Ignorance of Things in Themselves

Rae Langton
The Norton Introduction to Philosophy, eds. Alex Byrne, Joshua Cohen, Gideon Rosen,
Seana Shiffrin (Norton Press, forthcoming)

1. Skepticism and Humility
Many philosophers have wanted to tell us that things may not be quite as they seem:
many have wanted to divide appearance from reality. Democritus wrote presciently in the
fifth century BC
by convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by
convention cold, by convention color; but in reality atoms and void.
1


Plato argued for a different division: the imperfect, changeable things we see around us
are mere appearance, and reality is an independent realm of perfect, invisible, eternal
forms. Much later, Descartes wondered whether the familiar world of stoves and dressing
gowns, streets and people, might turn out to be mere appearancenot because it is less
real than the realm of atoms, or Forms, but because, for all we know, the stoves and
dressing gowns, streets and people, dont exist at all.
2
Perhaps I am dreaming, or
deceived by an Evil Demon, who interferes with my mind (like that evil neuroscientist of
science-fiction!), so that what appears to me is nothing like whats really there.
That Demon still haunts the halls of philosophy, despite Descartess own efforts
to banish him. The mere possibility of his deceptive machinations persuades some

1
Trans. C.C.W. Taylor, The Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus. Fragments, A Text and
Translation with Commentary, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999, cited by
Sylvia Berryman, Democritus, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
2
Descartes, Rene, Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), trans. John Cottingham,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

philosophers that, even if there is actually no Demon, and appearance captures reality
very nicely, we nevertheless cant be quite sure that it does. This means we dont know
what we thought we knew. We confront skepticism. We dont have knowledge of the
external world. We are ignorant of things in themselves, in some sense of that phrase:
we lack knowledge of things independent of our minds. (REF Scepticism, this volume).
Kant described scepticism as a scandal, and in 1781 he published his Critique of
Pure Reason to set the scandal to rest.
3
The Critique is a brilliant but formidably difficult
work. In it, Kant aims to show that skepticism is wrong because, roughly, we could not
have thoughts at all, unless we had thoughts about things. Perhaps he was trying to say
that appearance just is reality: for provided we are thinking at all, we cant be wholly
ignorant of things.
Whether Kant set skepticism to rest is one question. Whether he was really trying
to, is another. For Kant said something else as well, famously and often. Although we
have knowledge of things, these things are only phenomena, and we have no
knowledge of things in themselves. Are those the words of someone offering a cure for
skepticism? The sceptic says we have knowledge only of appearances: Kant says have
knowledge only of phenomena. The skeptic says we have no knowledge of things
independent of our minds: Kant says we have no knowledge of things in themselves.
Appearance is not reality after all. It looks like Kant is saying just what the sceptic says
doesnt it?

3
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, tr. Norman Kemp Smith (London:
Macmillan, 1929).

Evidently it depends what Kant means by things in themselves. If things in
themselves means things independent of our minds, then being ignorant of them is a way
of being a sceptic. Instead of having a cure for skepticism, Kant has the disease. To be
sure, Kants proposal relieves the symptoms: he offers a wealth of argument about the
very special knowledge we have of objectsbut they are phenomenal objects, mere
appearances. What a disappointment, if we were hoping for knowledge of reality, of
things independent of our minds. What consolation is it to learn that we have special
knowledge, if its knowledge of mere appearance? Kants subtle arguments about the
conditions of our thought look irrelevant, if they deny knowledge of reality, and land us
in skepticism again.
What, though, if Kant means something quite different by things in themselves?
Then ignorance of things in themselves neednt be skepticism. Knowledge of
phenomena neednt restrict us to knowledge of mind-dependent appearance. That is
exactly the idea were going to pursue here. We wont go into Kants famous arguments
against skepticismabout how we cant think, unless we think about objects. Were
going to look instead at what ignorance of things in themselves amounts to. Well take
seriously the possibility that you and I, right now, are ignorant of things in themselves,
just as Kant saidand that we can welcome this conclusion, without thereby welcoming
skepticism.
The key idea is this. The phrase things in themselves does not mean things
independent of our minds. It means the way things are independentlythat is,
independently of their relations not just to our minds, but to anything else at all.
We are often interested in the relations one thing bears to another. Sometimes the
relevant relations are spatial: the tennis ball flew over the net, and over the white line.
Sometimes the relevant relations are biological: Jane is Jims cousin, and Joans grand-
daughter. But when we talk about the relations a thing has to other things, we tend to
assume there is something more to the thing than those relations. There is more to Jane
than being Jims cousin and Joans grand-daughter. There is more to the tennis ball than
its passage over the net, and over the white line. Now, Kant sometimes uses the word
phenomenon to mean, quite generally, an object in a relation to some other object.
And he sometimes talks about this assumption that there must be something more to an
object than its relations to other things:
The understanding, when it entitles an object in a relation mere
phenomenon, at the same time forms, apart from that relation, a
representation of an object in itself. (B306, emphasis added)

He also says:
Concepts of relation presuppose things which are absolutely [i.e.
independently] given, and without these are impossible. (A284/B340)

This absolute or independent thing, which isnt exhausted by its relations to other
things, is something to which we can give the name substance, which just means
an independent thing that has an independent, or intrinsic, nature.
Substances in general must have some intrinsic nature, which is therefore
free from all external relations. (A274/B330)

Putting this all together, the idea that there is a thing in itself turns out to be the
idea that there is something to an object over and above its relations to other things:
something more to you than being the son or daughter of A, the cousin of B, the grand-
child of C; something more to the tennis ball than its spatial relations to nets and lines on
a tennis court. A thing that has relations to something else must have something more to
it than that: it must have some intrinsic nature, independent of those relations. It is this
something else, this something more, that is the thing in itself.
If we take this idea at face value, it promises to solve the difficulty we face.
Ignorance of things in themselves is not skepticism. It doesnt rule out knowledge of
things independent of our minds. It rules out knowledge only of a things non-relational,
intrinsic properties.
We can know a lot! Appearance is reality: things as they appear to us are things as
they really are. But something is still ruled out: namely, knowledge of how things are
independent of their relations to other things. Appearance is reality, but its not all of
reality. We can know a lot about the world, but we cant know everything about it: we
cant know its independent, intrinsic nature.
To say we can know a lot about something, but not everything, is not skepticism,
but a kind of epistemic modestyso lets call it humility. And since it is at the center of
Kants philosophy (or so Im arguing), lets call it Kantian humility.
4
In what follows,
Im going to say why Kant believed it. And then Ill say why you, too, should believe it.

2. Humility in Kant
Ive suggested that Kants distinction between phenomena and things in themselves is
a contrast not between appearance and reality, but between extrinsic and intrinsic
aspects of something. On this usage, if we say a tennis ball fell over the white line, we

4
Rae Langton, Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998; 2001)

ascribe to it a relational, hence phenomenal, property; whereas if we say it is spherical,
we ascribe to it an intrinsic property, which concerns the tennis ball as it is in itself.
Lets summarize the distinction this way.
Distinction Things in themselves are things that have intrinsic
properties; phenomena are their extrinsic, or relational
properties.

Against this backdrop, ignorance of things in themselves is not skepticism, but ignorance
of certain propertiesintrinsic properties:
Humility We have no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of things.

This could be construed as the idea that we have no knowledge of any of the
intrinsic properties of things, and that (I think) is the idea we should ascribe to Kant.
Admittedly, it sounds odd. If an intrinsic property is a property something has
independent of its relations to other things, then many of those seem perfectly accessible
to us: for example, the sphericality of the tennis ball. But Kant himself seemed to think
we lack knowledge of any intrinsic properties: we do have knowledge of certain physical
properties of things, such as their shape, and their powers of attraction and
impenetrability; but he thinks these are not intrinsic, as the following passages illustrate.

The Intrinsic and Extrinsic. In an object of pure understanding the intrinsic
is only that which has no relation whatsoever (so far as its existence is
concerned) to anything different from itself. It is quite otherwise with a
substantia phaenomenon [phenomenal substance] in space; its intrinsic
properties are nothing but relations, and it itself is entirely made up of
mere relations. We are acquainted with substance in space only through
forces which are active in this and that space, either drawing other objects
(attraction) or preventing their penetration (repulsion and impenetrability).
We are not acquainted with any other properties constituting the concept
of the substance which appears in space and which we call matter. As
object of pure understanding, on the other hand, every substance must
have intrinsic properties and powers which concern its inner reality. (A
265/B321)

Substances in general must have some intrinsic nature, which is therefore
free from all external relations....But what is intrinsic to the state of a
substance cannot consist in place, shape, contact, or motion (these
determinations being all external relations). (A274/B330)


All that we know in matter is merely relations (what we call its intrinsic
properties are intrinsic only in a comparative sense), but among these
relations some are...enduring, and through these we are given a
determinate object...It is certainly startling to hear that a thing is to be
taken as consisting wholly of relations. Such a thing is, however, mere
appearance. (A285/B341)

Kant thinks the physical world is made up of matter, phenomenal substance, but that
matter somehow consists wholly of relations. He is drawing on a dynamical account of
matter (further developed in his works on physical theory) according to which matter is
constituted by forces. He has a proto field theory, which had an important historical role
to play, influencing scientists who went on to develop field theory proper in the
nineteenth century.
5
And familiar physical propertiesshape, impenetrability, attractive
powercount, for him, as extrinsic or relational properties.
Whether that is right way to classify them depends how we understand the
intrinsic/relational distinction. We have said, loosely, that an intrinsic property is one that
doesnt depend on relations to anything else. Some philosophers have tried to make this
more precise by saying a property is intrinsic just in case it is compatible with isolation
i.e. it does not imply the existence of another wholly distinct object.
6
On this way of

5
According to Faradays biographer, see Williams, L. P. Michael Faraday: A
Biography (London: Chapman and Hall, 1965).

"
For some efforts to define intrinsic see e.g. Rae Langton and David Lewis, Defining
Intrinsic, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58 (1998), 333-45; I.L.
thinking, a tennis balls sphericality will be intrinsic: a tennis ball can be spherical and be
the only thing in the universe. And the tennis balls bounciness will also be intrinsic.
After all, a tennis ball can be bouncy and be the only thing in the universe, although, to be
sure, it will not bounce unless there is something else for it to bounce off! On the face of
things, shape properties like sphericality, and dispositional properties like bounciness, are
intrinsic: something could have them, and exist all on its own.
If Kant nonetheless describes them as relational, perhaps he has a different
conception of intrinsicness in mind. Perhaps he thinks a things shape properties are
relational because they depend on a relation to the parts of the thing. For example, the
sphericality of the tennis ball depends on how the parts making up its surface are
equidistant from its center. Perhaps he thinks dispositional properties are relational
because they depend on how something would relate to other things if they were there.
For example, whether something is bouncy depends on what it would do in relation to
something elseif, say, it were dropped on the ground, or thwacked against a tennis
racket.
Some metaphysicians like to ponder the distinction between intrinsic and
relational properties, but we neednt settle it here. All we need is that Kant denies us
knowledge of any intrinsic properties, in some defensible sense of intrinsic, and that
this is what he means by denying us knowledge of things in themselves.
Why does Kant deny us knowledge of intrinsic properties? The answer, I suggest,
has two parts. First, he thinks, as many philosophers do, that our knowledge is

Humberstone, Intrinsic/Extrinsic, Synthese 108 (1996), pp. 205-267. The isolation
test has many difficulties which I wont go into here.


receptive: our minds need to be causally affected by something, if we are to have
knowledge of it.
The receptivity of our mind, its power of receiving representations in so
far as it is affected in any way, is called sensibility [....] Our nature is
such that our intuition can never be other than sensible, that is, it contains
only the way in which we are affected by objects. (A51/B75)

Our knowledge of things is receptive, sensible: we gain knowledge only through being
affected by objects.
Receptivity Human knowledge depends on sensibility, and sensibility is
receptive: we can have knowledge of an object only in so
far as it affects us.

This simple fact about our knowledge, he seems to think, dooms us to ignorance of things
in themselves.
Properties that belong to things as they are in themselves can never be
given to us through the senses. (A36/B52)

It is not that through sensibility we are acquainted in a merely confused
way with the nature of things as they are in themselves; we are not
acquainted with that nature in any way at all. (A44/B62)

Why should the receptivity of knowledge imply ignorance of things in
themselves? Many philosophers have wondered about this on Kants behalf, and some
have criticized him roundly on the topic. P.F. Strawson wrote:
knowledge through perception of things...as they are in themselves is
impossible. For the only perceptions which could yield us any knowledge
at all of such things must be the outcome of our being affected by those
things; and for this reason such knowledge can be knowledge only of
those things as they appear...and not of those things as they...are in
themselves. The above is a fundamental and unargued complex premise
of the Critique.
7



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Is Kant really taking this for granted, as a fundamental and unargued complex premise?
Perhaps not. Perhaps he has good reason to connect receptivity to ignorancebut a
reason that has gone unnoticed.
Here is a simple suggestion. According to receptivity, we have knowledge only of
what affects us. But things as they are in themselves do not affect us: the intrinsic
properties of things do not affect us. If Kant believed this, then that, together with his
commitment to receptivity about knowledge, would certainly explain why we are
ignorant of things in themselves.
A case can be made that this is just what Kant believes. I confess that, as a matter
of interpretation, it is controversial. Here is not the place to do it justice. It involves
detailed investigative work of a kind we historians of philosophy find strangely thrilling,
although were aware not everyone shares our enthusiasm. But here at least are two small
gestures in this direction. In an early philosophical treatise Kant argues that
a substance never has the power through its own intrinsic properties to
determine others different from itself, as has been proven.
8

According to Kant, the causal powers of a substance are something over and above its
intrinsic properties. At this stage of his thinking he believes that they require an
additional act of creation on Gods partan act which is obviously arbitrary on Gods
part. He took this idea about the insufficiency of intrinsic properties for causal power to
imply not only the contingency of causal power, but the inertia of intrinsic properties.
The idea returns in the Critique of Pure Reason:

8
Kant, Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova dilucidatio (1755),
Ak. Vol. 1, 415. English translation (here amended): A New Exposition of the First
Principles of Metaphysical Knowledge, in L.W. Beck et al., eds., Kants Latin Writings:
Translations, Commentaries and Notes (New York: P. Lang, 1986).

when everything is merely intrinsic...the state of one substance cannot
stand in any active connection whatsoever with the state of another.
(A274/B330)
9


Receptivity requires that if we are to have knowledge of something, we have to be in
active causal connection with it: but were not in active causal connection with a things
intrinsic properties. Receptivity means we can be acquainted with the causal powers of
things, the ways they relate to each other and to ourselves: but however deeply we
explore this causal nexus, we cannot reach the things in themselves.

3. Why We are Ignorant of Things in Themselves
Kant said we are ignorant of things in themselves: ignorant of the intrinsic properties of
things. The picture I have painted on his behalf is, I hope, appealing, in certain respects:
Kantian humility does not, at least, condemn us to skepticism. But the picture will not
appeal to everyone. Kants conclusion seems too strong: we have no knowledge of any of
the intrinsic properties of things. His reasons invoke a seemingly idiosyncratic conception
of intrinsicness: a tennis balls sphericality and bounce are not among its intrinsic
properties. And they invoke a seemingly implausible causal thesis: intrinsic properties are
causally inert. So however this interpretation succeeds as a way to understand Kant, it is
unlikely to succeed in reaching a wider audience.
But wait. There is a conclusion very similar to Kants that is significantly closer
to home. Kant says we are ignorant of the intrinsic properties of things: and he is right,
though not for quite the reasons we have been looking at. And if he is right, of course,
then you too should believe we are ignorant of things in themselves.

4
The context is a discussion of Kants predecessor, Leibniz, who denied causal
interaction between substances.
Imagine that a detective is investigating a murder case. She puts together the
clues. The murderer had a key, since no windows were broken. He was known to the dog,
since there was no barking. He had size ten shoesthere are his footprints. More and
more of the picture begins to be filled out. He wore gloves, since there were no
fingerprints. He had a tame parakeetthere are green feathers on the rug. The detective
learns a lot about the murderer. Does she know who he is? She knows who the murderer
is in relation to other thingshouses, shoes, parakeets, and so on. She knows that the
murderer is whoever fits this role. But does she, so to speak, know the murderer in
himself? Is there something more to the murderer than being a possessor of keys,
parakeets and shoes? Of course. There must, in the end, be more to something or
someone than their merely relational properties, as Kant pointed out. And ultimately, let
us hope, the detective finds herself in a position to identify the person who exists
independently of these relations to other things: Aha! There is one person who fits this
role. There is one person who is known to the dog, wears size ten shoes, has a tame
parakeet, could have a key, and that person is. Pirate Pete! Then she knows who the
murderer is. Then she knows who fits the role: she knows, so to speak, the murderer in
himself.
Some philosophers have suggested we are in a situation rather like that of the
detective. An important recent attempt to show this is that of David Lewis, whose
Ramseyan Humility explicitly claims inspiration from Kantian humility.
10
We are

53
David Lewis, Ramseyan Humility in Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical
Naturalism, eds. Robert Nola and David Braddon-Mitchell (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2009) 203-222. This section is in turn inspired by Lewiss argument, though it is very far
from doing him justice. There have been many attempts to respond, but see e.g. Jonathan
trying to find out, not about a murderer, but about the fundamental features of the world.
We put our best theorists on the job, and they tell us a lot. Suppose we want to find out
about our tennis ball. They tell us that a tennis ball is whatever fits this sort of profile: its
something that can be hit across a net with a tennis racket, something that has a specific
degree of resistance and elasticity, something that is readily visible to human eyes in
normal conditions, something that will roll smoothly downwards when placed on a slope.
These relational descriptions, suitably filled out, give us a story about the role something
must fit if its to be a tennis ball. They capture the relational or (if you like) phenomenal
aspect of the tennis ball. Is there something more to the tennis ball than this relational
role? Of course there must be, just as there is something more to Pirate Pete than his
relations to keys and parakeets.
And our theorists can tell us about this something more. They tell us not only
that the tennis ball can land over the white line, not only that it is spherical and bouncy,
but that it is made of rubber and felt, which in turn are made of very tiny parts called
molecules, which in turn are made up of tinier parts, called atoms, which in turn are made
up of still tinier parts, called protons, neutrons and electronsand more, with names too
peculiar to recount here. Our experts give detailed descriptions of the tiny parts
something must have, and their particular arrangements, if that something is to fit the
tennis ball role. They are giving us a splendid account of what the tennis ball is, in
itself. What more could there be to know about what the tennis ball is, in itself?

Schaffer, Quiddistic Knowledge, Phil. Studies 123 (2005), 1-32; Anne Whittle, On an
Argument for Humility, Philosophical Studies 130 (2006), 461-97.


We certainly know a lot about the tennis ball. In Kants terms, we know a lot
about the tennis ball as phenomenonhow it relates to tennis rackets, nets and players.
And yes: we also know a lot about the tennis ball as it is in itself, what its parts are
made of and how they are arranged. But now shift the question: what exactly do we know
about those tiny parts of the tennis ball?
Take the electron, for example. Our story about the electron has something in
common with the detectives story about the murderer. It captures a complicated
relational profile. An electron is whatever it is that fits a distinctive role, whatever it is
that fits the electron pattern of relating to other things. An electron is the thing that
repels other things we call electrons, attracts other things we call protons. Its the
thing that, in company with lots of other electrons, makes the light-bulb go on, makes
your hair stand on end on a cold, dry day, and so on. The physicist will have a more
detailed story, but it will nevertheless be a story that has this relational form. Electron
refers to whatever fits the physicists relational electron role, just as the murderer
refers to whoever fits the detectives relational murderer role.
The detective discovers who the murderer is, in himself as we put it, when she
discovers who fits the relational murderer role: namely Pirate Pete. The physicist
discovers what the electron is when she discovers what fits the relational electron role:
namely what? Here the analogy with the detective breaks down. The detective is able
to find out who the murderer is, apart from the story about how the murderer relates to
keys, shoes, parakeets. But the physicist is unable to find out what the electron is, apart
from the story about how the electron relates to protons, hair and light bulbs. For the
detective, there is something more to say. For the physicist, there is nothing more to say.
The electron is, to borrow a phrase from Kant, merely a something=x about which we
can say nothing, or rather nothing more than whats given in our relational description.
The upshot: we know the electron as phenomenon, so to speak, but we dont know the
electron as it is in itself.
Here is another way to bring out the point. Suppose, inconveniently, more than
one person fits the role given by the detectives list of clues: suppose Pirate Pete, and
Pirate Percy, and Pirate Peggy all have keys, parakeets, large shoes, and so on. Then
although the detective knows a lot, she still doesnt know who the murderer is. That, or
something like it, is the situation we face with the electron. Consider the thing, whatever
it is, that fits the electron role. We are supposing its intrinsic properties are not inert (we
are leaving that part of Kant behind), but are the causal grounds of its power to repel
other electrons, attract protons and so on. We are, indirectly, in causal contact with those
intrinsic propertiesbut, receptivity notwithstanding, that is still not enough for us to
know what those intrinsic properties are. Why not? Suppose we give a name to the
intrinsic property responsible for this complex causal profile: lets call it negative
charge, or NC for short. Now lets draw on Kants insight about the contingency of
causal power, which is shared, in some form, by many philosophers today (including
Lewis). This contingency means that NC could have been associated with a completely
different relational, causal profile; and a different intrinsic propertycall it NC*could
have been associated with the electrons relational, causal profile. But now ask: is the
electrons intrinsic property NC, or NC*? We dont know, any more than the detective
knows whether the murderer is Pirate Pete or Pirate Percy. So we are faced with humility
again.
Humility: we have no knowledge of the most fundamental intrinsic
properties of things.

This is admittedly a modified version of humility: the conclusion is less drastic than
Kants. We are not denied knowledge of all intrinsic properties: the tennis ball is
spherical, is made of rubber and felt, which in turn are constituted by molecules, elements
and subatomic particles. We know a lot about the intrinsic nature of the tennis ball.
But we do lack knowledge of things in themselves. Kant was right to say it, and
we need to accept it. Its not so bad. Its not skepticism. It is what it is. We face the sad
fact that we know less than we thought: there are some intrinsic properties of which we
shall forever be ignorant. And, sadly, they are the most fundamental properties of all.