Phaneron

The phaneron (Greek φανερός phaneros "visible, showable") is all of that which is, at any time or in any sense, present to the mind.

Origin of the term

The term 'phaneron' was coined by Charles Sanders Peirce: "[B]y 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." (Adirondack Lectures, 1905; in Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vol. 1 [eds. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931], paragraph 284)

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