Heterophenomenology is defined by Dennett to be a third person perspective when studying consciousness or mental experience. It serves as Dennett’s departure point in addressing the complexities of consciousness. Phenomenology traditionally relies on a subject’s authority to describe their subjective experience. Dennett accepts all subjective information but delegates the study to another actor. Unlike traditional phenomenology, he does not grant authority to the subject’s accuracy. Subjective experience is a person’s account of their world or fictional narratives, and presents challenges. By admitting that anything the subject says could be studied, heterophenomenology accommodates potential gaps in understanding.

Subjective experience can be seen as a person’s accounts of their worlds, or of the fictional worlds of the novels they read and the movies they watch. Challenges with studying heterophenomenology appear in the case of gaps that someone may fill when enjoying fiction and assuming something about, for example, a city, a character, settings, and details because they have read a few descriptions. By admitting that anything the subject says could be studied, this problem could be solved. 

Dennett tells us an imaginary story about a tribe that lives in the forest and worships the god Feenoman. Feenomanologists are the anthropologists who study the Feenoman faith, while Feenomanists are the priests and represent phenomenologists. Feenomanists may disagree about the way the Feenomanologists study Feenoman, but if that disagreement was about anything missing from the study, Feenomanologists could supply those missing parts and represent heterophenomenologists. They are totally neutral; they would not criticise the worship of Feenoman, nor would they try to affect those who worship this deity and, more importantly, they would not neglect any detail of that faith nor any aspect of the experience of worshipers. Thus, heterophenomenology studies what language reveals about the individual experience. 

Heterophenomenology embraces dreams, hallucinations, and stories, akin to anthropologists studying mythologies, deities and traditions. Even if a person cannot describe all their experiences, heterophenomenology allows for studying what they can articulate at the moment of study. 

Read more on this series:

Introduction

Multiple Drafts Model

Consciousness of time