowledge is impossible. But even in experience "things in themselves" are not given to us. All true statements about “things in themselves” (except, perhaps, the thesis about their existence and that they lie at the basis of phenomena) in fact turn into denials: they are outside space, outside time, etc. However, a kind of loophole in the world of things in themselves is Kant's practical philosophy. The moral law as the only "fact of pure reason" testifies to the "transcendental freedom" of man, which can only take place in the subject as a thing in itself. True, in this case, too, we are not talking about theoretical knowledge (there is not enough contemplation necessary for this).

The link "thing in itself - phenomenon" is largely synonymous with the correlative concepts "noumenon - phenomenon", "thing in general - a thing as an object of possible experience", "transcendental object - a manifold of sensibility". According to one of Kant's schemes, things in themselves affect sensibility and give rise to a variety of sensations (in this case, one must distinguish between different levels of affection and take into account the indefinite epistemological status of such a statement). Kant believes that the division of all possible objects into phenomena and things in themselves (phenomena and noumena) is a necessary condition for overcoming the internal clash of rational principles in the antinomy of pure reason.

Kant's concept of the thing-in-itself had a profound effect on subsequent philosophy. F. G. Jacobi saw in him the main contradiction of Kant's philosophy. The well-known followers of Kant, K. L. Reingold and J. S. Beck, tried to get rid of this concept. J. G. Fichte transformed the “thing in itself” into an impulse coming from outside, delaying the activity of the human I. G. W. F. Hegel considered the concept of “thing in itself” a vivid example of limited “rational” thinking, which must be overcome by speculative dialectics. In modern philosophical literature, the concept of a thing-in-itself is sometimes interpreted as a synonym for the behaviorist metaphor of the "black box", which is often used to characterize hidden mental mechanisms.

THING IN ITSELF(German Ding an sich selbst) is a philosophical concept, the content of which is the totality of objects of the external world, independent of the consciousness and will of people. The concept of the thing-in-itself is organically connected with the development of materialism. According to J. Locke, the philosophy of nature is “knowledge of the beginnings, properties and actions of things, what they are in themselves” (Thoughts about education. - Soch., vol. 3. M., 1982, p. 586). J. Berkeley contrasted this materialistic principle with the denial of “objects in themselves or outside the mind” (Treatise on the principles of human knowledge. - Works. M., 1978, p. 182). Unlike Berkeley, D. Hume believed that there is “some unknown, necessary something as the cause of our perceptions” (Research on human cognition. - Soch., vol. 2. M., 1965, pp. 158–159) .

I. Kant, whose philosophy developed not without the influence of Humean skepticism, combines the recognition of the objective reality of a thing in itself (one of the foundations of his teaching) with a categorical denial of their cognizability: “Things are given to us as objects of our senses outside of us, but about what they are in themselves, we do not know anything, but we know only their appearances, i.e. representations that they produce in us, influencing our feelings ”(Prolegomena to any future metaphysics that could appear as a science. - Soch. in 6 vols., v. 4, part 1. M., 1965, p. 105) . Things in themselves, in Kant's understanding of them, are not things at all, since they are interpreted as extra-spatial (and therefore not extended), timeless, transcendent something, the existence of which, Kant claims, is beyond doubt, since phenomena presuppose what is; this alone can be things in themselves. It remains, however, unexplained why things in themselves, once they are, remain absolutely unknowable: the gap between the fundamentally unknowable objective reality of things in themselves and the fully cognizable subjective reality of the world of appearances is the main feature of Kant's theory of knowledge.

However, the concept of a thing-in-itself refers Kant not only to a transcendent something that causes sensory perceptions. After all, if a person as a cognizing subject creates (it is true, with the help of things in themselves independent of him) a world of phenomena, then he himself cannot be only a phenomenon, i.e. just one show. Therefore man, according to Kant, is not only a phenomenon, but also a thing in itself. This applies in particular to the human will, which is not free as an empirical will, but free as a thing-in-itself. Kant also distinguishes between empirically conditioned reason, which is not free from sensual impulses, and pure reason, which “is not a phenomenon and is not subject to any conditions of sensibility”, i.e. there is also a thing-in-itself (Critique of pure reason. - Works in 6 volumes, vol. 3. M., 1964, p. 491). Fichte, Schelling and Hegel rejected the concept of the thing-in-itself as an unacceptable concession to materialism. So did the neo-Kantians, for whom the thing-in-itself is nothing more than a subjective concept of the limit of knowledge. Meanwhile, Kant's concept of "thing in itself" has a rational meaning: the fundamental denial of what goes beyond the boundaries of possible experience and, therefore, the denial of the transcendent as an object of knowledge.

one of the central concepts of epistemology, and then of Kant's ethics. This concept, denoting things as they exist outside of us, in themselves (in themselves), in contrast to what they are "for us", existed in philosophy before Kant and was closely connected with one or another solution to the question of the ability of our cognition to comprehend the "THING IN ITSELF". Kant interprets the "THING IN ITSELF" as something that exists outside and independently of consciousness and is a source of action on our sense organs, on the human ability of receptivity, i.e. as the source of all our contemplations. In the preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1787), Kant substantiated such an independent existence of the external world (the world of V. in S.) as the source material for our knowledge: the existence of things outside of us (from which, after all, we receive all the material of knowledge even for our inner sense) and the impossibility of opposing any satisfactory proof of this existence, if someone were to take it into his head to question it. A THING IN ITSELF is what the objects of cognition are in themselves, as existing outside and independently of us, of our cognition, its sensory and logical forms. The thesis about the existence of things (in themselves) outside of consciousness was made so arr. the starting point of Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason", being the most essential support of his entire epistemological construction. From the side of the THING IN ITSELF, according to Kant, as being different from our sensibility, influences come to us, there is an "affecting of sensibility" and thus, in the final analysis, the entire content of what is comprehended is determined. As for the form of this comprehended, it is entirely determined by the activity of the human intellect - a priori forms of consciousness, which, in turn, are also awakened due to the impact of objects (THING IN ITSELF) on the senses. The most important characteristic of V. in S. in Kant's philosophy is also the thesis that theoretical knowledge is possible only in relation to phenomena, but not in relation to V. in S., i.e. the postulate of the unknowability of the latter and, accordingly, the opposition of the phenomenon, on the one hand, and the THING IN ITSELF, on the other. Thanks to this interpretation, the THING IN ITSELF has become such a concept, without which, according to one of the first critics of Kant, F. Jacobi, it is impossible to enter his critical philosophy and with which it is impossible to stay in it; a concept that gave rise to a lot of problems and contradictions, for which Kant and his philosophy were subjected to thorough criticism. After all, if the THING IN ITSELF is unknowable (which, in Kant's understanding, means the absolute inapplicability of the categories of reason to it, for the latter are applicable only to phenomena), then such categories as reality and causality cannot be attributed to it, and then one cannot speak of its reality and efficiency, that it is the true cause of human knowledge. This idea was one of the most essential contradictions of all critical philosophy. Ambivalence in the understanding of V. in S. is connected in Kant's philosophy with the second aspect of the interpretation of this concept. Substantiating the ideas of freedom, the immortality of the soul, God in the Critique of Practical Reason, he transfers them to the so-called intelligible world of V. in S., which he postulates as not only supersensible, but also non-material in ontological terms. In this case, the meaning of the concept THING IN ITSELF doubles, as it were: the world of V. in S. is identified with the transcendent, intelligible world of ideas, and the THING IN ITSELF is thus deprived of a materialistic lining, acquires an exclusively idealistic coloring. In this context, it becomes completely incomprehensible how the transcendental, supersensible V. in S. can affect our feelings, cause sensations and be the source of the content of our knowledge. It should therefore be recognized as completely justified the criticism to which Kant's teaching on V. in S. was subjected to by his immediate followers - the classics of German idealism - Fichte and Hegel. The first emphasized the need to eliminate it as such from philosophy in general (denying such properties as its objective existence outside of us and independently of our consciousness). The second, Hegel, spoke mainly against the thesis about the unknowability of V. in S. and the presence of an insurmountable barrier between it and the phenomenon.
T.G. Rumyantsev