Those interested in Daniel Dennett won't want to miss this book, which contains papers by fourteen philosophers on different aspects of his work, along with a response by Dennett himself. The "comprehensive assessment" claim is an exaggeration, but the collection spans a broad range: it focuses on Dennett's core areas of meaning and consciousness, but extends to his work on evolution and ethics. Most of the papers are more technical and less accessible than Dennett's own books, however, so the volume is not an ideal introduction to his work and may not appeal to those who only know him through books such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and The Mind's I.

Dennett has always refused to build a grand system and some of the contributors clearly find this frustrating: many of the papers are less assessments of his work than attempts to pin him down, to place his ideas into a broader system or in some cases to construct such a system for them. Others attack Dennett on different fronts. In his sixty page response "With a Little Help From My Friends" Dennett finds some suggestions useful, rebuts criticisms, and gracefully and urbanely refuses to be systematized.

The papers:

• Don Ross' introduction outlines the "Denettian Stance" and glances over the other contributions.
• Evolutionary biologist Timothy Crowe critiques Dennett's "ultra-adaptationism", following Gould and Lewontin in stressing the importance of historical contingency.
• Paul Dumouchel constructs an antinomy of natural reason in the distinction between "Good Tricks" and "Forced Moves" in evolution.
• Ruth Millikan continues a long-running debate with Dennett over the theory of meaning, arguing among other things that the design stance is more basic than the intentional stance.
• Timothy Kenyon asks "What would have to be the case in order for mental properties to be real?" and concludes that "psychological states are both real and mind dependent".
• William Seager argues that we have to reject a naive "scientific picture of the world" in favour of a "surface metaphysics", a modern empiricism "that takes mind or 'patterns' as basic".
• Christopher Viger argues that there are two ontological positions — instrumentalist and small "r" realist — mixed up in Dennett's "intentional stance", and offers a reconciliation of them consistent with both his agendas.
• Don Ross constructs a complete ontological system, a "comprehensive metaphysic", for Dennett.
• Dan Lloyd argues that rejecting Cartesianism isn't enough, that we should extend Dennett's insights and "renounce representationalism in all its forms", espousing instead a phenomenal realism.
• David Thompson argues that Dennett could learn from a closer look at Husserl.
• Andrew Brook looks back, after eight years, at the "multiple drafts" model presented in Consciousness Explained.
• Thomas Polger takes up Dennett's "zombie challenge", presenting a taxonomy of zombies (and zimboes) and claiming demonstration of a coherent, non-question-begging definition thereof.
• David Rosenthal rejects first-person operationalism, arguing for the presence of higher-order thoughts as a criteria for distinguishing conscious mental states.
• T. Brian Mooney expands on Dennett's naturalist critiques of deontological and utilitarian ethics.

September 2001

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Related reviews:

- Daniel C. Dennett
- books about philosophy
- books published by The MIT Press