-
Early Life and Education
Daniel Clement Dennett III was born in Boston, March 28th, 1942. His childhood was spent in Lebanon where his father worked as a covert counter-intelligence officer during WWII. When his father died in a plane crash at age 5, they returned to the states. Dennett always had a propensity for philosophy and received his bachelor of arts in philosophy degree at Harvard in 1963. At Harvard he studied under W.V. Quine. In 1965, he received a doctorate at Oxford studying under Gilbert Ryle (Pallardy). -
Period: to
Written Works
Daniel Dennett has published over 400 pieces of literature ranging in topics from critiquing art to AI. His first piece of work was in 1969 called Content and Consciousness. Others include Brainstorms (1978), Elbow Room (1984), Consciousness Explained (1991), Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995), Kinds of Minds (1996), Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness, (2005) and his very important co-edited piece called The Mind's I (1981) ("Daniel C. Dennett"). -
Empiricism
In the portion, "Self Portrait" of Brainstorm, Daniel states that he is still on the same path as when he was in school. This philosophical focus being empiricism, how everything that we see and feel from the external experience is taken in and changes the way we think. Much of his work revolves around biology and consciousness. This focus is evident as later in his career he transfers colleges in order to teach at Tufts university in 1985 at the center for cognitive studies (Pallardy). -
Period: to
Lectures
Dennett is so devoted to empiricism and learning through experience that in addition to being a professor, he lectured at the John Locke Lectures in the University of Oxford (1983), the Gavin David Young Lectures at Adelaide, Australia (1985), the Tanner Lecture at Michigan (1986), and many more. He lectured at the Jean Nicold Lectures in Paris (2005) and received the Jean Nicod Prize. He also has various, interesting Ted Talks available as well ("Daniel Dennett"). -
With Regards to Consciousness
Dennett himself speaks about how consciousness is something we can, but have yet to understand. (Minute 2:45 to 10:30) https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness?language=en#t-634200 He tries to use examples as a means to show that human consciousness is a physical process and not something that we dictate ourselves. Dennett clearly understands how the human brain remembers and is interested in learning as his lecture is very much a free flow of ideas (Dennet, Dan). -
Reflection
He received the Erasmus Prize in 2012. This award is given to, "a person who has made an exceptional contribution to European culture, society or social science, 'for his ability to translate the cultural significance of science and technology to a broad audience'" ("Daniel C. Dennett"). On wbur radio in 2017, Daniel Dennett stated, "'What distinguishes your mind from the cat's mind is that the cat's got you might say, a 'bare brain..." (continued in submission text box).
