In the thought of the philosopher
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate ...
, heterophenomenology ("
phenomenology
Phenomenology may refer to:
Art
* Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties
Philosophy
* Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
''of another'', not oneself") is an explicitly third-person, scientific approach to the study of
consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
and other mental phenomena. It consists of applying the
scientific method
The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific me ...
with an
anthropological
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
bent, combining the subject's self-reports with all other available evidence to determine their mental state. The goal is to discover how subjects see the world themselves, without taking the accuracy of the
subject's view for granted.
Overview
Heterophenomenology is put forth as the alternative to traditional
Cartesian phenomenology, which Dennett calls "lone-wolf autophenomenology" to emphasize the fact that traditional phenomenology accepts the subject's self-reports as being authoritative. In contrast, heterophenomenology considers the subjects authoritative only about how things ''seem'' to them. It does not dismiss the Cartesian first-person perspective, but rather
brackets it so that it can be intersubjectively verified by empirical means, allowing it to be submitted as scientific evidence.
The method requires a researcher to listen to the subjects and take what they say seriously, but to also look at everything else available to them, including the subject's bodily responses and environment, evidence provided by relevant neurological or psychological studies, the researcher's memories of their own experiences, and any other scientific data that might help to interpret what the subject has reported.
Dennett notes this method is actually the normal way that anyone will choose to investigate aspects of the mind. He writes: "heterophenomenology is nothing new; it is nothing other than the method that has been used by psychophysicists, cognitive psychologists, clinical neuropsychologists, and just about everybody who has ever purported to study human consciousness in a serious, scientific way".
The key role of heterophenomenology in Dennett's
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some s ...
of consciousness is that it defines all that can or needs to be known about the mind. For any phenomenological question "why do I experience X", there is a corresponding heterophenomenological question "why does the subject say 'I experience X'". To quote Dennett, "The total set of details of heterophenomenology, plus all the data we can gather about concurrent events in the brains of subjects and in the surrounding environment, comprise the total data set for a theory of human consciousness. It leaves out no objective phenomena and no subjective phenomena of consciousness."
See also
*
Alterity
Alterity is a philosophical and anthropological term meaning "otherness", that is, the "other of two" (Latin ''alter''). It is also increasingly being used in media to express something other than "sameness", or something outside of tradition or ...
*
Cartesian theater
"Cartesian theater" is a derisive term coined by philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett to refer pointedly to a defining aspect of what he calls Cartesian materialism, which he considers to be the often unacknowledged remnants of Carte ...
*
Consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
*
Genetic psychology (Brentano)
*
Metaphysics of presence
The concept of the metaphysics of presence is an important consideration in deconstruction. Deconstructive interpretation holds that the entire history of Western philosophy with its language and traditions has emphasized the desire for immediate ...
*
Neurology
Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal ...
*
Noumenon
In philosophy, a noumenon (, ; ; noumena) is a posited object or an event that exists independently of human sense and/or perception. The term ''noumenon'' is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to, the term ''phenomenon'', which ...
*
Phenomena
A phenomenon ( : phenomena) is an observable event. The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfried W ...
*
Phenomenology (philosophy)
Phenomenology (from Greek φαινόμενον, ''phainómenon'' "that which appears" and λόγος, ''lógos'' "study") is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. As a philosophical movement it was founded i ...
*
Phenomenology (psychology)
Phenomenology within psychology, or phenomenological psychology, is the psychological study of subjective experience. It is an approach to psychological subject matter that attempts to explain experiences from the point of view of the subject via ...
*
Qualia
In philosophy of mind, qualia ( or ; singular form: quale) are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term ''qualia'' derives from the Latin neuter plural form (''qualia'') of the Latin adjective '' quālis'' () ...
*
Theory-ladenness In the philosophy of science, observations are said to be "theory-laden" when they are affected by the theoretical presuppositions held by the investigator. The thesis of theory-ladenness is most strongly associated with the late 1950s and early 196 ...
Notes
References
*
Dennett, D. "Heterophenomenology" in Dennett, D. ''Consciousness Explained'', Penguin Press, 1991.
*
*
Dennett, D.br>
"Heterophenomenology Reconsidered" May 31, 2006.
*
Max Velmans, Heterophenomenology vs. critical phenomenology ...https://philpapers.org/rec/VELHVC
External links
*
{{Consciousness
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Phenomenology
Philosophical methodology
Scientific method
Philosophy of mind