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Heterophenomenology ("phenomenology of another not oneself"), is a term coined by Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett

Daniel Clement Dennett is a prominent United States Philosophy whose research centers on philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science....
 to describe an explicitly third-person, scientific approach to the study of consciousness
Consciousness

Consciousness is a difficult term to define, because the word is used and understood in a wide variety of ways, so that it frequently happens that what one person sees as a definition of consciousness is seen by others as about something else altogether....
 and other mental phenomena. It consists of applying the scientific method
Scientific method

Scientific method refers to techniques for investigating phenomenon, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and Measure evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning....
 with an anthropological
Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humans and humanity in its totality. Anthropology has origins in the natural sciences, and the humanities. In Great Britain it was originally divided into physical anthropology and cultural anthropology, which itself was divided into archaeology, technology, ethnology and sociology ....
 bend, combining the subject's self-reports with all other available evidence to determine his or her mental state. The goal is to discover how the subject sees the world him- or herself, without taking the accuracy of the subject's view for granted.

Heterophenomenology is put forth as the alternative to traditional Cartesian
René Descartes

Ren? Descartes , , also known as Renatus Cartesius , was a French philosophy, mathematician, scientist, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic....
 phenomenology, which Dennett calls "lone-wolf autophenomenology" to emphasize the fact that it accepts the subject's self-reports as being authoritative.






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Heterophenomenology ("phenomenology of another not oneself"), is a term coined by Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett

Daniel Clement Dennett is a prominent United States Philosophy whose research centers on philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science....
 to describe an explicitly third-person, scientific approach to the study of consciousness
Consciousness

Consciousness is a difficult term to define, because the word is used and understood in a wide variety of ways, so that it frequently happens that what one person sees as a definition of consciousness is seen by others as about something else altogether....
 and other mental phenomena. It consists of applying the scientific method
Scientific method

Scientific method refers to techniques for investigating phenomenon, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and Measure evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning....
 with an anthropological
Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humans and humanity in its totality. Anthropology has origins in the natural sciences, and the humanities. In Great Britain it was originally divided into physical anthropology and cultural anthropology, which itself was divided into archaeology, technology, ethnology and sociology ....
 bend, combining the subject's self-reports with all other available evidence to determine his or her mental state. The goal is to discover how the subject sees the world him- or herself, without taking the accuracy of the subject's view for granted.

Heterophenomenology is put forth as the alternative to traditional Cartesian
René Descartes

Ren? Descartes , , also known as Renatus Cartesius , was a French philosophy, mathematician, scientist, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic....
 phenomenology, which Dennett calls "lone-wolf autophenomenology" to emphasize the fact that it accepts the subject's self-reports as being authoritative. In contrast, heterophenomenology considers the subject authoritative only about how things seem to him or her.

In other words, heterophenomenology requires us to listen to the subject and take what he or she says seriously, but to also look at everything else available to us, including the subject's bodily responses and environment, and be ready to conclude that the subject is wrong even about his or her own mind. For example, we could determine that the subject is hungry even though he or she doesn't recognize it.

The key role of heterophenomenology in Dennett's philosophy
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
 of consciousness is that it defines all that can be — or needs to be — known about the mind. 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."

Dennett stresses that heterophenomenology does not dismiss the 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. This can be seen by how heavily heterophenomenology relies on adopting the intentional stance
Intentional stance

The intentional stance is a theory of mental content proposed by Daniel C. Dennett. The theory provides the underpinnings of his later works on free will, consciousness, folk psychology, and evolution....
 toward subjects.

See also

  • Neurology
    Neurology

    Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the Central nervous system, Peripheral nervous system, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and...
  • Phenomenology (philosophy)
  • Phenomenology (psychology)
    Phenomenology (psychology)

    In psychology, phenomenology is used to refer to subjective experiences or their study. The experiencing subject can be considered to be the person or self, for purposes of convenience....


External links

  • by Daniel Dennett
    Daniel Dennett

    Daniel Clement Dennett is a prominent United States Philosophy whose research centers on philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science....
  • Dennett revisits/clarifies his position in light of recent criticisms (on-line pre-print)