Note FT — Chapter VIII · MENTAL PROCESSES IN MAN.

If it be said that the object does exist independently of man, though not in the phenomenal guise under which we know it, I would reply—Not so; for it is to the existence under this phenomenal guise that we apply the word "object." In philosophical language, the existence, stripped of its phenomenal aspect, is called the Ding an sich. Its essential character is its independence of man; and hence its unknowability.