Noumenon

Is it a phenomenon, or a noumenon?

The conception of a noumenon, that is, of a thing which must be cogitated not as an object of sense, but as a thing in itself (solely through the pure understanding), is not self-contradictory, for we are not entitled to maintain that sensibility is the only possible mode of intuition.

The final result of Kant's philosophy, expressed in the concisest terms, was the proposition, so humiliating to human cognition, but, at the same time, so fertile in consequences, that we can know only phenomena, or the outward appearances of things, but not the noumenon, or the thing in itself.

We have no specific concept of the noumenon, but think of it merely as whatever the object may be apart from the manner in which our knowledge exhibits it.

That, we have seen, is what prevents the two truths from collapsing into an appearance/reality or phenomenon/noumenon distinction.