Topical Guide 892
Mark Dorset
Philosophical Concepts: Das Ding an Sich; Noumenon and Phenomenon
Leaving Small’s Hotel, Chapter 7:
The detector was a simple device: just a few pieces of wire, a compass needle, a battery, and a bulb. The plans included two diagrams: a “pictorial” and a “schematic.” Here is the pictorial, drawn from memory:
Here is the schematic, also drawn from memory:
You see the difference. The pictorial depicts the thing as we would see it if it were assembled by a professional using the highest-quality components, but the schematic is a depiction of the essence of the thing; instead of showing the thing, it shows the point of the thing, its function and meaning, the ding an sich. The pictorial is an attempt to represent the object, but the schematic is an attempt to represent the ideal underlying the object. All the electrical projects I built in my boyhood career as a builder of electrical projects included in their instructions both types of diagram: one for the realists and one for the idealists, the dreamers.
Britannica:
noumenon, in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, the thing-in-itself (das Ding an sich) as opposed to what Kant called the phenomenon—the thing as it appears to an observer. Though the noumenal holds the contents of the intelligible world, Kant claimed that man’s speculative reason can only know phenomena and can never penetrate to the noumenon. […]
phenomenon, in philosophy, any object, fact, or occurrence perceived or observed. In general, phenomena are the objects of the senses (e.g., sights and sounds) as contrasted with what is apprehended by the intellect. […] In English translations of the works of Immanuel Kant, “phenomenon” is often used to translate Erscheinung (“appearance”), Kant’s term for the immediate object of sensory intuition […]. Kant contrasted it to the noumenon, or thing-in-itself […].
Performance
Here is Kraft’s reading of the episode from Chipps & Company’s 1999 series of readings from Leaving Small’s Hotel for LTV Studios:
See also:
Philosophical Concepts: The Harmony of the Spheres TG 92; Das Ding an Sich TG 570; Noumenon and Phenomenon TG 855
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, Reservations Recommended, Where Do You Stop?, What a Piece of Work I Am, and At Home with the Glynns.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.