Daniel Clement Dennett

This collection of 17 essays by the author offers a comprehensive theory of mind, encompassing traditional issues of consciousness and free will. Using careful arguments and ingenious thought-experiments, the author exposes familiar preconceptions and hobbling institutions. This collection of 17 essays by the author offers a comprehensive theory of mind, encompassing traditional issues of consciousness and free will. Using careful arguments and ingenious thought-experiments, the author exposes familiar preconceptions and hobbling institutions. The essays are grouped into four sections: Intentional Explanation and Attributions of Mentality; The Nature of Theory in Psychology; Objects of Consciousness and the Nature of Experience; and Free Will and Personhood.

Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology

Brainstorms

I only read the most well-know story, “Where am I?”. it’s an entertaining game of logic But it fails really badly at what it sets out to do. The stories were written as “thought experiments”, to make the reader ponder questions about consciousness. But then, using the freedom of fiction, Dennett postulates impossible situations from which he draws conclusions, making the whole experiment completely worthless. There are several of those in “where am I?”, the most flagrant one being a computer replicating a brain (and producing consciousness), and the subject not seeing the difference when his body is controlled by one or the other. This idea alone packs so many assumptions about thought and consciousness (starting with the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain) that the resulting conclusions bring light on nothing more than the author’s peculiar preconceptions.

Brainstorms Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology

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