On Dennett (Wadsworth Philosophers Series)

Rating:
Summary: Philosophy and the normal respect for science
Review: A remarkably lucid, concise, and comprehensive introduction not only to Dennett's work but to the last 60 years of philosophy of mind--and in less than 100 pages. It frames debates with such clarity and evenhandedness that it makes you wonder how the field ever became as muddled as it is today. (Though the book's dextrous avoidance of jargon suggests an answer to THAT question.) Most current philosophers are more like philosophy critics, quibbling ad nauseum about their colleagues' interpretations of their interpretations of an earlier generation's interpretation of a doctrine whose original proponents abandoned it years ago. Dennett is one of the few who tackles the big questions in philosophy of mind head on. Because he doesn't waste time negotiating among all of his discipline's various voguish "isms," and because he defends his positions with so much evidence from the hard sciences, he tends to get classified as a cognitive scientist, or a cognitive psychologist, or an artificial intelligence theorist, or even an evolotionary biologist (when he's defending Darwin). But with this judicious overview of more than 30 years of evolving thought, on everything from free will to the question of whether machines can feel, Symons reclaims Dennett for philosophy. And not a moment too soon.

Rating:
Summary: Gateway to a World of Great Thought
Review: A remarkably lucid, concise, and comprehensive introduction not only to Dennett's work but to the last 60 years of philosophy of mind--and in less than 100 pages. It frames debates with such clarity and evenhandedness that it makes you wonder how the field ever became as muddled as it is today. (Though the book's dextrous avoidance of jargon suggests an answer to THAT question.) Most current philosophers are more like philosophy critics, quibbling ad nauseum about their colleagues' interpretations of their interpretations of an earlier generation's interpretation of a doctrine whose original proponents abandoned it years ago. Dennett is one of the few who tackles the big questions in philosophy of mind head on. Because he doesn't waste time negotiating among all of his discipline's various voguish "isms," and because he defends his positions with so much evidence from the hard sciences, he tends to get classified as a cognitive scientist, or a cognitive psychologist, or an artificial intelligence theorist, or even an evolotionary biologist (when he's defending Darwin). But with this judicious overview of more than 30 years of evolving thought, on everything from free will to the question of whether machines can feel, Symons reclaims Dennett for philosophy. And not a moment too soon.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely Clear... but what about free will?
Review: I've been a fan of the OUP short introdctions to various philosophers, they don't have one on Dennett, so I got this instead. I assumed that this book would be similar to the OUPs. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's much better (except for the ugly cover and poor quality printing). It's lively, clever and not in the least bit patronizing. Generally speaking, the difiiculty with analytic philosophy of mind lies not so much in the specific problems and philosophical solutions floating around, so much as with the ridiculously dense prose that most philosophers write. Symons' book is a very clear guide to the recent debates for the novice and a breath of fresh air for professional philosophers. Personally, I've gained a new appreciation for the sophistication of Dennett's view, and contrary to what you might have picked up from philosophical hearsay, he's not just saying that we're all robots. However, I have to say, I bought the book as a quick way of getting a short account of Dennett's ethics. But as it turns out, there's no real mention of his ethical theory in Symons' book! Maybe it's because the author is smart enough to know that this is the weakest part of Dennett's thinking. Aside from that important deficiency, this is a lovely little book. Symons' account of Dennett's theory of consciousness is very clear. He does in about 20 pages what it takes Dennett himself 350 pages to do in Consciousness Explained.

Rating:
Summary: Philosophy and the normal respect for science
Review: John Symons has produced a beautiful, small book on the philosopher of mind Daniel Dennett, which is actually a full-fledged introduction to the philosophy of mind today. A high-level introduction, mind you, which takes the reader back to the heyday of analytic philosophy with W.V.O. Quine: Symons may be the first specialist of philosophy of mind to really understand its background in the rest of analytic philosophy, and this is partly why he can write so clearly and not clog up our understanding with too much 'C-fibre firing', 'weak supervenience' and the like. Dennett's important notion of "heterophenomenology" (which may be less far removed from phenomenology 'tout court' than either Dennett or Symons think) finally becomes clear. Besides writing well and clearly, Symons makes several novel contributions to philosophical thinking on these topics. My personal favorite has to do with what he calls "the normal respect for science", in Dennett's terms "nothing special, TIME magazine standard" (note that Dennett might be thinking of TIME a few decades ago!). Symons shows nicely how philosophy, and cognition in general, should not be understood as something separate from the natural world. There is only one world we live (and think) in: the natural world. As John Dewey put it in the early 1920s, experience, science and philosophy are continuous. Science gives us the best understanding we have of this world; but philosophy and even 'metaphysics' have a job to do as well, in non-doctrinaire terms. Anyone interested in these issues, not just in the 'homuncular' philosophy of Dennett, should read Symons' book.