Sunday 16 June 2013

Dennett's Tools for Thinking

I find it very interesting and informative and in fact generally pleasurable to listen to philosopher, 'horseman of the apocalypse', and grand-fatherly gentleman Daniel C Dennett. 

He has a new book to sell, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, so we might have the enjoyment of hearing a lot of interviews.  This week I heard a good one, on the podacst Point of Inquiry.

It is a wide ranging discussion with host, Indre Viskontas, (direct link here) they mull over a wide range of interesting topics, including consciousness, the 'intentional stance' (which others call 'theory of mind'), the role of philosophy in today's world, and that old favourite, free-will.  The book gets a few mentions, but not in any sense is the interview a hard-sell.

If you have 45 minutes to spare, or can load it onto your MP3 to enjoy while you are doing something that doesn't need concentration, I recommend it highly.

Will I buy the book?  That is a different question entirely.  I would love to have time to understand Dennett's writings and have read a couple of his earlier books.  However, I have also failed to reach the end of a couple of others due to my own ability to concentrate and my preference for being active.  

Maybe I should wait for the paperback - or maybe that is where I went wrong previously as the writing gets too small.

1 comment:

Derby Sceptic said...

You could of course buy it on Kindle - presently cheaper than the hardback and I find it easier to dip into and out of a number of books.
I can also scale the font up to suit my deteriorating eyesight!