On the Status of "Things-in-Themselves" in Kant's Critical Philosophy

Abstract

Kant's distinction between "appearances" and "things-in-themselves" asserts the existence of "things-in-themselves",but due to the limitation of our rationality,we cannot form any knowledge about it,then how can we know their existence,i.e.how to get "other shore from this shore." Therefore,some critics holds that this concept by Kant is the concession to a dogmatically rooted extra-mental reality of a philosophy and is no in consistent to his spirit of critical philosophy.This understanding is wrong,as Kant's things-in-themselves concept is not independent part from the sphere of entity in thinking,but a thinking device,and an inevitable assumption when we human beings think about daily experience.Only by this can we run our concept mechanism,in which the tendency of objectivity plays a vital role.