Patrick Hayes did a similar thing for physics. Dennett calls it sophisticated naïve physics, a special case of axiomatic anthropology.

Patrick Hayes, the artificial intelligence researcher, once set out on a project to axiomatize the naïve (or folk) physics of liquids. The idea was to provide a robot with the propositions it would need to use as its core beliefs if it was going to interact with people (who rely on folk physics every day). It proved to be more challenging than he had anticipated, and he wrote an interesting paper about the project, "The Naïve Physics Manifesto" (Hayes, 1978). In the naïve physics of liquids, everything that strikes naïve folks as counterintuitive is, of course, ruled out: siphons are "impossible" and so are pipettes, but you can mop up liquid with a fluffy towel, and pull water out of a well with a suction pump. A robot equipped with such a store of "knowledge" would be as surprised by a siphon as most of us were when first we saw one in action. Hayes's project was what I would call sophisticated naïve physics because he was under no illusions; he knew the theory he was trying to axiomatize was false, however useful in daily life. This was an exercise in what might be called axiomatic anthropology: you treat what the folks say - and agree about - as your axioms or theorems, and try to render the data set consistent, resolving any contradictions encountered. And, of course, he didn't bother rounding up any actual informants; he figured that he knew the naïve physics of liquids as well as any normal person did, so he used himself as his sole informant: axiomatic auto-anthropology.