Concept
Phenomenon
Overview
any object, fact, or occurrence perceived or observed
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Phenomenon is discussed.
The existence, therefore, of a phenomenon, is but another word for its being perceived, or for the inferred possibility of perceiving it. When the phenomenon is within the range of present observation, by present observation we assure ourselves of its existence; when it is beyond that range, and is therefore said to be absent, we infer its existence from…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
Our apprehension of the manifold in a phenomenon is always successive, is Consequently always changing. By it alone we could, therefore, never determine whether this manifold, as an object of experience, is coexistent or successive, unless it had for a foundation something fixed and permanent, of the existence of which…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
states what it is; names the idea; author linked in the graph; opens on it
If it be remembered that every attribute is _grounded_ on some fact or phenomenon, either of outward sense or of inward consciousness, and that to _possess_ an attribute is another phrase for being the cause of, or forming part of, the fact or phenomenon upon which the attribute is grounded; we may add one more step to complete the analysis. The proposition which asserts that one attribute always accompanies another…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
Everything that can be observed in mental life will be designated at one time or another as a mental phenomenon. It depends, however, whether the particular mental phenomenon is directly due to bodily, organic or material agencies, in which case it does not fall to psychology for investigation; or whether it arose directly from…
Sigmund Freud, Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis
names the idea; states what it is
Our particular act must imply and recognise the universal law.--We find the same thing exhibited in our study of natural phenomena. For instance, we observe thunder and lightning. The phenomenon is a familiar one, and we often perceive it.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
states what it is; names the idea
Philosophers who discussed Phenomenon
- Epicurus
- Johann Gottlieb Fichte
- Bas van Fraassen
- Immanuel Kant
- Nicolas Malebranche
- Thomas Nagel
- Maurice Merleau-Ponty
- Nagarjuna
- Martin Buber
- Johann Georg Hamann
- Friedrich Albert Lange
- Lucretius
- Carl Jung
- Hans Jonas
- Ludwig Boltzmann
- Ernst Cassirer
- Charles Babbage
- Arthur Schopenhauer
- Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)
- Emmanuel Levinas
- John Passmore
- Theodor Lipps
- Jakob Johann von Uexküll
- Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison
Related ideas
- Noumenon
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
- Pyrrhonism
- Philosophy
- Isaac Newton
- Immanuel Kant
- Sextus Empiricus
- Measurement
- Matter
- Hypothesis
- Observation
- Physics
- Theory of forms
- Event (philosophy)
- Galileo Galilei
- Time
- Theory
- Natural science
- Energy
- Doctorate
- Social phenomenon
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Absurdism.