Noumena as Limiting Factors

An interesting concept that Kant discussed in the “Phenomena and Noumena” section was that of noumena being a limiting concept. He states, “The concept of a noumenon is thus a merely limiting concept, the function of which is to curb the pretensions of sensibility” (272). I thought about this in the sense that noumena are logically possible, but not empirically possible. They are limiting because they put a boundary between what is logical and what is illogical. There is the difference between what is a stark contradiction, like a circular square, and a logical possibility, and this difference is the definition of noumena. There is also a difference between what exists in reality and what doesn’t. This concept is a limiting concept because it limits what is plausible for us to reasonably think and separates it from the contradictions.

            Before this paragraph, I was kind of thinking as noumena as a category that I could use to describe some thought or idea. However, with this passage and the different perspective it offers, I could think of it more as a constraining sense instead of a positive sense.