EPIFENÒMENO. - From ἐπὶ χάρις φανύψενον, “phenomenon” means an accessory or added phenomenon. In psychology this name designates a new phenomenon that presents itself on the basis of another phenomenon, or series of phenomena, with which it is ordinarily connected, but from which it may also be separated, without that phenomenon or series of phenomena being modified in its specific character.
For psychologists who reduce emotions to essentially physiological facts, the specific states, for example, of joy, fear, etc., are pure e. Certain forms of materialist psychology (T. H. Huxley, W. Clifford, H. Mausday, T. A. Ribot), denying the substantial reality of the human spirit, regard states of consciousness, including thought, as mere e. of physiological processes (Cf. Th. Ribot, Les maladies de la personnalité, Parigi 1885, pp. 6, 15-18; id., Les maladies de la mémoire, 27e ad., ivi 1925, chap. 1). An analogous position is that of psychophysical parallelism (W. Wundt, G. T. Fechner, H. Ebbinghaus), according to which physiological phenomena and conscious phenomena represent only two different aspects of one and the same series of psychic facts.