Buku pertama yg saya baca dari four horsemen yg katanya aliran new age atheism , kata temen saya sih sih si dennet paling konseptual di banding yg lain saya ga tau asal comot aj.

Cukup berat udah lama ga baca buku filsafat , ditambah banyak bahasa2 yg multi disiplin, dari biologi, fisika ,kimia, psikologi, untung masih nyantol dikit2 cuman pas masuk bagian yg mekanistik teknikal macam transduser dan efektor searching2 maknanya lg.

Sejauh ini cukup memberikan pandangan2 menarik tentang akal budi, khususnya cara kerja akal budi dan perbedaannya dari sudut pandang makhluk lain spt hewan dan tumbuhan.Ada jg dr akal budi yg kena disosiatif identity disorder atau kepribadian ganda.Ada 4 macem, Dariwinian,Skinnerian,popperian , dan gregorian.Nah mantepnya slaah satu keahlian manusia lewat teknologi yg dialektis.Kita nemuin ato nyiptain teknologi,teknologi jg kepinteran kita nambah.Yg paling mantep teknologinya bahasa.Masuknya kategori gregorian nih.

Si Dennet ini menelusurinya lewat kedudukan intensional , macem dirasionalisasi hewan ato entitas lain. Berpikir cara manusia di tubuh hewan.

Menariknya pandangannya tentang proses permulaan akal budi manusia dr masih bayi belom bisa ngomong.Kata doi permulaan akal budi kita dr komentar diri semi paham , dapet kata dr org lain tanpa tau artinya . Asal aj diomongin tar muncul pelabelan (masa latihan ini) tar lama2 bener konteksnya baru dah lewat evolusi budaya dan generasi yg diturun temurunin rekognisi makna dan asosiasi objek linguistik menjadi konsep.Jadi menurut doi kata2 lebih dulu dr konsep.Bisa Bacot dulu baru mikir.

Tapi namanya buku filsafat bukan buat ngejawab.Doi sendiri bilang di endingnya.Seenggaknya kita mikir bareng2 tau dimana lobang ama jalan yg lurusnya.Kalo mau belok atau muter balik terserah dah.Asik sih mikir2 bengong ga jelas.

This book was written as part of a series of science primers for those readers who probably have a college degree, but not in a field of science. Dennett is a philosopher, so what is he doing writing a book in this series? Well, Dennett is one of the new wave of philosophers from the late 20th century who look not to the history and tradition of philosophy for grounding conjectures and arguments, but rather to science for such grounding. Indeed, throughout this short volume, Dennett mentions very few philosophers - Descartes, Plato, Sartre, Searle, Ryle - and each for no more than a couple of sentences and most just to say that they were wrong. Most of the references for his arguments come from computer science, biology, and psychology (note, this is psychology we are talking about here and not the pseudoscience of psychoanalysis). Dennett warns the reader up front that this book is about questions rather than answers. As Dennett sees it, consciousness is the most difficult existing philosophical problem. Philosophers "know" that it is there in some sense, but do not yet know what it is. Dennett argues that this problem exists because the usual questions used to address the problem are either poorly worded or begin from the wrong assumptions. This book, then, is an attempt to work out what the right questions might be, or at least what the basis for formulating the right questions might be, which explains this book's subtitle of "Toward an Understanding of Consciousness."

Dennett starts by working on the assumptions. First, according to Dennett whatever consciousness might be, it must arise from the natural and material development and life of being human. In essence, consciousness must of necessity be a product of evolution by natural selection. Second, according to Dennett, since consciousness either involves intentionality or the appearance of intentionality, any inquiry into consciousness must start from what he calls "the intentional stance." In pursuit of the first assumption that consciousness is derived from natural selection, Dennett walks the reader through the development of the increasing complexity of minds in evolutionary history, from mere sensitivity through various stages such as self/other recognition, simple problem solving, choice, future orientation, symbolism, and language. In the process, he gradually separates humans from other animals to show that it at least appears, with no compelling evidence to the contrary, that only humans have full consciousness, though other species even down to fairly basic levels have "minds" of some sort. Dennett is aware of the controversy of that position and takes a little time to address counterarguments. In philosophy, the more controversial assumption is the second, that of the intentional stance. Basically, Dennett argues that we determine whether something other than ourselves has a mind, and thus potentially has consciousness, by ascribing reasons to its activity. Thus, we assume that there is an intention to the actions, and thus some kind of thought process for the action. Dennett is aware of the major objections to the argument from the intentional stance. He dismisses, for instance, solipsism. He also states that he knows that the intentional stance may be convenient rather than actual. He argues that its convenience, its utility, still makes the intentional stance highly useful for orienting thinking toward deriving the right sorts of questions by which to determine the nature of consciousness. He also shows that there is no compelling argument against the intentional stance, which means that while it still might possibly not be true in an absolute sense, it is true enough in the immediate sense to get us started on thinking about consciousness in the right way.

Dennett as a writer is refreshing to read compared to most other philosophers. Dennett strives as much as possible not to weigh down his explanations in jargon, and to use plain language. He provides brief and accurate summaries where needed, and spends only small space in arguing against some other position. Dennett is very careful to state where he is asserting something and where he is simply exploring possibilities. Probably because the book is meant to be a primer rather than a fully developed argument, there some gaps in the presentation. Dennett assumes quite a bit about evolutionary development, skipping from one "advance" in mental states to another and assuming just that the change happened. He does not really show how it happened (perhaps that is not possible given the fossil and geological records), and assumes that any development is an "answer" of a kind to an imaginary abstract problem in nature. It could be argued that this is taking the intentional stance too far by reading intention into nature itself. While it is plausible that consciousness developed in nature the way he says it developed, there is more than a little of "just take my word for it" in these parts of the presentation, which are begging for more and better substantiation.

In the end, Dennett has for the most part accomplished his goal with this book of arguing in favor of rethinking the kinds of questions that are going to get us toward understanding consciousness. He has provided mostly sound arguments for believing he is on the right track toward what those questions might be and how we might go about answering them.

According to Daniel Dennett, even though we would like to think that non-human species are thinking beings, there are different degrees of sentience. In a nutshell, intentionality is what separates the higher order beings from those who are incapable of keeping secretes for example, verbal communication, and acquiring and reflecting on concepts. In combing through this question, he invokes everyone from Socrates to Skinner.

Note to self: nothing new, see tabs for some neat connections to other stuff, esp. Darwinian vs Popperian minds as resembling Type 1 vs Type 2 (can use as example of similar metaphors from other areas, but consider Gigerenzer and R. 1996 for contra).

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.

2,5*

There's so much here, that even my second-reading is not enough. Two take-aways this time. First, I often say (following Minsky) that mind is what brains do. But Dennett reminds us that mind is what bodies do. Evolution has laid down a communication system through the circulation of fluids in blood vessels, and then laid down another: our nervous system. Second, I'm often dismissive of consciousness, especially consciousness in the sense of qualia: all-too-often, discussion of qualia are a backdoor to dualism - a sense of something that goes beyond what is. But Dennett emphasises propositional thought - reasoning with symbols, reasoning-about. It made me think about programming languages that offer reification: the ability to represent and compute with their own programming constructs. (Interestingly, though, reification in philosophy works in the opposite direction: from abstract to concrete.)

I once said to a friend that though I find my sympathies lying in a completely different school of thought when it comes to matters of mind and human subjectivity, I really admire Dennett because he goes the furthest in this direction of reducing and naturalizing, of incorporating science and taking seriously the different kinds of minds by focusing his attention on the more general phenomenon of life rather than just the specific phenomenon of humanity. To many, I think his unflinching materialism is much more appreciable than the halfway houses you find in analytic philosophy of mind. And my friend noted that it's like Spinoza: while many disagreed with Spinoza's thought, they admired him for taking rationalism to its furthest limits. Analogously, Dennett takes naturalism and physicalism to its limits in the philosophy of mind, and the outcome is undeniably educational, even if its not my cup of tea.

This is a very accessible book, which is probably why I didn't enjoy it much. It raises a lot of questions, answers almost none, and deals with it in a very easy to understand language and never gets too technical. I feel that the simplicity in which he expressed his ideas is not a good way to deal with the complexity of the themes underneath.

For a first book on consciousness, starting to explore the themes, it's a good book. If you have read some more about it, I wouldn't recommend it. "Godel, Escher, Bach" followed by "I Am A Strange Loop" would be much more enlightening.

Book #9 in 2025 Book #440 of All Time

My third dennett book. The are very interrelated so this should be read first, then Consciousness Explained, finally Darwin's Dangerous Idea. I love them all and stand in awe of Dennett with each work.

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.