Dictionary

epiphenomenal en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˌɛpɪfɪˈnɒmɪnəl/ (US)
• (US) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁ep-der. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épsder. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épi Proto-Hellenic *epí Ancient Greek ἐπί (epí) Ancient Greek ἐπῐ- (epĭ-)der. English epi- Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- Proto-Indo-European *-né- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *bʰh₂nyéti Proto-Hellenic *pʰáňňō Ancient Greek φαίνω (phaínō) Ancient Greek φαινόμενον (phainómenon)bor. Late Latin phaenomenonder. English phenomenon Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- Proto-Indo-European *-is Proto-Indo-European *h₂élisder.? Proto-Italic *-ālis Latin -ālisbor. Old French -albor. ▲ Latin -ālis Old French -elbor. ▲ Latin -ālisbor. Middle English -al English -al ▲ Ancient Greek φαινόμενον (phainómenon)bor. French phénomène ▲ Old French -al Middle French -al French -al French phénoménalbor. English phenomenal English epiphenomenal From epi- + phenomenal.

Meanings

1. Being of secondary consequence to a causal chain of processes, but playing no causal role in the process of interest.
   • To this day, critics of materialism regularly recite the tenacious canard that the model crudely counterposes ‘economic’ factors to ‘culture, ideology and mentality’ […] That for materialism, thought is epiphenomenal froth. This is bogus. 2022, China Miéville, chapter 2, in A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, →OCLC:
   • There’s an intuitive belief that technology changes people, and the internet feels like an unusually straightforward example of this process. But it’s also possible that the relationship between the internet and the evolution of society was more epiphenomenal: It’s possible that society is always changing, and that the rise of the internet was a coincidental event that merely made that natural process more visible. 2022, Chuck Klosterman, The Nineties, New York: Penguin Press, →ISBN:
   • An organism's consciousness is epiphenomenal to its behavior, and its behavior is determined by unconscious calculations. 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 58:
2. Of or pertaining to a mental process that occurs only as an incidental effect of electrical or chemical activity in the brain or nervous system.
   • If qualia are epiphenomenal in the standard philosophical sense, their occurrence can't explain the way things happen (in the material world) since, by definition, things would happen exactly the same without them. 2002, Daniel Dennett, “‘Epiphenomenal’ Qualia?”, in Neil Campbell, editor, Mental Causation and the Metaphysics of Mind: A Reader, Broadview, page 211:

Forms

Deriveds

epiphenomenalize · epiphenomenalistic · epiphenomenalism · epiphenomenalist · epiphenomenally

Translations (2)

pl epifenomenalny (Translations) · fi epifenomenaalinen (Translations)