'Daniel Clement Dennett' (born
March 28 1942 in
Boston,
Massachusetts) is a prominent
American philosopher whose research centers on
philosophy of mind,
philosophy of science and
philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to
evolutionary biology and
cognitive science. Dennett is currently the Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at
Tufts University. Dennett is also a noted
atheist and advocate of the
brights movement.
[1]
Biography
Dennett spent part of his childhood in
Beirut, where, during
World War II, his father, a counter-intelligence agent with the
Office of Strategic Services, had a cover job at the
American Legation. The young Dennett and family returned to Massachusetts in 1947 after his father died in an unexplained plane crash.
[2][3]
He attended
Phillips Exeter Academy, and received his
B.A. in philosophy from
Harvard University in 1963, where he was a student of
W.V. Quine. In 1965, he received his
D.Phil. in philosophy from
Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied under the ordinary language philosopher
Gilbert Ryle. While at Oxford, Dennett has claimed,
[4] he introduced the first
frisbee to the
United Kingdom. Dennett is currently (May 2007) the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, University Professor, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies (with
Ray Jackendoff) at
Tufts University.
Dennett describes himself as "an
autodidact — or, more properly, the beneficiary of hundreds of hours of informal tutorials on all the fields that interest me, from some of the world's leading scientists."
3
Daniel Dennett in
Tahiti in 1984
Dennett gave the
John Locke lectures at the
University of Oxford in 1983, the Gavin David Young Lectures at Adelaide, Australia, in 1985, and the Tanner Lecture at Michigan in 1986, among many others. In 2001 he was awarded the
Jean Nicod Prize and gave the
Jean Nicod Lectures in Paris. He has received two
Guggenheim Fellowships, a
Fulbright Fellowship, and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Science. He was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987. He was the co-founder (1985) and co-director of the Curricular Software Studio at
Tufts University, and has helped to design museum exhibits on computers for the
Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Science in Boston, and the Computer Museum in Boston. He is a Humanist Laureate of the
International Academy of Humanism and a Fellow of the
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is also an avid
sailor.
In October 2006, Dennett was hospitalized due to a
dissection of the
aorta. After a nine-hour surgery, he was given a new aorta and aortic arch. As of November, he was recuperating from the surgery. In an essay posted on the
Edge website, Dennett gives his firsthand account of his health problems, his consequent feelings of gratitude towards the scientists and doctors whose hard work made his recovery possible, and his complete lack of a
"deathbed conversion".
[5]
Philosophical views
Dennett has remarked in several places (such as "Self-portrait", in ''Brainchildren'') that his overall philosophical project has remained largely the same since his time at Oxford. He is primarily concerned with providing a
philosophy of mind that is grounded in
empirical research. In his original
dissertation, ''Content and Consciousness'', he broke up the problem of explaining the mind into the need for a theory of content and for a theory of consciousness. His approach to this project has also stayed true to this distinction. Just as ''Content and Consciousness'' has a bipartite structure, he similarly divided ''Brainstorms'' into two sections. He would later collect several essays on content in ''The Intentional Stance'' and synthesize his views on consciousness into a unified theory in ''
Consciousness Explained''. These volumes respectively form the most extensive development of his views, and he frequently refers back to them in subsequent writings.
In ''Consciousness Explained'', Dennett's interest in the ability of evolution to explain some of the content-producing features of consciousness is already apparent, and this has since become an integral part of his program. He defends a theory known by some as
Neural Darwinism. He also presents an argument against
qualia; he argues that the concept is so confused that it cannot be put to any use or understood in any non-contradictory way, and therefore does not constitute a valid refutation of
physicalism. Much of Dennett's work in the 1990s has been concerned with fleshing out his previous ideas by addressing the same topics from an evolutionary standpoint, from what distinguishes human minds from animal minds (''Kinds of Minds''), to how free will is compatible with a naturalist view of the world (''
Freedom Evolves''). His most recent book, ''
Breaking the Spell'', is an attempt to subject religious belief to the same treatment, explaining possible evolutionary reasons for the phenomenon of religious adherence.
While it is clear that Dennett does not subscribe to a number of categories (such as
Cartesian materialism and
Dualism), it is less clear which ones he fits into. As Dennett himself puts it:
Dennett self-identifies with a few terms. In ''Consciousness Explained'', he admits "I am a sort of '
teleofunctionalist', of course, perhaps the original teleofunctionalist'". He goes on to say, "I am ready to come out of the closet as a sort of
verificationalist". In ''
Breaking the Spell'' he admits to being "
a bright", and defends the term on several occasions. A "qualophile" is Daniel Dennett's nickname for any philosopher who believes in the reality of
qualia.
Role in evolutionary debate
Dennett's views on evolution are identified as being strongly
adaptationist, in line with the views of
ethologist Richard Dawkins. In ''
Darwin's Dangerous Idea'', Dennett showed himself even more willing than Dawkins to defend adaptationism in print, devoting an entire chapter to a criticism of the views of
paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. This stems from Gould's long-running public debate with
E. O. Wilson and other evolutionary biologists over
human sociobiology and its descendant
evolutionary psychology, which Gould,
Richard Lewontin, and
John Maynard Smith opposed, but which Dennett advocated, together with Dawkins and
Steven Pinker.
[6] Dennett's debate with Gould has led to some backlash from Gould and his supporters, who allege that Dennett overstated his claims and misrepresented Gould's.
[7]''
Dennett has also written about and advocated the notion of
memetics.
References
1. "The Bright Stuff" ''New York Times'' Essay reprinted on The Brights website ; see also [1][2][3][4][5] for descriptions of Dennett as an atheist.
2. "The semantic engineer", by Andrew Brown; 17 April 2004
3. Curious Minds: How a Child Becomes a Scientist, , Daniel C., Dennett, Vintage Books, ,
4. The semantic engineer, Guardian Unlimited Books, April 17 2004 http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,6000,1193371,00.html
5. 'Thank Goodness!', ''edge'' 195, Nov. 3, 2006
6. Although Dennett has expressed criticism of human sociobiology, calling it a form of "greedy reductionism," he is generally sympathetic towards the explanations proposed by evolutionary psychology. Gould also is not one sided, and writes: "Sociobiologists have broadened their range of selective stories by invoking concepts of inclusive fitness and kin selection to solve (successfully I think) the vexatious problem of altruism—previously the greatest stumbling block to a Darwinian theory of social behavior. . . . Here sociobiology has had and will continue to have success. And here I wish it well. For it represents an extension of basic Darwinism to a realm where it should apply." Gould, 1980. "Sociobiology and the Theory of Natural Selection" In G. W. Barlow and J. Silverberg, eds., ''Sociobiology: Beyond Nature/Nurture?'' Boulder CO: Westview Press, pp. 257-269.
7. 'Evolution: The pleasures of Pluralism' — Stephen Jay Gould's review of ''Darwin's Dangerous Idea''
Partial bibliography
★ ''
Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology'' (MIT Press
1981) (ISBN 0-262-54037-1)
★ ''
Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting'' (MIT Press
1984) — on
free will and
determinism (ISBN 0-262-04077-8)
★ ''
The Mind's I'' (Bantam, Reissue edition
1985, with
Douglas Hofstadter) (ISBN 0-553-34584-2)
★ ''Content and Consciousness'' (Routledge & Kegan Paul Books Ltd; 2nd ed edition January 1986) (ISBN 0-7102-0846-4)
★ ''The Intentional Stance'' (MIT Press; reprint edition
1989) (ISBN 0-262-54053-3)
★ ''
Consciousness Explained'' (Back Bay Books
1992) (ISBN 0-316-18066-1)
★ ''
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life'' (Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition
1996) (ISBN 0-684-82471-X)
★ ''Kinds of Minds: Towards an Understanding of Consciousness'' (Basic Books 1997) (ISBN 0-465-07351-4)
★ ''Brainchildren: Essays on Designing Minds (Representation and Mind)'' (MIT Press 1998) (ISBN 0-262-04166-9) — A Collection of Essays 1984–1996
★ ''
Freedom Evolves'' (Viking Press
2003) (ISBN 0-670-03186-0)
★ ''Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness (Jean Nicod Lectures)'' (Bradford Books 2005) (ISBN 0-262-04225-8)
★ '' (Penguin Group 2006) (ISBN 0-670-03472-X)
★ ''Dove nascono le idee", Di Renzo Editore, 2006, Italy
★ ''Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language'' (Columbia University Press, New York, 2007) (ISBN 978-0-231-14044-7), co-authored with Maxwell Bennett,
Peter Hacker, and
John Searle
Texts on Dennett
★ "Dennett: Reconciling Science and Our Self-Conception" Matthew Elton (Polity Press, 2003) (ISBN 0-7456-2117-1)
★ ''Daniel Dennett'' edited by Andrew Brook and Don Ross (Cambridge University Press 2000) (ISBN 0-521-00864-6)
★ ''Dennett's Philosophy: A Comprehensive Assessment'' edited by Don Ross, Andrew Brook and David Thompson (MIT Press 2000) (ISBN 0-262-18200-9)
★ Dennett, among others, is discussed in John Brockman's ''
The Third Culture''.
★ ''On Dennett'' John Symons (Wadsworth Publishing Company 2000) (ISBN 0-534-57632-X)
★ Dennett is mentioned on numerous occasions in
David J. Chalmers' '', as Chalmers discusses his theory (ISBN 0-19-511789-1).
★ ''Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience'',
P. Hacker and M.R. Bennett (Blackwell, Oxford, and Malden, Mass., 2003) (ISBN 1-4051-0855-X) has an appendix devoted to a strong critique of Dennett's philosophy of mind
Select quote
See also
★
Cartesian materialism
★
Greedy reductionism
★
Heterophenomenology
★
Intentional stance
★
List of Jean Nicod Prize laureates
★
Memetics
★
Multiple drafts theory of consciousness
External links
General pages
★
Daniel C. Dennett's homepage at Tufts University
★
The Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University
★
Scientific American Frontiers Profile: Daniel Dennett
★
Edge/Third Culture: Daniel C. Dennett
★
Searchable bibliography of Dennett's works
★
Daniel Dennett multimedia files
Interviews and biographies
★
'The Semantic Engineer' — a biographical essay from
The Guardian, April 17, 2004.
★
The Philosophers Magazine: Philosopher of the Month, April 2003: Dan Dennett
★
Radio interview about Intelligent Design on
Philosophy Talk, January 2006.
★
Interview with Dennett at Monsters and Critics
★
Article about Dennett's naturalistic worldview from the New York Times, July 2003
★
Pulling Our Own Strings — ''
Reason'' magazine interviews Dennett.
★
Video interview with Robert Wright at MeaningOfLife.tv
★
''The Atheism Tapes'', program 6, transcript of an extended interview with Dennett for the
Jonathan Miller BBC TV series, 2004.
★
''Point of Inquiry'', March 10, 2006 audio interview with Daniel Dennett on "Breaking the Spell".
★ ''A Glorious Accident: Understanding Our Place in the Cosmic Puzzle,'' a PBS documentary and book interviewing 6 leading thinkers, Dennett among them.
[6][7]
Reviews
★
The God Genome — A highly critical review of Dennett's latest book ''Breaking the Spell'', by Leon Wieseltier.
★
Religion and science — A response to Leon Wieseltier by James Brookfield.
★
Dennett and the Darwinizing of Free Will — A review of Dennett's book ''Freedom Evolves'', by David P. Barash.
★
Review in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy (pp. 295–298) — A review of Dennett's book ''Freedom Evolves'', by Jasper Doomen.
Other
★
Exchange with philosopher Michael Ruse on science and religion.
★
Video of Dennett's response to the claims made in ''
The Purpose Driven Life'' by
Pastor Rick Warren. Presented after a
talk by Warren at the
TED Conference February 2006 in Monterey, CA. 26 mins.
★
Dan Dennett: Ants, terrorism, and the awesome power of memes TED, Feb. 2002
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