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Daniel Dennett
University Professor, Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University
Daniel C. Dennett is the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy and director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University.
Dennett believes it's time to unmask the philosopher's art and make thought experimentation accessible to a wider audience.
"How to Think Like a Philosopher," Dennett's five-part workshop, is a journey into the labyrinthine mind games played by Dennett and his colleagues. For the more utilitarian-minded, these are mental practices that will improve your ability to focus and think both rationally and creatively.
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I think that philosophers are deeply resistant to acknowledging that most of the interesting categories they deal with have fuzzy boundaries.
The video is part of our series of the most popular videos of Summer 2013.
I wanted to draw attention to how philosophers actually go about their business and get them thinking more self-consciously about the tools they use and how they use them.
Here is a thought experiment that shows beliefs don’t parcel themselves out the way sentences do.
People have hang-ups and blind spots and phobias and just sometimes they have a principled refusal to take something seriously.
It’s the sort of general purpose crowbar of rational argument where you take your opponent's premises and deduce something absurd from them.