Customer Reviews

Daniel Dennett: Reconciling Science and Our Self-Conception (Key Contemporary Thinkers)

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Matthew Elton provides an excellent account of Dennett's work. The book goes beyond being an introduction. In his presentation of Dennett's view on intentionality and consciousness, Elton systematizes were Dennett is eclectic, points out flaws in arguments and at times improves on them (no, not on the flaws).

I'm less enthusiastic about his appraisal of Dennett on Darwin and on free will and responsibility. Still Elton's account is sound and fair.

For more specialized treatments of Dennett's philosophical perspective, there are collections by Bo Dahlbom and (two) by Andrew Brook and Don Ross et al.

Elton distills and places in context common currents running throughout Dennett's work sympathetically and accurately - but not uncritically - for those who haven't encountered all the various pieces that compose Dennett's approach. Elton avoids getting mired in the confusing controversies by abstaining from distracting attempts to tie off loose ends, but he does represent the basic thread of objections to Dennett's work as well as canvass Dennett's general responses, occasionally indulging in well-marked hypothetical extensions of Dennett's approach where Dennett has refrained from responding explicitly. The result is a fairly concise narrative containing insights and syntheses of interest even to those who have spent a great deal of time on Dennett's thought, while remaining a useful and reliable antidote to the most common confusions for those who have not.