Heterophenomenology: a limited critique

Abstract

Dennett (Synthese, 53(2), 159–180, 1982, 1991, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 10(9–10), 19–30, 2003, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 6, 247–270, 2007) proposes and defends a method called heterophenomenology. Heterophenomenology is a method to study consciousness from a third-person objective point of view as opposed to a first-person subjective point of view or (auto)-phenomenology. The method of heterophenomenology serves a necessary role in Dennett’s schema of bridging the gap between the manifest and the scientific image of the world. In this paper, I attempt to present a limited critique of the method of heterophenomenology. The objection raised in this paper is limited to one of the steps involved in the method, i.e., the interpretation of the heterophenomenological text as analogous to novelist fiction. I attempt to show that the assumptions made by Dennett about the interpretation of fiction are contradictory in nature and therefore the same cannot be applied to the interpretation of a heterophenomenological text. The assumptions fail in justifying the interpretation of fiction itself and hence exporting them by analogy to interpret a heterophenomenological text is a mistake.