Daniel Dennett

About Daniel Dennett

Birth Day: March 28, 1942
Birth Place: Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Alma mater: Harvard University (A.B.) Hertford College, Oxford (D.Phil.)
Awards: Jean Nicod Prize (2001)
Era: 20th-/21st-century philosophy
Region: Western philosophy
School: Analytic philosophy
Main interests: Philosophy of mind Cognitive science Free will Philosophy of religion
Notable ideas: Heterophenomenology Intentional stance Intuition pump Multiple drafts model Greedy reductionism Cartesian theater Belief in belief Free-floating rationale Top-down vs bottom-up design

Daniel Dennett

Daniel Dennett was born on March 28, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Daniel Dennett is an American philosopher and writer who has created a stir in the world through his ground-breaking research on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology - particularly those fields related to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he was first introduced to philosophy at the age of 11. Ever since then, he was attracted by the subject and went on to pursue his education in the same. In 1965, he attained his doctorate degree in philosophy and thereafter took up a teaching position at UC Irvine post which he chaired as the University Professor at the University of Tufts which he continues till date. Furthermore, he serves as the co-director of the Centre for Cognitive Studies and the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy. An ardent atheist and secularist, he is popularly known as one of the Four Horsemen of New Atheism. Additionally, he is a member of the Secular Coalition for America advisory board.
Daniel Dennett is a member of Philosophers

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As per our current Database, Daniel Dennett is still alive (as per Wikipedia, Last update: May 10, 2020).

🎂 Daniel Dennett - Age, Bio, Faces and Birthday

Currently, Daniel Dennett is 82 years, 0 months and 1 days old. Daniel Dennett will celebrate 83rd birthday on a Friday 28th of March 2025. Below we countdown to Daniel Dennett upcoming birthday.

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Popular As Daniel Dennett
Occupation Philosophers
Age 82 years old
Zodiac Sign Aries
Born March 28, 1942 (Boston, Massachusetts, United States)
Birthday March 28
Town/City Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Nationality United States

🌙 Zodiac

Daniel Dennett’s zodiac sign is Aries. According to astrologers, the presence of Aries always marks the beginning of something energetic and turbulent. They are continuously looking for dynamic, speed and competition, always being the first in everything - from work to social gatherings. Thanks to its ruling planet Mars and the fact it belongs to the element of Fire (just like Leo and Sagittarius), Aries is one of the most active zodiac signs. It is in their nature to take action, sometimes before they think about it well.

🌙 Chinese Zodiac Signs

Daniel Dennett was born in the Year of the Horse. Those born under the Chinese Zodiac sign of the Horse love to roam free. They’re energetic, self-reliant, money-wise, and they enjoy traveling, love and intimacy. They’re great at seducing, sharp-witted, impatient and sometimes seen as a drifter. Compatible with Dog or Tiger.

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Famous Quotes:

The model of decision making I am proposing has the following feature: when we are faced with an important decision, a consideration-generator whose output is to some degree undetermined, produces a series of considerations, some of which may of course be immediately rejected as irrelevant by the agent (consciously or unconsciously). Those considerations that are selected by the agent as having a more than negligible bearing on the decision then figure in a reasoning process, and if the agent is in the main reasonable, those considerations ultimately serve as predictors and explicators of the agent's final decision.

Biography/Timeline

1942

Dennett was born on March 28, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Ruth Marjorie (née Leck) and Daniel Clement Dennett, Jr. Dennett spent part of his childhood in Lebanon, where, during World War II, his father was a covert counter-intelligence agent with the Office of Strategic Services posing as a cultural attaché to the American Embassy in Beirut. When he was five, his mother took him back to Massachusetts after his father died in an unexplained plane crash. Dennett's sister is the investigative Journalist Charlotte Dennett. Dennett says that he was first introduced to the notion of philosophy while attending summer camp at age 11, when a camp counselor said to him, "You know what you are, Daniel? You're a Philosopher."

1959

Dennett graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1959, and spent one year at Wesleyan University before receiving his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy at Harvard University in 1963. At Harvard University he was a student of W. V. Quine. In 1965, he received his Doctor of Philosophy in philosophy at the University of Oxford, where he studied under Gilbert Ryle and was a member of Hertford College. His dissertation was entitled "The Mind and the Brain: Introspective Description in the Light of Neurological Findings; Intentionality".

1962

Dennett married Susan Bell in 1962. They live in North Andover, Massachusetts, and have a daughter, a son, and five grandchildren.

1990

Much of Dennett's work since the 1990s has been concerned with fleshing out his previous ideas by addressing the same topics from an evolutionary standpoint, from what distinguishes human minds from animal minds (Kinds of Minds), to how free will is compatible with a naturalist view of the world (Freedom Evolves).

2004

He is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He is a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism. He was named 2004 Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association.

2006

In his 2006 book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Dennett attempts to account for religious belief naturalistically, explaining possible evolutionary reasons for the phenomenon of religious adherence. In this book he declares himself to be "a bright", and defends the term.

2009

He has also written about and advocated the notion of memetics as a philosophically useful tool, most recently in his "Brains, Computers, and Minds", a three-part presentation through Harvard's MBB 2009 Distinguished Lecture Series.

2010

In February 2010, he was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.

2012

In 2012, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize, an annual award for 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."

2013

He has been doing research into clerics who are secretly atheists and how they rationalize their works. He found what he called a "Don't ask, don't tell" conspiracy because believers did not want to hear of loss of faith. That made unbelieving Preachers feel isolated but they did not want to lose their jobs and sometimes their church-supplied lodgings and generally consoled themselves that they were doing good in their pastoral roles by providing comfort and required ritual. The research, with Linda LaScola, was further extended to include other denominations and non-Christian clerics. The research and stories Dennett and LaScola accumulated during this project were published in their 2013 co-authored book, Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind.

2014

Dennett self-identifies with a few terms: "[Others] note that my 'avoidance of the standard philosophical terminology for discussing such matters' often creates problems for me; Philosophers have a hard time figuring out what I am saying and what I am denying. My refusal to play ball with my colleagues is deliberate, of course, since I view the standard philosophical terminology as worse than useless—a major obstacle to progress since it consists of so many errors."

2017

As of 2017, he is the co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. Dennett is an atheist and secularist, a member of the Secular Coalition for America advisory board, and a member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, as well as an outspoken supporter of the Brights movement. Dennett is referred to as one of the "Four Horsemen of New Atheism", along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens.

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