THINGS IN THEMSELVES

[B164] Kant opposes things in themselves to appearances. He asserts that they are unknowable but (in a certain indeterminate manner) thinkable, that they have neither spatial not temporal properties. Whereas appearances are subject to the conditions of human sensibility and understanding, things in themselves are subject to other, unknown laws. "That the laws of appearances in nature must agree with the understanding and its a priori form, that is, with its faculty of combining the manifold in general, is no more surprising than that the appearances themselves must agree with the form of a priori sensible intuition....Things in themselves would necessarily, [and crucially unlike appearances] apart from any understanding tat knows them [which is why they exist in themselves and not, like appearances, in a knowing subject], conform to laws of their own [and not to laws of our sensibility and understanding]".