phaneron
{{short description|Subject matter of phenomenology}}
{{C. S. Peirce articles|align=right|abbreviations=no}}
The phaneron (From {{langx|grc|φανερός|phaneros}}, meaning 'visible, manifest'){{Cite web |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=fanero%5Cs&la=greek&prior=tis |script-title=grc:φανερός |website=Perseus Digital Library |publisher=Tufts University |access-date=Mar 31, 2023}}Note that {{lang|grc|φανερόν}} is the neuter nominative form (see e.g. {{wikt-lang|grc|φανερός}} on Wiktionary) is the subject matter of phenomenology, or of what Charles Sanders Peirce later called phaneroscopy.{{cite web |url=http://www.gnusystems.ca/PeircePhenom.htm |title=Charles S. Peirce's Phaneroscopy and Phenomenology |author=Gary Fuhrman}} The term, which was introduced in 1905, is similar to the concept of the "phenomenon" in the way it meant "whatever is present at any time to the mind in any way".{{Cite book|title=The Phenomenology of Charles S. Peirce: From the Doctrine of Categories to Phaneroscopy |last=Rosensohn |first=William |publisher=B.R. Grüner |year=1974 |isbn=9060320247 |location=Amsterdam |pages=[https://archive.org/details/phenomenologyofc0000rose/page/78 78] |url=https://archive.org/details/phenomenologyofc0000rose/page/78}} It is the total of all that the mind perceives and knows, whether it corresponds to reality or not.
Concept
According to Peirce: "By the phaneron I mean the collective total of all that is in any way or in any sense present to the mind, quite regardless of whether it corresponds to any real thing or not. If you ask present when, and to whose mind, I reply that I leave these questions unanswered, never having entertained a doubt that those features of the phaneron that I have found in my mind are present at all times and to all minds. So far as I have developed this science of phaneroscopy, it is occupied with the formal elements of the phaneron."Adirondack Lectures, 1905; in Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vol. 1 (eds. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1931), paragraph 284
Insights into the nature of the phaneron may be demonstrated in Peirce's argument that the cosmos consists of the complete phaneron and it has indecomposable elements.{{Cite book|title=Theology of Anticipation: A Constructive Study of C. S. Peirce|last=Ejsing|first=Anette|publisher=Pickwick Publications|year=2007|isbn=9781597525183|location=Eugene, OR|pages=50}} There is also the case of Peirce's understanding that external reality cannot be considered a phaneron since it is not totally open to observation and that there are always aspects to reality that are known during observation.{{Cite book|title=Pragmatism and Management Inquiry: Insights from the Thought of Charles S. Peirce|url=https://archive.org/details/pragmatismmanage00jfon|url-access=limited|last=Fontrodona|first=Juan|publisher=Quorom Books|year=2002|isbn=1567205151|location=Westport, CT|pages=[https://archive.org/details/pragmatismmanage00jfon/page/n60 42]}}
In his writings, Peirce characterized phaneron in various ways and these are motivated by four different concerns.{{Cite book|title=Charles S. Peirce's Phenomenology: Analysis and Consciousness|last=Atkins|first=Richard|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2018|isbn=9780190887179|location=Oxford|pages=95}} The first arises out the thinker's conception of what phenomenology is, which is a study of the possibilities of the consciousness. This underpins one of his characterization of the phaneron as whatever is before the mind or whatever can or could be before the mind. Another concern stems from Peirce's belief that we can only study our own consciousness so aside from the previous characterization, he also referred to phaneron as whatever is before the reader's mind. The third concern pertains the idea regarding what constitutes that which comes before the mind such as the items of consciousness. Finally, Peirce described the phaneron as a totality or the unity of consciousness, maintaining that "the collective total of all that is in any sense present to the mind, quite regardless of whether it corresponds to any real thing or not".{{Cite book|title=The Continuity of Peirce's Thought|last=Parker|first=Kelly|publisher=Vanderbilt University Press|year=1998|isbn=0826512968|location=Nashville|pages=67}}
Notes and references
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External links
- [http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/dictionary.html The Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms] edited by Mats Bergman and Sami Paavola
- [http://www.gnusystems.ca/PeircePhenom.htm Charles S. Peirce's Phaneroscopy and Phenomenology] by Gary Fuhrman