Freedom Evolves - Hardcover

Daniel C. Dennett

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670031860 ISBN 13: 9780670031863

Publisher: Viking Adult, 2003

Synopsis

The author of Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea explains how ancient problems involving moral and political freedoms can be resolved by evolution and biology. 35,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Authors

Daniel C. Dennett is a university professor and the director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. In addition to Darwin's Dangerous Idea, he is also the author of Kinds of Minds and Consciousness Explained.

Daniel C. Dennett is University Professor and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University.

Reviews

"Trading in a supernatural soul for a natural soul-is this a fair bargain?" Dennett, seeking to fend off "caricatures of Darwinian thinking" that plague his philosophical camp, argues in this incendiary, brilliant, even dangerous book that it is. Picking up where he left off in Darwin's Dangerous Idea (a Pulitzer and National Book Award finalist), he zeroes in on free will, a sticking point to the opposing camp. Dennett calls his perspective "naturalism," a synthesis of philosophy and the natural sciences; his critics have called it determinism, reductionism, bioprophecy, Lamarckianism. Drawing on evolutionary biology, neuroscience, economic game theory, philosophy and Richard Dawkins's meme, the author argues that there is indeed such a thing as free will, but it "is not a preexisting feature of our existence, like the law of gravity." Dennett seeks to counter scientific caricature with precision, empiricism and philosophical outcomes derived from rigorous logic. This book comprises a kind of toolbox of intellectual exercises favoring cultural evolution, the idea that culture, morality and freedom are as much a result of evolution by natural selection as our physical and genetic attributes. Yet genetic determinism, he argues, does not imply inevitability, as his critics may claim, nor does it cancel out the soul. Rather, he says, it bolsters the ideals of morality and choice, and illustrates why those ideals must be nurtured and guarded. Dennett clearly relishes pushing other scientists' buttons. Though natural selection itself is still a subject of controversy, the author, director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts, most certainly is in the vanguard of the philosophy of science.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An aggressive writer certain of his positions (he titled an earlier book Consciousness Explained, 1991), philosopher Dennett here continues his quest to demolish metaphysical conceptions of human nature. Our cherished concept of free will is the subject of this work. It may relieve those delving into his dense Darwinian argumentation that Dennett decides that such an attribute of humanity does indeed exist, albeit as a product of aimless evolution. He builds up to his conclusion by first breaking down a definition of determinism, illustrated with references to atoms, Martin Luther, and a computer model of evolution. Dennett then upholds the principles of Darwinian algorithms, which endlessly iterated created robotlike cells and, ultimately, us. The latter topic will perk up general readers' interest, as Dennett advances the nitty-gritty of his view of free will by seeking out logical flaws in a no-free-will interpretation of neurological experiments, and by insisting on an evolutionary picture of altruism and responsibility. In a complex presentation, Dennett's essential points will be plain to the serious readership for this work. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

The man who advanced our understanding of consciousness and evolution in books like Darwin's Dangerous Idea now addresses the issue of freedom.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670031860
• ISBN 13: 9780670031863
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368