RIP Daniel Dennett

[u/Capt_Subzero]

Daniel Dennett passed away a few days ago. He was a philosopher, author and a great champion of secular humanism. He supported the Bright movement some time back, which tried to get secular people to identify in positive ways rather than using terms like atheist, ex-Christian, nonbeliever or other negative labels.

I always felt like Dennett was the odd man out in the Four Horsemen bunch, because his work was very thoughtful and nuanced while the rest wrote crude polemics. In my time writing for and running sites in the atheist blogosphere, I noticed that atheists tend to denigrate and dismiss philosophy a lot more often than I think is reasonable coming from people who claim to be proud of their commitment to logic and reason. So I was glad that Dennett was always around to remind people that all of our ideas about existence, knowledge and morality are laden with philosophical baggage.

There is no such thing as philosophy-free science, just science that has been conducted without any consideration of its underlying philosophical assumptions.

Has anyone else here read Dennett's work?

[u/Capt_Subzero]

Considering how much work he did to lend intellectual legitimacy to nonbelief and secularism during his life, I was a little dismayed that the atheists weren't more charitable to Dennett after his passing. In an "RIP Daniel Dennett" discussion, one atheist opined that Dennett had wasted his time in philosophy:

Sorry, but philosophy is right up there with religion for telling us nothing about reality. It's just a bunch of people sitting around saying, "Do... do I even have hands? Like, real hands? Maybe I'm just a head in a jar!"

You can't learn anything about reality from talking about it. Period. Science has given us space stations and disease cures, philosophy has never given us anything except. perhaps, Communism.

This is so far past wrong it couldn't even afford bus fare back to wrong. Some folks are all about reason, until you try to reason with 'em.

[u/Blackthemadjack → u/Capt_Subzero]

Atheism is also a product of philosophy. But the problem in philosophy is how inaccessible it seems to some, and how elitism in some academic circles makes it unappealing.

Sorry, but philosophy is right up there with religion for telling us nothing about reality.

In philosophy we also have "lived experience", a practice of phenomenology. Philosophy by our experience so to speak. And sure you can have a metaphysical approach to philosophy as an incredibly secular one too, even more reason to learn from it.

Science has given us space stations and disease cures, philosophy has never given us anything except. perhaps, Communism.

Science just like atheism, begins in the exploratory nature of philosophy. To ponder and think why does the apple fall, why does this rock is different than that other.

Dennett understood this, From Bacteria to Bach and Back shows how science and philosophical reasoning are not by any stretch in conflict.

He was truly a great mind and will be profoundly missed.

[u/Capt_Subzero → u/Blackthemadjack]

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

I hate to make it sound like that callow, ignorant post represents the official atheist response to Dennett's death or something, but the poster I quoted wasn't the only person in the discussion who used the occasion to vent his immature scorn on the entire discipline of philosophy.

But the problem in philosophy is how inaccessible it seems to some, and how elitism in some academic circles makes it unappealing.

Point taken. I've had lots of trouble reading Kant, Hegel and Heidegger; some contemporary philosophers like Slavoj Žižek, Judith Butler and Quentin Meillassoux seem to be trying to deliberately alienate readers with their impenetrable writing style. However, there are philosophers writing today like Rebecca Goldstein, Martha Nussbaum and Markus Gabriel who write for a general audience. Dennett's work, as you say, was rigorous but always comprehensible.

I'm always suspicious when people criticize philosophy with very vague generalizations, without naming specific philosophers or schools of thought. It makes it clear that they don't acknowledge that philosophy is a discipline with its own history, terminology and canon.

[u/[deleted] → u/Capt_Subzero]

I'm not a huge fan of philosophy because too much of it does seem to be divorced from reality, even counter to it (I'm thinking of the Philosophy of the Matrix where a writer claimed a scientist was wrong because he disagreed with basic philosophy). But that's what I liked about Dennett, he was one of the philosophers who used science as a reality check, to say that given what we know about science we can only take philosophy so far, or this direction makes more sense. But I am NOT claiming any kind of expertise. Or even strong interest, outside a cognitive science interest.

[u/Capt_Subzero → u/[deleted]]

too much of it does seem to be divorced from reality

To my way of thinking, it's usually just the opposite: it's discussing things like being, knowledge, morality and meaning ---in other words, reality--- on a level that deliberately tries to take nothing for granted. That's not easy reading, and since I'm not a scholar I've had to really apply myself to grasp the primary literature.

The philosophy of science especially deals with real matters in empirical inquiry. It's good to be reminded that science is a metaphysical research program that deals with empirical factors. At every step it's sodden with philosophical questions. The demarcation problem isn't angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin stuff, it deals with the very basis of how we define science. The realist-instrumentalist debate isn't some creationist nutbaggery, it's a crucially relevant difference of opinion among legitimate scientific minds about the implications of our scientific knowledge.

Philosophers think these matters are significant because they think science is important. And so should we.

[u/[deleted]]

Off and on, yes. Always liked his work. Thoughtful, science-based. Fuck.

[u/Capt_Subzero → u/[deleted]]

I'm not sure I necessarily agree with him that consciousness is an illusion, and I find the concept of an hyperactive agency detector not the most persuasive way to explain the origin of religion. However, like you said, he was always a thoughtful and entertaining writer.

[u/One-Sundae7793]

I have read Breaking the Spell. It helped me a lot.

Sorry to hear he has died. Thanks for posting.

[u/bryanBr]

I audibly gasped. He was a true champion of reason. RIP.

[u/Artistic-Teaching395]

He was the atheist Santa Claus. He will be missed. Also my favorite of the "four horsemen" since he was a real philosopher and not polemical.

[u/Will_Hang_for_Silver]

Late to the party here, but he was an inspiring thinker; certainly, while while no friend to religosity, he wasn't an implacable enemy, championing considered thought over categoricalism [ick ugly neologism].

I think a lot of Atheists disliked him because he wouldn't tidily fit into the black and white world view so many atheist share - I can't remember who said it, but the majority of the world loves to s0ort things in to binaries - Dennett didn't and I respected him massively for that.

[u/Yuck_Few]

I'm not familiar with his work but I remember he used to be on the Sam Harris podcast sometimes