Daniel Dennett
Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy
Tufts University, Massachusetts, United States
Profile – Daniel C. Dennett (b. 1942)
Dan Dennett, Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University in Massachusetts, studied for his DPhil with Gilbert Ryle at Oxford, and is one of the best-known of contemporary philosophers. Among his many books are Elbow Room (1984) and Freedom Evolves (2003) about free will; Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1996) and From Bacteria to Bach and Back (2017) about the evolution of minds; and his challenging Consciousness Explained (1991), which demolishes what he calls the Cartesian theatre to replace it with the theory of multiple drafts. He argues for the method of heterophenomenology, rejects zombies as a waste of time, and claims we are all zimboes or conscious robots. He works closely with psychologists and computer engineers, and has long been fascinated by artificial intelligence and robots. He has spent many summers on his farm in Maine, repairing the house, carving wood, making cider, and thinking about consciousness while mowing the hay. Some critics accuse him of explaining consciousness away, but he insists that his really is a theory of consciousness and that, like all good theories, it works like a crane, not a skyhook.
More biographical information
Academic profile at Tufts University
Entry in The Information Philosopher
Autobiography in Philosophy Now, Part 1, Part 2, 2008
Interviews with Dan Dennett:
- A collection of Dennett’s contributions (video, audio, and text) to the Guardian, September 2017
- ‘I begrudge every hour I have to spend worrying about politics.’ Interview on politics and philosophy, the Guardian, February 2017
- Daniel Dennett’s science of the soul. Profile in the New Yorker, March 2017
- Interview on AI, robots, and religion. Financial Times, March 2017
- The secret of consciousness. Interview for NewPhilosopher, March 2014
Twitter @danieldennett
Publications
Dennett’s own annotated bibliography
Citations on Google Scholar
Quotes on Goodreads
Selected publications relevant to consciousness
Dennett, D. C. (1976). Are dreams experiences? Philosophical Review, 73, 151–171. Reprinted in D. C. Dennett (1978). Brainstorms: Philosophical essays on mind and psychology (pp. 129–148). New York: Penguin. Paywall-protected journal record here.
Dennett, D. C. (1987). The intentional stance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Books preview here.
Dennett, D. C. (1988). Quining qualia. In A. J. Marcel and E. Bisiach (Eds), Consciousness in contemporary science (pp. 42–77). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reprinted in D. Chalmers (2002), Philosophy of mind: Classical and contemporary readings (pp. 226–246). New York: Oxford University Press. Full text (html) here.
Dennett, D. C. (1991). Consciousness explained. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co. Google Books preview here.
Dennett, D. C. (1995a). The path not taken. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 18, 252–253. Commentary on N. Block, ‘On a confusion about a function of consciousness’, BBS, 18, 227–247. Full text (html) (commentary) here and (target article) here.
Dennett, D. C. (1995b). Darwin’s dangerous idea: Evolution and the meaning of life. London: Penguin. Google Books preview here.
Dennett, D. C. (1995c). The unimagined preposterousness of zombies. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2(4), 322–326. Commentary on T. Moody’s ‘Conversations with zombies’. Full text (html) (commentary) here and (target article) here. Paywall-protected journal record (target article) here.
Dennett, D. C. (1995d). Cog: Steps towards consciousness in robots. In T. Metzinger (Ed.), Conscious experience (pp. 471–487). Thorverton: Imprint Academic. Google Books preview here.
Dennett, D. C. (1996a). Facing backwards on the problem of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 3(1), 4–6. Full text (html) here.
Dennett, D. C. (1996b). Kinds of minds: Towards an understanding of consciousness. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Google Books preview here.
Dennett, D. C. (1997). An exchange with Daniel Dennett. In J. Searle (Ed.), The mystery of consciousness (pp. 115–119). New York: New York Review of Books. Google Books preview here.
Dennett, D. C. (1998a). The myth of double transduction. In R. Hameroff, A. W. Kaszniak, and A. C. Scott (Eds), Toward a science of consciousness: The second Tucson discussions and debates (pp. 97–107). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Books preview here.
Dennett, D. C. (1998b). Brainchildren: Essays on designing minds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Books preview here.
Dennett, D. C. (2001a). Are we explaining consciousness yet? Cognition, 79(1–2), 221–237. Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Dennett, D. C. (2001b). The fantasy of first person science. Debate with D. Chalmers, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, Feb 2001. Full text (html) here.
Dennett, D. C. (2003). Freedom evolves. New York: Penguin. Google Books preview here.
Dennett, D. C. (2005). Sweet dreams: Philosophical obstacles to a science of consciousness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Books preview here.
Dennett, D. C. (2007). Heterophenomenology reconsidered. Phenomenology and Cognitive Science, 6, 247–270. Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Dennett, D. C. (2011). Shall we tango? No, but thanks for asking. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 18(5–6), 23–34. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Dennett, D. C. (2014). Reflections on ‘free will’. Naturalism.org, 24 January 2014. Full text here.
Dennett, D. C. (2016). Illusionism as the obvious default theory of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 23(11–12), 65–72. Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Dennett, D. C. (2017). From bacteria to Bach and back: The evolution of minds. London: Allen Lane. Google Books preview here.
Dennett, D. C., and Kinsbourne, M. (1992). Time and the observer: The where and when of consciousness in the brain.Behavioral and Brain Sciences,15, 183–247 (incl. commentaries and authors’ response). Paywall-protected journal record here. Full text (html) here.
Video
The evolution of the mind, consciousness, and AI. Intelligence Squared, February 2017
The normal well-tempered mind. Edge video on undoing his own mistake, August 2013
List of Dennett’s other contributions to Edge, in text, video, and audio form
Let’s teach religion – all religion – in schools. TED talk, February 2006
The illusion of consciousness. TED talk, February 2003
Dangerous memes. TED talk, February 2002
Audio
Interview on the evolution of the human brain. The Life Scientific, BBC Radio 4, April 2017
Conversation with Sue Blackmore, Bristol Festival of Ideas, February 2017
Interview with Sue Blackmore – this formed the basis for Dennett’s chapter in Conversations on Consciousness, 2004