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Book Cover for: Freedom Evolves, Daniel C. Dennett

Freedom Evolves

Daniel C. Dennett

Can there be freedom and free will in a deterministic world? Renowned philosopher Daniel Dennett emphatically answers "yes!" Using an array of provocative formulations, Dennett sets out to show how we alone among the animals have evolved minds that give us free will and morality. Weaving a richly detailed narrative, Dennett explains in a series of strikingly original
arguments--drawing upon evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, and philosophy--that far from being an enemy of traditional explorations of freedom, morality, and meaning, the evolutionary perspective can be an indispensable ally. In Freedom Evolves, Dennett seeks to place ethics on the foundation it deserves: a realistic, naturalistic, potentially unified vision of our place in nature.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Penguin Adult Hc/Tr
  • Publish Date: Jan 27th, 2004
  • Pages: 368
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.03in - 5.33in - 0.84in - 0.69lb
  • EAN: 9780142003848
  • Recommended age: 18-UP
  • Categories: Free Will & DeterminismPhilosophy & Social AspectsPsychotherapy - Behaviorism

About the Author

Daniel C. Dennett, the author of Freedom Evolves (Viking) and Darwin's Dangerous Idea, is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He lives with his wife in North Andover, Massachusetts, and has a daughter, a son, and a grandson. He was born in Boston in 1942, the son of a historian by the same name, and received his BA in philosophy from Harvard in 1963. He then went to Oxford to work with Gilbert Ryle, under whose supervision he completed his D.Phil. in philosophy in 1965. He taught at U.C. Irvine from 1965 to 1971, when he moved to Tufts, where he has taught ever since, aside from periods visiting at Harvard, Pittsburgh, Oxford, and the Ecole Normal Superieure in Paris. His first book, Content and Consciousness, published in 1969, followed by Brainstorms (1978), Elbow Room (1984), The Intentional Stance (1987), Consciousness Explained (1991), Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995), and Kinds of Minds (1996). He coedited The Mind's I with Douglas Hofstadter in 1981. He is the author of more than a hundred scholarly articles on various aspects on the mind, published in journals ranging from Artificial Intelligence and Behavioral and Brain Sciences to Poetics Today and the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. His most recent book is Brainchildren: A Collection of Essays 1984-1996 (MIT Press and Penguin, 1998).He gave the John Locke Lectures at Oxford in 1983, the Gavin David Young Lectures at Adelaide, Australia, in 1985, and the Tanner Lecture at Michigan in 1986, among many others. He has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Science. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987.

More books by Daniel C. Dennett

Book Cover for: I've Been Thinking, Daniel C. Dennett
Book Cover for: The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul, Douglas R. Hofstadter
Book Cover for: Consciousness Explained, Daniel C. Dennett
Book Cover for: Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, Daniel C. Dennett
Book Cover for: Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Daniel C. Dennett
Book Cover for: From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds, Daniel C. Dennett
Book Cover for: Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Daniel C. Dennett
Book Cover for: Elbow Room, New Edition: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting, Daniel C. Dennett
Book Cover for: Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind, Daniel C. Dennett
Book Cover for: The Intentional Stance, Daniel C. Dennett
Book Cover for: Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness, Daniel C. Dennett
Book Cover for: Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness, Daniel C. Dennett
Book Cover for: Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind, Matthew M. Hurley
Book Cover for: Brainstorms, Fortieth Anniversary Edition: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology, Daniel C. Dennett
Book Cover for: Brainchildren: Essays on Designing Minds, Daniel C. Dennett
Book Cover for: Just Deserts: Debating Free Will, Daniel C. Dennett

Praise for this book

"Dennett has taken on really big issues, made them clear, dealt with them seriously and given us much on which to reflect. . . . Crisp and critically insightful." --The Washington Post Book World

"One of the most original thinkers of our time." --Science

"Dennett stands as the sharpest, cleverest, most stylish prober of how issues of human consciousness interconnect today with evolutionary theory." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

"A serious book with a brilliant message." --Matt Ridley, The Sunday Telegraph