Daniel Dennett

The Philosopher's Philosopher (The Bus 1.33)

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The Stop

Daniel Clement Dennett III (1942 - ) is an American philosopher who specialises in the philosophy of mind.¹ Born in Boston, Dennett received a B.A. in philosophy from Harvard in 1963 and in 1965 completed his D.Phil at Oxford University under the tutelage of the renowned philosopher Gilbert Ryle.² An atheist, his worldview on religion - which as it developed found itself aligning with other prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins³, Christopher Hitchens,⁴ and Sam Harris⁵ - led to him being identified as one of the so-called ‘Four Horsemen of the Counter-Apocalypse.’

Daniel Dennett in Venice/Wikimedia

After Oxford, Dennett taught at the University of California, Irvine from 1965 until 1971 when he move to Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. With the exception of visiting positions at Harvard, Oxford, and the London School of Economics (among others), he has spent his career at Tufts where he was most recently the Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies. Dennett was also the Co-founder and Co-director of the Curricular Software Studio at Tufts, designed exhibits on computers for the Smithsonian, the Boston Museum of Science and the Computer Museum in Boston, received two Guggenheim Fellowships and a Fulbright Fellowship, and was awarded a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Science. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987 and is currently a member of the external faculty of both the Santa Fe Institute and the New College of the Humanities in London.

Consciousness has long been a primary interest in Dennett’s work, a focus which has led him into the fields of artificial intelligence, neuroscience and cognitive psychology. Early in his career he became convinced that any ‘productive philosophical debate about the mind’ can happen only if it is ‘informed by science’ - an at the time ‘unorthodox’ viewpoint casting him as a ‘radical among his colleagues.’ Though faced with skepticism at first, his ‘interdisciplinary strategy’ soon became common among philosophers as scientists learned more about the brain’s mechanisms.

Dennett’s physicalist⁶ viewpoint led him to determine that all forms of religion are false as he believes the evidence shows that ‘religious inclinations’ are no more than the ‘by-product of instinct-driven social phenomena.’ In other words, the human ability to identify ‘intent in fellow humans’ - unquestionably useful in an evolutionary context - also led them to ‘ascribe intent where none was actually evident, as in the case of creationism.' Dennett thinks this imposition of meaning onto something that is in fact meaningless provides an ‘evolutionary explanation for the development of religious thought.’ 

Along with being a proficient farmer and sailor, Dennett is a prolific writer and the author of numerous well-received and widely read books, including Consciousness Explained (1991) and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995). His most recent, From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds (2017) continues his lifelong pursuit to understand not only the physical nature of human consciousness, but the impact this remarkable property of the human brain has had in developing what we know as human society.

The Detour

Today’s Detour is to an article from Lapham’s Quarterly composed of extracts from the diary of Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen which he wrote in June 1894 while waiting for ice floes to carry his ship towards the North Pole. Mesmerising.

A Midsummer on Ice

The Book

Today’s book is, fitting for the Stop, Daniel Dennett’s Breaking The Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. I first read this in 2015 when developing resources for a philosophy course and have since returned to the book numerous times.

From the back: What is religion and how did it evolve? Is it the product of blind evolutionary instinct or of rational choice? Is the only way to live a good life through religion? Few forces in the world are as potent as religion: it comforts people in their suffering and inspires them to both magnificent and terrible deeds. In this provocative and timely book, Daniel C. Dennett seeks to uncover the origins of religion and discusses how and why different faiths have shaped so many lives, whether religion is an addiction a genuine human need, and even whether it is good for our health. Arguing passionately for the need to understand this multifaceted phenomenon, Breaking the Spell offers a truly original - and comprehensive - explanation for faith.

For a critical review from The Guardian, see: Beyond Belief

Remember: You can buy Breaking the Spell at Amazon, but you can also get it from your local new or used bookstore - or check it out from the library. And those options are better for everyone.

The Sounds

Please note: songs flagged as explicit ARE explicit, so skip them if you wish.

Today’s playlist is composed entirely of tracks that - as of yesterday - were completely new to me. Looking for something to listen to on the plane back from NYC to London, I downloaded a playlist suggested at herbsundays@substack.com. It turned out to be a great decision as these are now on my regular playlist: ‘Blue Nude (Reclined)’ by PE, ‘Alive Ain’t Always Living’ by Quelle Chris, ‘Dirty Dancer’ by Orion Sun, ‘Sinister Bell’ by Patrick Holland, and ‘In the Days of Slowness’ by Spencer Zahn - all released this year. Give them a listen - they’re great.

The Thought

Today’s Thought is a quotation from George Orwell, unfortunately apt considering how some groups approach what they consider ‘unpleasant’ history these days:

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

If you have a thought on this Thought - or any part of today’s issue - please leave a comment below:

And that’s the end of this stop - I hope you enjoyed a brief diversion from your regular journey!

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Until the next stop …

1. Philosophy of mind is the branch of philosophy concerned with ‘quite general questions about the nature of mental phenomena: what … is the nature of thought, feeling, perception, consciousness, and sensory experience?’ For more information, see: Philosophy of Mind (Britannica). Dennett is one of my favourite contemporary philosophers and will be popping up in various guises in future Stops. Sources for this Stop include Dennett (Tufts) and Dennett (Britannica).

2. Ryle is one of the pivotal thinkers in the philosophy of mind. He’ll appear in a later Stop, but in the meantime see: Gilbert Ryle (Britannica).

3. Richard Dawkins (Britannica).

4. Christopher Hitchens (Britannica).

5. Sam Harris.

6. Physicalism (in some circles still known as materialism) is the philosophical view that ‘all facts (including facts about the human mind and will and the course of human history) are causally dependent upon physical processes, or even reducible to them.’ For more information, see Materialism (Physicalism) (Britannica)