Having read it quite a number of years ago, I remember liking it, yet I can't seem to remember too many specifics about it. Obviously it wasn't bad, otherwise I would have remembered that, but neither was it good enough to burn a vivid image into my mind, so three stars is probably the fairest rating I can give it.

I absolutely adored this book, it showed me so much about how human brains work and the way we interact with each-other. Dennett's writing is analytical and dense but it is so informational and learning about this subject was really interesting. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the human brain. My golden line from this book is “We refine our resources by incessant rehearsal and tinkering, turning our brains into a huge structured network of competencies. No evidence yet unearthed shows that any other animal does anything like that.” (Dennett, 152) I like this quote because it shows the complexity of the human brain and how unique we are compared to other animals.

I picked this up at Midway Bookstore in St. Paul. It intrigued me because I'd like to learn more about the question of Other Minds. The first section was fascinating, but later chapters descended into a myopic examination of the possibility of animal intelligence, which Dennett seems to believe is impossible. I think that Dennett mistakes the epistemological difficulty of examining non-human minds with human exceptionalism.

Just as I expected - this book raised more questions than answers. Although I'm not complaining.

This book had quite a few insightful points about how one ought to look at the phenomenon of mind.

4/5