epiphenomenal

English

Etymology

From epi- +‎ phenomenal.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌɛpɪfɪˈnɒmɪnəl/

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Adjective

epiphenomenal (comparative more epiphenomenal, superlative most epiphenomenal)

1. Being of secondary consequence to a causal chain of processes, but playing no causal role in the process of interest.
   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 58:

     An organism's consciousness is epiphenomenal to its behavior, and its behavior is determined by unconscious calculations.

   • 2022, China Miéville, chapter 2, in A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, →OCLC:

     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.

2. (philosophy, psychology) 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.
   • 2002, Daniel Dennett, “‘Epiphenomenal’ Qualia?”, in Neil Campbell, editor, Mental Causation and the Metaphysics of Mind: A Reader, Broadview, page 211:

     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.

Translations

Translations

• Finnish: epifenomenaalinen