Sorry to demur, but I've always found Dennett's physicalist reductionism deeply, almost touchingly, incoherent. Perhaps he's a mystic of some kind. Or just another fanatic. A wonderful scientist, maybe, but no philosopher of mind.
Certainly a fair comment, though it's his reductionism that draws me to him. I don't think he'd disagree with being called 'no philosopher of mind' - he's gone so far into eliminativism that 'mind' is no longer a category.
I'm really glad you like it! Dennett's great - one of my favourites. Breaking the Spell is a good start, but Darwin's Dangerous Idea is great, too. Consciousness Explained is good - but expects a good bit of background in the issues discussed.
Dennett's great - I found him especially useful when trying to explain to my Year 13s that just because they (or someone) thought they saw a pattern, etc. didn't mean it was actually there. In Consciousness Explained, he refers to a version of this as the 'Philosophers' Syndrome: mistaking a failure of imagination for an insight into necessity.' In his typical take-no-bullshit fashion, he nails it.
This struck a chord. Last night I was re-reading Ben Goldacre's Bad Science and there was a section on the difficulty of understanding phenomena due to an innate, evolution-driven tendency in humans to see patterns and causation , the man in the moon, where there are none. He makes the additional point that while this does not serve us well in science it does benefit in art, Thus two dimensional daubs become landscapes and portraits, and abstracts mean something.
Sorry to demur, but I've always found Dennett's physicalist reductionism deeply, almost touchingly, incoherent. Perhaps he's a mystic of some kind. Or just another fanatic. A wonderful scientist, maybe, but no philosopher of mind.
Certainly a fair comment, though it's his reductionism that draws me to him. I don't think he'd disagree with being called 'no philosopher of mind' - he's gone so far into eliminativism that 'mind' is no longer a category.
I'm really glad you like it! Dennett's great - one of my favourites. Breaking the Spell is a good start, but Darwin's Dangerous Idea is great, too. Consciousness Explained is good - but expects a good bit of background in the issues discussed.
There is also a really good article about him in the New Yorker you can find here: https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/NewYorkerprofile.pdf
Let me know what you think!
Dennett's great - I found him especially useful when trying to explain to my Year 13s that just because they (or someone) thought they saw a pattern, etc. didn't mean it was actually there. In Consciousness Explained, he refers to a version of this as the 'Philosophers' Syndrome: mistaking a failure of imagination for an insight into necessity.' In his typical take-no-bullshit fashion, he nails it.
Super extra like - some topics that are much on my mind. I wasn't familiar with Dennett but now I must know more.
Hi Bryan,
This struck a chord. Last night I was re-reading Ben Goldacre's Bad Science and there was a section on the difficulty of understanding phenomena due to an innate, evolution-driven tendency in humans to see patterns and causation , the man in the moon, where there are none. He makes the additional point that while this does not serve us well in science it does benefit in art, Thus two dimensional daubs become landscapes and portraits, and abstracts mean something.