Rating: 
Summary: Robots of the world unite...
Review: In an age of science worship, philosophy is supposed to play the 'underlaborer' and keep a reverent tone. It would seem we live at a time when the needs of a technocratic age require a source myth of a mechanical man (easier to control), stripped of 'soul'(too metaphysical), and a cover story about his freedom (have your cake and eat it too). A dangerous idea, as a theory of evolution, is needed,for an ethics of competition, justified by science (better for the economy, full of 'free' agents). Darwinism foots the bill, but it is short the cover story on freedom. Introit Mr. Dennett?
Is Mr. Dennett guilty of all this in filling the gap? What a slander, no? Actually, I found this book both interesting and useful even if the human author guilty as charged. But it all seems like the effort to produce that cover story, compatibilist Darth Vader in action. Let's face it. Darwinian positivism is allergic to ideas of freedom.
In fact the dialectic of freedom to use a Kantian, if not an Hegelian, term, goes on and on and in the process kicks up dust, but never resolves the issue of free will, for reasons the 'critique of reason' made clear long ago, and in response to the Laplacean Newton.
At least this attempt was useful and worth reading, but I think most readers, deflected by Darwinian assumptions, might check out a full bodied philosophy of freedom, Kant style. Look what you have given up, in the Darwin milieu. This full bodied theory of freedom brings us at best into a consideration neither spiritual nor material, transcendentally ideal,of the _two sides_ of the debate Dennett compellingly stages, which is an irresolvable antinomy.
That perhaps is the danger of compatibilist kludging, we fail to see that understanding comes from exploiting the irresolvability of the contradiction, for the idea of freedom is an 'Idea of reason'.
In any case, the title here is 'freedom evolves' and, since I am no Darwinian, I should point out that the evolution of freedom via natural selection is such an incoherent idea that we must demand further field evidence, have we ever observed this? For otherwise we have merely juggled ideas to make them Darwin compatible. The evolution of freedom explained as an adapationist scenario is a very ad hoc notion and beggars the rich philosophic legacy of this idea.
Rating:
Summary: Freedom evolves, so does MTV
Review: In my review of Daniel Dennett's book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, I said that the real danger of darwinism lies in that it is beeing promoted in spite of the fact that all truly scientific evidence militates against it. So what do we get out of Darwin's dangerous idea these days? Very little indeed. Dennett's attempt to save evolution by linking it to the concept of freedom may seem clever at first, but is not enough to rescue this scientific unsubstantiated conjecture. Please remember that theorizing about freedom from the point of view of evolution adds nothing to the "particles to people" general theory of evolution. It only distracts the public from the fact that we are still to see one example of an "information generating mutation", and that 150 years after darwin we still have only a handful of fragmentary and dubious transitional forms, when we should expect tens of thounsands in today's fauna, in the fossil record and in molecular biology. What's more, many of the traditional arguments for evolution (vg. natural selection;radiometric dating; geological uniformitarianism; embryonic reccapitulation; dino-to-bird evolution; vestigial organs; junk-DNA) have proven to be false and been discarded. I guess that in an even more desperate attempt to save evolution, Daniel Dennett will probably link it with even more popular concepts. His next book will probably be titled "Microsoft evolves", "Ferrari evolves" or "MTV evolves". Those wouldn't save evolution either. We just have to read books from authors as different as Richard Dawkins, Steven Jay Gould, Michael Denton, Richard Milton, Michael Behe, William Dembski, Phillip Johnson, Douane Gish, John and Henry Morris, Ken Ham and Jonathan Safarti, to realize that current algebric situation of evolution is this: "arguments for evolution" - "naturalistic assumptions" - "arguments for evolution refuted by biblical creationists and intelligent design theorists" - "arguments for evolution refuted by evolutionists themselves" = very little indeed. The molecules v. fossils debate is a clear example of the patetic situation of darwinism: on the one hand, punctuated equilibrium is biologically impossible, while on the other hand gradualism is paleontologically unsubstantiated. Richard Dawkins and Steven Jay Gould cancel each other's rancourous arguments, while happily joining hands as evolutionist zealots to fight creationism and intelligent design. Daniel Dennett is a "genetic arminian", defending free will, attempting to debate "genetic calvinism" and its forms of "genetic predestination". The problem is that for one to speak about free will one needs to have a self in the first place. However, many neo-darwinists these days say that to believe in the self is the same as believing in fairy tales or Santa. There is no such thing as a "ghost in the machine". There are only a bunch of "selfish genes" and "meme machines" purposelessly and meaninglessly doing what follows naturally from "brain states", as a means to adapt and to survive. Of course, these neo-darwinists put themselves in a dead end, since by denying the self, they also deny rationality, rational knowledge and their own pretensions of knowledge of the world. If there is no self, there is no "who". So we shoud ask: "What" is knowing what? "What" is free to do what? If there is no self, no meaning and no purpose, what is the point of surviving at all? Dead matter "survives" as such, just by staying dead matter. What is the point of random mutations and natural selection? Meaningless life is no better than meaningless death. The proof that nature "understands" these questions is the fact that no one has ever seen life emerging spontaneously by chance. What would be the point of that? The mistery that still surrounds the appearence of self replicating life is enough to undermine the entire evolutionary project. Freedom may evolve, so does MTV, while evolutionary nonsense surely does run free.
Rating:
Summary: Depends on what you're looking for
Review: Just because so many of the other reviews are so glowing, I feel the need to interject with a little bit of criticism. First, this really is just old wine in new bottles. If you're interested in the subject of free will and you aren't very familiar with standard philosophical treatments of the issue, Dennett is a wonderful place to start. As always, his writing is greatly entertaining. On the other hand, don't expect to get anything groundbreakingly new here. If Dennett has made a contribution to the issue, that contribution consists largely in popularizing standard (and fairly widely accepted) compatibilist views of free will and in adding nifty scientific flourishes to the discussion, not in adding anything too philosophically original to the debate. Dennett might be the most fun philosopher/scientist to read (although my vote goes to Fodor). He probably isn't, contrary to what another reviewer suggests, one of "the century's top philosophers" though. (There are worse things to be criticized for) Also, let me add that I suspect that a not insubstantial number of reviewers espousing enthusiasm have misunderstood Dennett's views at least a little bit. Again, this is just good old compatibilism. If you found compatibilism hard to swallow back when you read Hume in your philosophy 101 class, you should probably find it equally hard to swallow here. (If you liked compatibilism back then, though, Dennett will give you some neat new ways to put your views.)
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent view of free will, in evolutionary context
Review: My advance appreciation for the book jacket: To understand is to "stand under," to view the underpinnings. To find a useful standpoint for free will and determinism has been fraught with slippery footings and fear. Dennett tries viewing free will as an evolutionary emergent, able to expand further - or to shrink when novel choices cannot be imagined, judged, or carried out. Freedom Evolves is wonderfully clarifying about the evolutionary and cognitive issues involved in our responsibility for making moral choices.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing new
Review: Poor Dan, he trys so hard to redefine the myth of destiny-controlling agency in a way palletable to the public. The end result is rambling semantic gymnastics that try and substitute evolutionary complexity for freewill. Sorry Dan, it doesn't work. Complex biological processes have not transcended the innate physical causality of neurophysiology and they never will. Paul Churchland does a far better job of articulating these issues without the childish self-serving bombast.
Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: Quite good, quite readable. Dennett expands upon his earlier books and updates the latest attacks on his thinking. He has a clear style, but you may want to read some of it again, more slowly than the next Danielle Steel novel.
Rating:
Summary: Darwinian determinism reconciled with a notion of free will
Review: The first point to make about this book is that Daniel Dennett's ability to engage readers is well-nigh unprecedented in current scientific or philosophic writing. Reading him is like watching a lion-tamer whose daring keeps us, breathless, on the edge of our seats. His basic effort is to reconcile the determinism of Darwinism with the humanist's concern with human freedom. To do so he jettisons the notion that free will is a metaphysical concept. Rather, he explains it in terms of contemporary objective science, specifically via the same sort of evolution that led to the development of the eye or of language. He relies heavily on Richard Dawkin's concept of the evolution of memes: ideas that compete with each other just as other characteristics do via natural selection. In other words he argues that freedom of will grows and evolves. To achieve this conclusion he makes the point that determinism (a cause mechanistically producing an effect) is not the same as inevitability. He uses an example from baseball (shades of the late Stephen Jay Gould!) to make his point. He says that a batter has a choice of turning away from a pitch that is going to hit him or allowing it to hit him, depending on which action will help his team. His action is not determined by the prior history of the universe, but by his own analysis in the moment. In a different game, he might make a different choice. This, and other similar arguments, lead Dennett to the conclusion that the more we know, the more varieties and degrees of freedom we can have. Thus, modern man has more freedom than did, say, the Neanderthal. Essentially then, Dennett, whose earlier work in the areas of consciousness (another concept that gives determinists fits) are seminal, asserts that natural science is the ally of freedom, not an argument against it. The audacious arguments he posits to support this position are breathtaking in their scope and are, for this reader, convincing.
Rating: 
Summary: Molecular Structures, but Very Special Molecular Structures
Review: The fundamental thrust of the book is to devolve "free will" from naturalistic determinism. This is well set forth. Unfortunately, he also argues that humans are the only beings with free will: though I suspect that anyone who has spent much time around other animals is unlikely to agree. Mostly well presented, though at times tendentious. I do wish that he had not felt it necessary to preserve the "We humans, even if not made in the image of god, are still so very special in that we are the only beings with free will." Objectively, we are neither the "Lords of Creation", nor the "Most Wonderfully Unique Animals in the Universe". We share our biological, and behavioral, roots with the rest of the life on this very small island in space.
Rating:
Summary: Metaphysical determinism reconciled with moral freedom
Review: The thrust of the argument of Freedom Evolves should be no surprise to those familiar with Dennett's earlier works on consciousness and on evolution; indeed, they strike me, as a scientifically-oriented naturalist, as extensions of common sense. Nevertheless, there are many who do not find Dennett's argument obvious.
The point of the work is to show the compatibility of metaphysical determinism and moral free will. In Dennett's views, the metaphysical question of determinism vs. indeterminism is irrelevant to the issue of free will. Moral agency is a property of beings that have evolved the ability to communicate with other beings and to reflect (albeit imperfectly) upon their internal psychological state. When we say "she could have done otherwise", it is not a metaphysical statement; it is a statement of abilities at an agent level. Even though a chess program is unambigously deterministic, it is still meaningful to say that "it could have done otherwise." Michael Shermer has a review of Freedom Evolves in Science in which he takes minor issue with Dennett and argues that only a sort of "pseudo-freedom" is compatible with determinism. But Dennett's main point is that this "psuedo-freedom" is a real and meaningful -- indeed, it possesses all the meaningful properties that are desirable of free will. Not being one who follows philosophical debates on free will too closely, I found Dennett's reasoning fairly self-evident, but philosophers may take greater issue with it. Regardless, Dennett is a capable writer and clear thinker; his works are always fun reads.
Rating:
Summary: Compatibilism sharp and sour
Review: This book veers off onto a number of topics in addition to free will and determinism, most of which material is well worth reading even if you've read Dennett's other work. The argument with regard to free will is a somewhat original take on compatibilism - which is a longstanding position, all of Dennett's bluster about his groundbreaking scandalbraving notwithstanding. Our point of view as living acting human beings is not the point of view of atoms or of gods and cannot be, need not be, and cannot even coherently be imagined to be. If you want to get that point across to an intelligent, scientifically inclined clinger to metaphysics, mysticism, or their lord Jesus Christ, this might be an ideal book to give them. That said, I have some quibbles with Dennett's approach. He argues that an event can be determined but not inevitable, meaning not unavoidable (from the point of view of the agent involved), and he develops this point as something more than just a clever play on etymologies. But he goes on throughout the book to discuss free will in solely negative terms as the ability to avoid things. Why is there not one word on free will as the ability to create the new and unexpected? Why is there not even a comment on avoiding failing to be brilliant or heroic? In fact, Dennett uses forced confinement (as in a US prison cell) as an analogy for free will (we avoid child molestation by locking up people convicted of child molestation). Further, Dennett focuses part of his discussion of "intuitions" regarding free will on anger and resentment. Where in all of this is admiration, appreciation, self-satisfaction, gratification, or friendship? Dennett leaves out much of what is valuable about free will. Those who object to his compatibilism may use this fact against him. I find compatibilism completely convincing but Dennett's view of life depressing. Dennett clearly supports our habit of locking many people up in prisons, although he offers castration as a possible alternative for pedophiles. But, while protecting children from pedophiles may have something to do with the will power of former pedophiles trying to change, it ought to be seen as a separate issue from retribution for guilt grounded in freely willed criminal behavior. If we are going to be advanced enough to drop metaphysics, we should also be advanced enough to make our handling of crime forward looking, focused on reconciliation and restitution. Dennett's fantasy about guilty individuals adopting a "Thanks I needed that" attitude toward punishment does not advance this project at all.
|
