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I've Been Thinking
"How unfair for one man to be blessed with such a torrent of stimulating thoughts. Stimulating is an understatement." —Richard DawkinsA memoir by one of the greatest minds of our age, preeminent philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel C. Dennett.
Daniel C. Dennett, preeminent philosopher and cognitive scientist, has spent his career considering the thorniest, most fundamental mysteries of the mind. Do we have free will? What is consciousness and how did it come about? What distinguishes human minds from the minds of animals? Dennett’s answers have profoundly shaped our age of philosophical thought. In I’ve Been Thinking, he reflects on his amazing career and lifelong scientific fascinations.
Dennett’s relentless curiosity has taken him from a childhood in Beirut and the classrooms of Harvard, Oxford, and Tufts, to “Cognitive Cruises” on sailboats and the fields and orchards of Maine, and to laboratories and think tanks around the world. Along the way, I’ve Been Thinking provides a master class in the dominant themes of twentieth-century philosophy and cognitive science—including language, evolution, logic, religion, and AI—and reveals both the mistakes and breakthroughs that shaped Dennett’s theories.
Key to this journey are Dennett’s interlocutors—Douglas Hofstadter, Marvin Minsky, Willard Van Orman Quine, Gilbert Ryle, Richard Rorty, Thomas Nagel, John Searle, Gerald Edelman, Stephen Jay Gould, Jerry Fodor, Rodney Brooks, and more—whose ideas, even when he disagreed with them, helped to form his convictions about the mind and consciousness. Studded with photographs and told with characteristic warmth, I’ve Been Thinking also instills the value of life beyond the university, one enriched by sculpture, music, farming, and deep connection to family.
Dennett compels us to What do I really think? And what if I’m wrong? This memoir by one of the greatest minds of our time will speak to anyone who seeks to balance a life of the mind with adventure and creativity.
Daniel C. Dennett, preeminent philosopher and cognitive scientist, has spent his career considering the thorniest, most fundamental mysteries of the mind. Do we have free will? What is consciousness and how did it come about? What distinguishes human minds from the minds of animals? Dennett’s answers have profoundly shaped our age of philosophical thought. In I’ve Been Thinking, he reflects on his amazing career and lifelong scientific fascinations.
Dennett’s relentless curiosity has taken him from a childhood in Beirut and the classrooms of Harvard, Oxford, and Tufts, to “Cognitive Cruises” on sailboats and the fields and orchards of Maine, and to laboratories and think tanks around the world. Along the way, I’ve Been Thinking provides a master class in the dominant themes of twentieth-century philosophy and cognitive science—including language, evolution, logic, religion, and AI—and reveals both the mistakes and breakthroughs that shaped Dennett’s theories.
Key to this journey are Dennett’s interlocutors—Douglas Hofstadter, Marvin Minsky, Willard Van Orman Quine, Gilbert Ryle, Richard Rorty, Thomas Nagel, John Searle, Gerald Edelman, Stephen Jay Gould, Jerry Fodor, Rodney Brooks, and more—whose ideas, even when he disagreed with them, helped to form his convictions about the mind and consciousness. Studded with photographs and told with characteristic warmth, I’ve Been Thinking also instills the value of life beyond the university, one enriched by sculpture, music, farming, and deep connection to family.
Dennett compels us to What do I really think? And what if I’m wrong? This memoir by one of the greatest minds of our time will speak to anyone who seeks to balance a life of the mind with adventure and creativity.
451 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 3, 2023
211 people are currently reading
1479 people want to read
About the author
Daniel C. Dennett
80 books3,064 followersDaniel Clement Dennett III was a prominent philosopher whose research centered on philosophy of mind, science, and biology, particularly as they relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He was the co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. Dennett was a noted atheist, avid sailor, and advocate of the Brights movement.
Dennett received his B.A. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1963, where he was a student of W.V.O. Quine. In 1965, he received his D.Phil. from Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied under the ordinary language philosopher Gilbert Ryle.
Dennett gave the John Locke lectures at the University of Oxford in 1983, the Gavin David Young Lectures at Adelaide, Australia, in 1985, and the Tanner Lecture at Michigan in 1986, among many others. In 2001 he was awarded the Jean Nicod Prize, giving the Jean Nicod Lectures in Paris. He has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Science. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987. He was the co-founder (1985) and co-director of the Curricular Software Studio at Tufts University, and has helped to design museum exhibits on computers for the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Science in Boston, and the Computer Museum in Boston. He was a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Dennett received his B.A. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1963, where he was a student of W.V.O. Quine. In 1965, he received his D.Phil. from Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied under the ordinary language philosopher Gilbert Ryle.
Dennett gave the John Locke lectures at the University of Oxford in 1983, the Gavin David Young Lectures at Adelaide, Australia, in 1985, and the Tanner Lecture at Michigan in 1986, among many others. In 2001 he was awarded the Jean Nicod Prize, giving the Jean Nicod Lectures in Paris. He has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Science. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987. He was the co-founder (1985) and co-director of the Curricular Software Studio at Tufts University, and has helped to design museum exhibits on computers for the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Science in Boston, and the Computer Museum in Boston. He was a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 83 reviews
April 24, 2024
Daniel Dennett is one of my heroes. So when he writes his autobiography I will read it. And in a case like this there is a danger of being disappointed. And to some (small) extent I am.
There are lots of funny anecdotes, but not enough. Some description of his famous feuds but not enough (nothing on Chomsky e.g.) and certainly not detailed enough.
There is some description about his background (his father was a sort-of CIA Agent who died in action, about his mental and cultural development. But not enough – for me. You see what I mean.
Dennett is funny and honest (I think) and he did come up with some amazing insights. About consciousness and free will in particular. (I am not totally happy with his thoughts on consciousness - I come back to this). And he is not only one of a few philosophers who knows something about science (and programming) he is also up-to-date – and able to admit when he was wrong. There is a last-minute postscript from June 2023 on LLMs where he takes back his claim that they do not understand. He now grants that they sorta understand. (p. 276)
But what he is best at, and he sure thinks so himself, is his ability to come up not with new thoughts but with new thinking tools. What he calls intuition pumps. And he at least, to his credit, acknowledges the possibility that he might be wrong. Other then say, John Searle. (And I can sympathize by the way how bored he must be – Dennett I mean – to have to still come back to this Chinese Room meme. Searle will never be bored by it, and I wonder what he makes of LLMs now, but I am sure he thinks they confirm his hunches.)
The most interesting part of this book is about his education, especially his time in Oxford. Where he met (and became friends with) nearly everyone. (Ayer and Ryle e.g.) And then he got his first job without even being interviewed.
There is a lot of name dropping and I assume that one could be annoyed by it. (I nearly was.) But he did meet a lot of interesting people. And he writes candidly how pleased he was to once have managed to get a little kiss by Cameron Diaz. Like us regular people would be. And in fact, he claims to be one of the regular people himself. Which of course he is not. Regular people do not get invited by Paul Allen to some cruising tour. And to come to the negative part – he is a little too pleased to have made it to come in touch with the Rich & Beautiful.
In the chapter on Bullies (among them he counts Elizabeth Anscombe) and Iconoclasts there is a long paragraph where he just lists the “tough woman in philosophy” who are “defending initially derided views and weathering the blows with grace and determination”. (p. 360) I am sure they could live without the praise of an old white guy who obviously thinks of himself as belonging to the Good.
I also did not like the pages he spends of describing how wonderful it is to be working on a farm. Or sailing, or diving. Although this is kind of interesting because once you have a sailing buddy he can do no wrong. Or at least there is a long way like in the case of Jerry Fodor. Now, Fodor thinks that Aristotle had the “concept of a Boing 747 round-trip-flight to Las Vegas in his brain but just never got around to expressing it.” You would think that this crazy view would be enough to disqualify the man for someone like Dennett. Not so. After all, he was also a scuba-diving pal. It took Fodor’s non-believing in Darwin to shake their friendship.
One thing I always held against Dennett was his attitude towards Julian Jaynes. Because I think he had more than a bit in common with him or even adopted some of his views, but did not appreciate him. Here he has this to say: “Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, also published in 1976, [like The Selfish Gene] was one of my favorite books to recommend, and I have often been repaid when secret fans of Jaynes’s wild and wonderful book have come up to me after a talk and thanked me profusely for allowing them to come out of the closet and announce that they, too, thought Jaynes was onto something.” (p. 189) Well, you could read in into this some kind of appreciation. But I would have expected from Dennett that he would develop Jaynes, especially on the contribution of Metaphor to the actual development of consciousness. Dennett rightly (I think) says that consciousness is a user delusion. That it is the center of narrative gravity. This is wonderful. But only a metaphor. How, actually, does this center come into being?
This is a book about his life and career of a philosopher. There is little philosophy here to be found. But he does quote Wilfred Sellars with this definition: “The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the the broadest possible sense of the term.” And, he continues, “if this strikes you as comical or ludicrous, think again.” (p. 358)
An excellent advice!
There are lots of funny anecdotes, but not enough. Some description of his famous feuds but not enough (nothing on Chomsky e.g.) and certainly not detailed enough.
There is some description about his background (his father was a sort-of CIA Agent who died in action, about his mental and cultural development. But not enough – for me. You see what I mean.
Dennett is funny and honest (I think) and he did come up with some amazing insights. About consciousness and free will in particular. (I am not totally happy with his thoughts on consciousness - I come back to this). And he is not only one of a few philosophers who knows something about science (and programming) he is also up-to-date – and able to admit when he was wrong. There is a last-minute postscript from June 2023 on LLMs where he takes back his claim that they do not understand. He now grants that they sorta understand. (p. 276)
But what he is best at, and he sure thinks so himself, is his ability to come up not with new thoughts but with new thinking tools. What he calls intuition pumps. And he at least, to his credit, acknowledges the possibility that he might be wrong. Other then say, John Searle. (And I can sympathize by the way how bored he must be – Dennett I mean – to have to still come back to this Chinese Room meme. Searle will never be bored by it, and I wonder what he makes of LLMs now, but I am sure he thinks they confirm his hunches.)
The most interesting part of this book is about his education, especially his time in Oxford. Where he met (and became friends with) nearly everyone. (Ayer and Ryle e.g.) And then he got his first job without even being interviewed.
There is a lot of name dropping and I assume that one could be annoyed by it. (I nearly was.) But he did meet a lot of interesting people. And he writes candidly how pleased he was to once have managed to get a little kiss by Cameron Diaz. Like us regular people would be. And in fact, he claims to be one of the regular people himself. Which of course he is not. Regular people do not get invited by Paul Allen to some cruising tour. And to come to the negative part – he is a little too pleased to have made it to come in touch with the Rich & Beautiful.
In the chapter on Bullies (among them he counts Elizabeth Anscombe) and Iconoclasts there is a long paragraph where he just lists the “tough woman in philosophy” who are “defending initially derided views and weathering the blows with grace and determination”. (p. 360) I am sure they could live without the praise of an old white guy who obviously thinks of himself as belonging to the Good.
I also did not like the pages he spends of describing how wonderful it is to be working on a farm. Or sailing, or diving. Although this is kind of interesting because once you have a sailing buddy he can do no wrong. Or at least there is a long way like in the case of Jerry Fodor. Now, Fodor thinks that Aristotle had the “concept of a Boing 747 round-trip-flight to Las Vegas in his brain but just never got around to expressing it.” You would think that this crazy view would be enough to disqualify the man for someone like Dennett. Not so. After all, he was also a scuba-diving pal. It took Fodor’s non-believing in Darwin to shake their friendship.
One thing I always held against Dennett was his attitude towards Julian Jaynes. Because I think he had more than a bit in common with him or even adopted some of his views, but did not appreciate him. Here he has this to say: “Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, also published in 1976, [like The Selfish Gene] was one of my favorite books to recommend, and I have often been repaid when secret fans of Jaynes’s wild and wonderful book have come up to me after a talk and thanked me profusely for allowing them to come out of the closet and announce that they, too, thought Jaynes was onto something.” (p. 189) Well, you could read in into this some kind of appreciation. But I would have expected from Dennett that he would develop Jaynes, especially on the contribution of Metaphor to the actual development of consciousness. Dennett rightly (I think) says that consciousness is a user delusion. That it is the center of narrative gravity. This is wonderful. But only a metaphor. How, actually, does this center come into being?
This is a book about his life and career of a philosopher. There is little philosophy here to be found. But he does quote Wilfred Sellars with this definition: “The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the the broadest possible sense of the term.” And, he continues, “if this strikes you as comical or ludicrous, think again.” (p. 358)
An excellent advice!
December 10, 2023
DNF. Half way through (bailing out after the first two parts) still very little of Dennett’s philosophy, just mundane details of a privileged life with tons of name dropping. So disappointing.
November 6, 2023
This autobiography is a fairly mundane review of a brilliant person's own life. I think it was written for history, not public consumption, with the author's knowledge that future historians will want to know what happened in his life, even if the details are pretty basic.
The deep thoughts that a layperson might look for in an autobiographical account are mostly missing, and I think this book is really only useful for someone very familiar with Dennett's ideas and how they have changed over time. Dennett mostly excludes all of that in this book, and fair enough, he writes all that elsewhere and makes a point of it.
The biggest thing I took away from this book is how incredibly privileged Dennett has been in his life. The number of contacts he has made with incredibly important thinkers is immense. His father died when he was young, and he overcame it, but he was a child of privilege and it is interesting to see how far he could take it. Evidently, the man has become super important to thought in the modern day. But this book is a LOT of inside pool, things that happened behind closed doors, and with lots of references that make sense only to the elite philosophers of the day.
Also, Dennett has a massive ego, with some justification, as many of his ideas about the mindbrain have been proven out over time. Dennett fits in the rise of neuroscience and AI perfectly, as an accompanying thinker, and you can see why he has only risen in popularity.
In the end, I think it's dangerous when 80+ year olds write autobiographies. Dennett tries to be fair to himself, but he has won so many battles intellectually that I think his ego kind of gets in the way of any kind of self-assessment. But THAT inability to have a master control over himself is exactly his scientific philosophical point in part and so fair enough.
The deep thoughts that a layperson might look for in an autobiographical account are mostly missing, and I think this book is really only useful for someone very familiar with Dennett's ideas and how they have changed over time. Dennett mostly excludes all of that in this book, and fair enough, he writes all that elsewhere and makes a point of it.
The biggest thing I took away from this book is how incredibly privileged Dennett has been in his life. The number of contacts he has made with incredibly important thinkers is immense. His father died when he was young, and he overcame it, but he was a child of privilege and it is interesting to see how far he could take it. Evidently, the man has become super important to thought in the modern day. But this book is a LOT of inside pool, things that happened behind closed doors, and with lots of references that make sense only to the elite philosophers of the day.
Also, Dennett has a massive ego, with some justification, as many of his ideas about the mindbrain have been proven out over time. Dennett fits in the rise of neuroscience and AI perfectly, as an accompanying thinker, and you can see why he has only risen in popularity.
In the end, I think it's dangerous when 80+ year olds write autobiographies. Dennett tries to be fair to himself, but he has won so many battles intellectually that I think his ego kind of gets in the way of any kind of self-assessment. But THAT inability to have a master control over himself is exactly his scientific philosophical point in part and so fair enough.
June 28, 2025
خب! آیا از کتاب خودزندگینامه یه آکادمسین فلسفه انتظار داریم که حسابی سرگرممون کنه؟ یا شگفتزدهمون کنه؟ اگه این انتظار بیهوده رو نداشته باشیم و هیجانانگیز بودن خودزندگینامههایی مثل ریچارد فاینمن رو هم استثنا در نظر بگیریم، تو یه نگاه کلی میشه گفت کتاب سرگرمکنندهای هست. نه اونقدرها بیمایه که نخوای ادامه بدی و نه اونقدرها شگرف که نتونی زمین بذاریش. دنت آدم بانمک و دوستداشتنیای بود و همین نمک رو هم وارد خودزندگینامهش کرده. ضمنا آگاهانه از یه سری از شنیدههاش (و نه زیستههاش) هم به عنوان اکسسوار بامزه استفاده کرده که خواننده رو ترغیب کنه به ادامهی خوندن قصهی زندگیش.
کتاب برای من به طور کامل بالانس نبود. مثلا اونجاهایی که داشت در مورد تجربیات ناموفقش در موسیقی میگفت یا بخش مربوط به روبوتها برام بسیار کسالتبار بود. در حالی که بخشهای آخرین کتاب که مربوط به قلدری در محیط آکادمیک بود یا خاطرات تحصیلش برام جالب و دوستداشتنی بود.
کتاب از یه نظر خیلی مهمه. کسایی که قصد دارن کتابای دنت رو بخونن این کتاب پر هست از ارجاعات به لحظات شکلگیری ایدههای اولیه هر کتاب. برای همین به نظرم میتونه یه شروع یا یه پایان خوب برای دنتخوانی باشه. علاوه بر اون یه لیست حدود بیست-سیتایی از کتابا و مقالههایی رو درآوردم که از نظر دنت ارزش خوندن داره. اونها رو هم به مرور خواهم خوند.
کتاب برای من به طور کامل بالانس نبود. مثلا اونجاهایی که داشت در مورد تجربیات ناموفقش در موسیقی میگفت یا بخش مربوط به روبوتها برام بسیار کسالتبار بود. در حالی که بخشهای آخرین کتاب که مربوط به قلدری در محیط آکادمیک بود یا خاطرات تحصیلش برام جالب و دوستداشتنی بود.
کتاب از یه نظر خیلی مهمه. کسایی که قصد دارن کتابای دنت رو بخونن این کتاب پر هست از ارجاعات به لحظات شکلگیری ایدههای اولیه هر کتاب. برای همین به نظرم میتونه یه شروع یا یه پایان خوب برای دنتخوانی باشه. علاوه بر اون یه لیست حدود بیست-سیتایی از کتابا و مقالههایی رو درآوردم که از نظر دنت ارزش خوندن داره. اونها رو هم به مرور خواهم خوند.
October 21, 2023
Is zero stars a thing? Well ok, one star bc it has one of my favorite essays: Thank Goodness.
I was ready to love this book as I love some of his essays. Boy, was I disappointed! It’s boring and staggeringly tone deaf for something written recently. The part where he and the priest go around basically assaulting women on the street by grabbing their asses?! Seriously?! No comment on, gee maybe that was a dick move?
The name dropping and self aggrandizing will leave any normal person nauseated.
Was so excited for this. Ended up not finishing and threw it in the trash.
I was ready to love this book as I love some of his essays. Boy, was I disappointed! It’s boring and staggeringly tone deaf for something written recently. The part where he and the priest go around basically assaulting women on the street by grabbing their asses?! Seriously?! No comment on, gee maybe that was a dick move?
The name dropping and self aggrandizing will leave any normal person nauseated.
Was so excited for this. Ended up not finishing and threw it in the trash.
October 10, 2023
Goodreads does not have the correct book cover shown for this edition.
May 18, 2024
Thought the book will be a summary of some of the important philosophical debates Dennett’s been part of. (Vaguely remembering some pointer suggesting this book as delving into free will.) It turns out, this is mostly an autobiography family members (maybe plus die-hard fans) would enjoy: mostly life events. A few philosophical questions got a passing mention, but none of the treatment is comprehensive enough to be illuminating. The interesting bits, perhaps, are the anecdotes here and there. (If you may, these are valuable “training data” for your own neural network in understanding society.) One story tells of a plagiarizer only getting caught when Dennett wrote an enthusiastic reference letter including photocopies of the plagiarizer’s essay. Several others exposed antics of those labeled by Dennett as academic bullies.
April 19, 2024
Super worth reading if you're a philosophy graduate student or want to be a philosopher
September 23, 2024
As the years pass, more and more of my memories become secrets. I am the last to remember an intense conversation, or a road trip, or how my grandparents had their furniture arranged just so. When someone realizes that even her most meaningful memories will be lost forever, it is not an uncommon reaction to write a memoir. For the most part, these memoirs are boring.
Dennett's memoir I've Been Thineking could have been typically stale, if Dennett hadn't lived such a remarkable life, and if he wasn't a born storyteller. Early on, one understands that the book isn't so much an account of Dennett's life, as a repository of his best stories. It is great fun to hear about the personalities and foibles of the famous artists, academics, and celebrities Dennett has known. One suspects that Dennett is not one to let the facts get in the way of a good story. Some of his tales are very funny.
The book mostly focuses on Dennett's professional life rather than his feelings, hopes, and dreams. While his wife and children make brief appearances, he focuses more on how his other books came to be, and the most spectacular or unusual conferences he attended. In the only ill-advised chapter of the book, Dennett can't resist settling the score against the well-known academics who wronged him.
If you know Dennett's work, he is a great defender of science and naturalism. He has little patience for spooky ghosts and wishy-washy postmodernist language. He has the pugnacious philosopher's habit of stridently arguing against claims he views as wrong. I was quite surprised when, at the end of the book in a chapter summarizing his views about meaning, consciousness, and truth, Dennett wrote: "Haig is right -- along with Derrida -- to insist that there are only interpretations and further interpretations of interpretations and no good reason to call any of them Absolute Truth. So we will have to settle, with science, on a "vegetarian" concept of truth, which is good enough to reveal the real patterns that have guided us to the moon and back and will soon take us to the planets."
I didn't learn a whole lot about Dennett the man, but I've Been Thinking was a lot of fun anyway. Now and then, it made me think.
Dennett's memoir I've Been Thineking could have been typically stale, if Dennett hadn't lived such a remarkable life, and if he wasn't a born storyteller. Early on, one understands that the book isn't so much an account of Dennett's life, as a repository of his best stories. It is great fun to hear about the personalities and foibles of the famous artists, academics, and celebrities Dennett has known. One suspects that Dennett is not one to let the facts get in the way of a good story. Some of his tales are very funny.
The book mostly focuses on Dennett's professional life rather than his feelings, hopes, and dreams. While his wife and children make brief appearances, he focuses more on how his other books came to be, and the most spectacular or unusual conferences he attended. In the only ill-advised chapter of the book, Dennett can't resist settling the score against the well-known academics who wronged him.
If you know Dennett's work, he is a great defender of science and naturalism. He has little patience for spooky ghosts and wishy-washy postmodernist language. He has the pugnacious philosopher's habit of stridently arguing against claims he views as wrong. I was quite surprised when, at the end of the book in a chapter summarizing his views about meaning, consciousness, and truth, Dennett wrote: "Haig is right -- along with Derrida -- to insist that there are only interpretations and further interpretations of interpretations and no good reason to call any of them Absolute Truth. So we will have to settle, with science, on a "vegetarian" concept of truth, which is good enough to reveal the real patterns that have guided us to the moon and back and will soon take us to the planets."
I didn't learn a whole lot about Dennett the man, but I've Been Thinking was a lot of fun anyway. Now and then, it made me think.
January 25, 2024
"I've Been Thinking" Is a memoir written by the philosopher, cognitive scientist and outspoken atheist Daniel C. Dennett.
This was a fun book, reading it felt like having a beer with a good, well-read friend, full of amusing stories and personal anecdotes. Did you know that Dennet's father was in the CIA? you didn't? sorry for the spoiler. Did you know that Dennet spent time living in Beirut in the 50's but ended up in a farm in Maine? Some people may find his stories pointless, but I enjoyed his description of life in Maine, his academic triumphs, intellectual curiosity and sharp, insightful questions.
I felt cringe when he called out "academic bullies" in the latter part of his book, it is petty to call out personal grievances with other famous authors out in public, even if some of them already
passed away. For some reason that didn't feel...classy.
I loved "Breaking the Spell" and "Intuition Pumps" but I was not able to get through his less political and more theoretical "Consciousness Explained" and "Darwin's Dangerous Ideas"
I say read this book for the journey, you won't be more enlightened in the philosophy of biology or know the nuances of what it means to have a conscious mind. You need to read his other books for that.
I recommend to read it in order to use his life as an example of a life well lived. When I am old, I, too want to be able to reminisce all the good times with my loved ones and my not-so-loved ones as well.
This was a fun book, reading it felt like having a beer with a good, well-read friend, full of amusing stories and personal anecdotes. Did you know that Dennet's father was in the CIA? you didn't? sorry for the spoiler. Did you know that Dennet spent time living in Beirut in the 50's but ended up in a farm in Maine? Some people may find his stories pointless, but I enjoyed his description of life in Maine, his academic triumphs, intellectual curiosity and sharp, insightful questions.
I felt cringe when he called out "academic bullies" in the latter part of his book, it is petty to call out personal grievances with other famous authors out in public, even if some of them already
passed away. For some reason that didn't feel...classy.
I loved "Breaking the Spell" and "Intuition Pumps" but I was not able to get through his less political and more theoretical "Consciousness Explained" and "Darwin's Dangerous Ideas"
I say read this book for the journey, you won't be more enlightened in the philosophy of biology or know the nuances of what it means to have a conscious mind. You need to read his other books for that.
I recommend to read it in order to use his life as an example of a life well lived. When I am old, I, too want to be able to reminisce all the good times with my loved ones and my not-so-loved ones as well.
February 2, 2024
Really enjoyed this memoir by one of my favorite philosophers! That said, I’m not sure everyone would like it. Dennett uses some odd terminology that one gets used to after reading a few of his books. And an awful lot of the book is just cataloging the many other philosophers and scientists he’s worked with over the decades, with quite a bit of commentary about their qualities and faults. But I enjoy his writing style and found it fun to read. Really liked the penultimate chapter where he summarizes a lot of his work into just a few paragraphs, it makes me want to reread some of his books and read others for the first time.
November 27, 2023
Daniel Dennett se posiciona en 'I've Been Thinking' como una suerte de árbitro entre las posiciones que hoy, en ciencia, niegan o defienden la existencia del libre albedrío: aunque no exista, deberíamos fingir como si existiese porque se trata de una ficción muy útil.
Eso es justo lo que defiende el pensador británico Daniel Dennett, uno de los célebres cuatro jinetes ateos del apocalipsis junto a Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens y Sam Harris. Defensor del mecanicismo, del materialismo filosófico y de las consecuencias culturales de la teoría evolutiva, Dennett presenta ahora una autobiografía lúcida y tierna en la que además resume sus principales impulsores reflexivos.
https://www.elmundo.es/papel/historia...
Eso es justo lo que defiende el pensador británico Daniel Dennett, uno de los célebres cuatro jinetes ateos del apocalipsis junto a Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens y Sam Harris. Defensor del mecanicismo, del materialismo filosófico y de las consecuencias culturales de la teoría evolutiva, Dennett presenta ahora una autobiografía lúcida y tierna en la que además resume sus principales impulsores reflexivos.
https://www.elmundo.es/papel/historia...
December 2, 2023
(this was not an ebook)
I'm so glad to be done with this chunk of a book. I am nosy, so I have to know what went on in Dan Dennett's life.
People say this book is written for the super fans, and so probably they meant that it was written for me. I know enough of things in his life to find most of it interesting. Which means there are parts that I skipped, with no regrets! This is a super detailed and narrated book of his own. Timelines shift all the time, with him going back to something he said before or referencing some other stuff later in the book. But conveniently he inserts parentheses explaining where you would find them in other parts of the book. I really can't complain - he is 80 something years old after all. Not to mention the crazy story of his when he and Martha Stewart shared her home made sandwich?? Some parts can be read as pompous and boastful. But I can't complain - he is 80 something years old after all.
** edit : also told dr. irene pepperberg that she's mentioned in this book today... lolz
I'm so glad to be done with this chunk of a book. I am nosy, so I have to know what went on in Dan Dennett's life.
People say this book is written for the super fans, and so probably they meant that it was written for me. I know enough of things in his life to find most of it interesting. Which means there are parts that I skipped, with no regrets! This is a super detailed and narrated book of his own. Timelines shift all the time, with him going back to something he said before or referencing some other stuff later in the book. But conveniently he inserts parentheses explaining where you would find them in other parts of the book. I really can't complain - he is 80 something years old after all. Not to mention the crazy story of his when he and Martha Stewart shared her home made sandwich?? Some parts can be read as pompous and boastful. But I can't complain - he is 80 something years old after all.
** edit : also told dr. irene pepperberg that she's mentioned in this book today... lolz
November 6, 2023
Having read Consciousness Explained, I learned that not only does Dennett have a lot to say but he also explains it very well for a nonacademic such as myself. I hadn't realized it was autobiographical when I preordered it and don't read many biographies but I was fascinated throughout. There is a certain amount of "arrogance" but I realized it was in the nature of someone who had to constantly defend their ideas to have a strong opinion, a certainty of what they are presenting. Many biographies are a long boring presentation of facts but Dennett is able to present many ideas and references to those who support and oppose them. I marked all the books I thought I might read as I proceeded through. I am grateful to an author that writes with clarity for a broad audience without pulling punches and attempting to dumb it down. More Dennett is in my future.
November 13, 2023
This is the reminisences of one of the smartest dudes on the planet. I was hoping it would focus more on his philosophy of evolution, atheism and how the brain works, but it is mostly a memoir of his personal experiences, friendships, colleagues, conferences, etc., although some of his philosophy is in here. Pretty good, got a little bored with it toward the end.
March 24, 2024
It’s an autobiography that reminds me not to bother reading another autobiography. Biographies are much more honest and interesting.
October 18, 2023
I think this is written for the Dennet superfans. I have a couple of his books on my “to read” list but haven’t gotten to them yet (I will) - this just dropped as a new release so I dove in. Learned a bit but mostly this is a chance for him to reminisce on a long career. I really like the sections on the farm and sailing - made him seem like a grounded dude in contrast to the academic brinkmanship and hissy fits vs other smart thinkers and scientists. Most of his name dropping went over my head, but it is cool to think of him as a philosopher getting in on the ground floor of both computing and AI in the early 80s - I really like and respect his multi-disciplinary approach to his work.
I skimmed parts of the name dropping chapters but learned a lot about academia and his field by struggling through.
I skimmed parts of the name dropping chapters but learned a lot about academia and his field by struggling through.
March 6, 2024
Great memoirs are inspiring/fascinating/entertaining regardless whether their readers are familiar with their authors. By that standard, I’ve Been Thinking is mostly a dud — Dennett’s least compelling book, a work marred by vast uninteresting stretches, ho-hum writing, and tiresomely repetitive instances of self-congratulation. Dennett’s a brilliant thinker, and a first-rate expositor of scientific/philosophical ideas — as his prior books richly attest. I don’t regret reading this one (it was a quick read, and it did afford me a few pleasures). I can’t recommend it highly, though, unless you’re a Dennett completist.
November 18, 2023
Part of my personal octogenarian trilogy I read this month -- Robert A. Johnson, Werner Herzog, and Daniel Dennett.
October 16, 2024
An odd one - most pages are merely charming, merely show him pulling off some cool stunt or listing some past or recondite academic process or other. But in aggregate they form a life of baffling breadth and taste.
As well as changing analytic philosophy for the better (through good writing, science, and a hefty dose of fun) and writing some of the best popular work and inspiring thousands of people to break free of their religion, he was an amateur sculptor, an amateur early music singer, an amateur art historian, an amateur sailor, a square dance caller, an accordionist, a farmer, a fisher, a jam-maker, cider presser and bootlegger. An amateur of everything. A natural aristocrat.
I hope the cheese album he recorded as a teen (as the Peadquacs) turns up. Or his mature work with the New England Classical Singers.
He has read more broadly than me or you. He has a strong misreading of Husserl. The bigoted giants of the last century - Gould, Searle, Chomsky, Penrose, Lewontin - all shrink to fit in his hand.
(One wonders what they would say of the exchange.)
One of the other things I love about it is that it shows the total dislocation of the 60s. He's married by 20. He sails to England because flying is still too expensive.
It’s a warm old man’s book but there’s an edge on it. This is the guy who was willing to hold bizarre positions against approximately the entire world. He was in several ways more radical than Dawkins, who took the heat instead. He talks about his youthful insecurities (in the face of people like Nozick) here - but modesty was for special occasions.
Cultured up the wazoo, an argument for the academy (if you could only fill it with people as grounded and principled as this, which you can't). A life more complete than complete.
(On the other hand, inspired as I am, it's not easy to follow him. He walked into Oxford with a weak application, walked from there straight into Ryle's care, got a PhD in passing, and then collected the unfathomably huge orchard of low-hanging fruit - evolutionary theory, cognitive science, computer science - that the other philosophers were studiously ignoring. Is there anything left for us? Yes, surely, but where?)
* Brain music
* lecture jazz
As well as changing analytic philosophy for the better (through good writing, science, and a hefty dose of fun) and writing some of the best popular work and inspiring thousands of people to break free of their religion, he was an amateur sculptor, an amateur early music singer, an amateur art historian, an amateur sailor, a square dance caller, an accordionist, a farmer, a fisher, a jam-maker, cider presser and bootlegger. An amateur of everything. A natural aristocrat.
I have (so far) led a remarkably adventurous and fulfilling life, way beyond the most extravagant fantasies of my youth—and I was a cocksure young man with vaulting ambition. How did it happen? Was it all just luck, or “connections,” or may I claim some credit for getting myself into my current happy state? Do I in any sense deserve the benefits I now enjoy?
...My main destination was Rome, where, thanks to an Exeter faculty wife, Nina Fish, I had arranged to work in the sculpture studio of Pietro Consagra, recent winner of the Venice Biennale prize, whose wife was Nina’s sister... A recent googling of “ancient Roman bronze” showed me some photos of pieces I daresay we made; they’re still pretty cheap.
She saw a new sculpture of mine in a rather different style and medium than I had been working in, and she asked the gallery owner who the sculptor was. “Oh, that’s a new work by a very exciting young Italian sculptor, Danielo Dennetti.” This is a main reason I am not heavily involved in the art world now. I love the company of artists, but I can’t stand gallery owners, art critics, or—sad to say—many of the people who can afford to buy original art. Selling a piece to them often seemed to me like a betrayal—like giving them a child of mine. I did have a show of my “haptic whittles” in the Underdonk Gallery in Brooklyn in 2017, but none of the pieces were for sale.
Some years later, when we were both Harvard students, we ran into each other in Paris in the summer and went to Le Chat Qui Pêche, where Chet Baker and his band were playing. I stayed until after midnight, when Ron egged me on to ask to sit in. This was granted, and I giddily did perhaps ten choruses of blues in F with these immortals and returned, flushed, to our table. Then Ron got up and began playing, and they really paid attention. I left after one o’clock in the morning with Ron still sitting in, and he showed up at my Left Bank hotel while I was having a late breakfast at about ten the next day. When I remarked that he was up early, he said he was just then getting back from
the jam session. He was brilliant but insecure, and sadly a few years later he committed suicide. I never found out the details.
I hope the cheese album he recorded as a teen (as the Peadquacs) turns up. Or his mature work with the New England Classical Singers.
He has read more broadly than me or you. He has a strong misreading of Husserl. The bigoted giants of the last century - Gould, Searle, Chomsky, Penrose, Lewontin - all shrink to fit in his hand.
Many people are eager to protect “real magic” in one way or another, and many of them find philosophy to be the ideal profession for this campaign. I’d say it is the distinguishing characteristic of one kind of philosopher. But then there are the antiphilosophers, who look at the mess made by the others and say to themselves, “Fie! I’m going to try to clear this all up!” My guides and heroes have been the folks—scientists and philosophers—who have hunches about how the tricks are done, how the illusions are generated. They are not just skeptics and debunkers but
constructive explainers, groping for models or theories to replace the armchair verities of the philosophers with testable ideas...
I’m a pack rat, a magpie—to slices of what strike me as the most exciting or thought provoking tidbits and leaving the rest of the interpretation to the scholars. I think I have learned a lot from Husserl, but some distinguished Husserl scholars think my reading is irreparably ill-informed. I don’t care. I turned to Husserl to figure out how the mind works and got some valuable help from that reading; if Husserl himself would be aghast at my construal, too bad for Husserl. I am happy to give him credit, but if Husserlians want to reject my gift, they are welcome to do so. I’m not going to spend days or weeks wrangling over hermeneutics.
I read Chomsky’s famous review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, which had just appeared, but —unlike most budding cognitive scientists—I also read Skinner’s book, and I decided that Chomsky’s review was a masterpiece of misleading polemics. That was my earliest encounter with deliberate caricature in academia, and it was an eye-opener.
The physicist Wolfgang Pauli famously dismissed another physicist’s ideas as “not even wrong,” and I have opportunistically tried to fix some of the wrong ideas presented by physicist Roger Penrose, linguist Noam Chomsky, neuroscientist Christof Koch, and evolutionary biologists Stephen Jay Gould and David Sloan Wilson, among others. Then there were my long-standing battles with my fellow philosophers Thomas Nagel, Jerry Fodor, John Searle, and David Chalmers. Where would I be without all these brilliant mistakes to correct, with the help of my thinking tools?
(One wonders what they would say of the exchange.)
One of the other things I love about it is that it shows the total dislocation of the 60s. He's married by 20. He sails to England because flying is still too expensive.
It’s a warm old man’s book but there’s an edge on it. This is the guy who was willing to hold bizarre positions against approximately the entire world. He was in several ways more radical than Dawkins, who took the heat instead. He talks about his youthful insecurities (in the face of people like Nozick) here - but modesty was for special occasions.
as Gilbert Ryle, my thesis supervisor at Oxford, told a colleague of mine over a few beers in Salzburg back in the ’60s, “There are much cleverer chaps than Dennett, but he has a fire in his belly.” I’ve gratefully leaned on that crutch now for more than half a century.
One mathematician who vigorously participated (I forget his name, alas) was enticed into reading Quine’s Word and Object, and asked me at lunch one day why it was that whenever Quine got into real metaphysical issues he “cracked wise,” jocularly evading the problems. It had never occurred to me that Quine did this, but I was soon persuaded that the fellow was right. I ventured a diagnosis: Quine started out as a mathematical logician and had never been quite sure that philosophy was a
proper career for a grown-up; it was his residual discomfort with the field he was in that explained his arm’s-length approach to metaphysics. Years later, I told Quine this story, and he readily confirmed my diagnosis: Quine was a philosopher malgré lui. Me too, I thought.
Cultured up the wazoo, an argument for the academy (if you could only fill it with people as grounded and principled as this, which you can't). A life more complete than complete.
(On the other hand, inspired as I am, it's not easy to follow him. He walked into Oxford with a weak application, walked from there straight into Ryle's care, got a PhD in passing, and then collected the unfathomably huge orchard of low-hanging fruit - evolutionary theory, cognitive science, computer science - that the other philosophers were studiously ignoring. Is there anything left for us? Yes, surely, but where?)
* Brain music
* lecture jazz
August 22, 2025
This is a professional, as opposed to a personal, autobiography of one of the great philosophers of the mind in the last hundred years.
Dennett's core theory is that the human brain evolved to think consciously and make considered decisions. The idea that there is a central decision maker or arbiter in the brain which is evaluating all the information and making a decision, is an illusion. The human brain makes decisions based on the messy multi based evolved stuff in the brain and then tricks us into believing that there is a central deciding function that made logical organized decisions. I am entirely sympathetic with his central idea. I am satisfied that at this point, if there was a central deciding function, we would have discovered it, and we have not.
Dennett describes his academic path. He ends up connected to Tufts University. He explains why Harvard and MIT, both of which he could have taught at, where nor comfortable fits for him.
He describes the luxurious life which those at the very top of the academic world experience. He stays in a beautiful villa i Italy for weeks. He summers in Oxford. He spends months on the California coast. All of which, is well payed. It is not a bad life. He mentions casually, "I've lost track of how many times I've been to Paris as a speaker or a tourist."
He also is very good on the collaborative nature of philosophy. Time after time he organizes discussion groups with other senior philosophers to help hash out his and their ideas.
The juiciest part of the books is his descriptions of the academic battles he has had over the years. He paints Stephen Jay Gold as a dishonest bully. He tells the story of his feud with the philosopher John Searle. Although his claim that Searle was unfair and a bully towards him are somewhat undercut when he admits that the title of his lecture which really set off the feud was, "Turing's Strange Inversion and John Searles' Failure of Imagination". He says it was a "fairly lighthearted talk" and just "poking a little fun" and seems shocked that Searle reacted poorly to it.
He has interesting discussions about his love of music and sailing. He seems to have been happily married for years. He mentions his kids but does not really discuss them. Dennett died in April of 202024.
This is not really an introduction to his ideas. His book "Consciousness Explained" is still the best introduction. The explosion of AI has tended to confirm his central ideas since IA decision making is similar to the uncentralized decision making which he theorized.
Dennett's core theory is that the human brain evolved to think consciously and make considered decisions. The idea that there is a central decision maker or arbiter in the brain which is evaluating all the information and making a decision, is an illusion. The human brain makes decisions based on the messy multi based evolved stuff in the brain and then tricks us into believing that there is a central deciding function that made logical organized decisions. I am entirely sympathetic with his central idea. I am satisfied that at this point, if there was a central deciding function, we would have discovered it, and we have not.
Dennett describes his academic path. He ends up connected to Tufts University. He explains why Harvard and MIT, both of which he could have taught at, where nor comfortable fits for him.
He describes the luxurious life which those at the very top of the academic world experience. He stays in a beautiful villa i Italy for weeks. He summers in Oxford. He spends months on the California coast. All of which, is well payed. It is not a bad life. He mentions casually, "I've lost track of how many times I've been to Paris as a speaker or a tourist."
He also is very good on the collaborative nature of philosophy. Time after time he organizes discussion groups with other senior philosophers to help hash out his and their ideas.
The juiciest part of the books is his descriptions of the academic battles he has had over the years. He paints Stephen Jay Gold as a dishonest bully. He tells the story of his feud with the philosopher John Searle. Although his claim that Searle was unfair and a bully towards him are somewhat undercut when he admits that the title of his lecture which really set off the feud was, "Turing's Strange Inversion and John Searles' Failure of Imagination". He says it was a "fairly lighthearted talk" and just "poking a little fun" and seems shocked that Searle reacted poorly to it.
He has interesting discussions about his love of music and sailing. He seems to have been happily married for years. He mentions his kids but does not really discuss them. Dennett died in April of 202024.
This is not really an introduction to his ideas. His book "Consciousness Explained" is still the best introduction. The explosion of AI has tended to confirm his central ideas since IA decision making is similar to the uncentralized decision making which he theorized.
March 19, 2024
I have enjoyed reading Daniel Dennett's books about how the brain works that combine philosophy and neuroscience. His books that I have read are for a popular audience but are only accessible to those of us who are not professional philosophers or neuroscientists if we think carefully as we digest his ideas. He's not afraid to go out on a limb, but his speculations all make a lot of sense to me and always at least point in directions that are worth exploring. He tries to be careful to acknowledge when he is speculating. I certainly think that he is correct in his strong position that the brain is not a "Cartesian theater" where our thoughts play out as little movies for the homunculus of the mind, and he may well be mostly right in his alternative explanations about how our brains/minds work. This book makes passing references to his theories, but it is most definitely intended as a memoir, so that its focus is on Mr. Dennett's personal and professional life, his interactions with family, friends and colleagues and the ways that he developed his interests in the areas of scholarship for which he is famous.
He comes off in the book as a good person who tries to be constructive. He encourages his students to question and to think on their own. He has had productive collaborations with other well-known philosophers and scientists. He tries to engage in positive debates with other scholars who disagree with him. And he seems to have a strong family life. I'm sure that some of this is just Mr. Dennett seeing himself in his own best light and wanting to paint a pretty picture of his own life. Most of it feels genuine, though sometimes in his descriptions of his more contentious arguments with other scholars, he protests a bit too much, so I wonder if he was really as innocent as he makes himself out to be. But if to some extent we become the roles that we play, it's always better to play the good guy than the villain.
Despite my skepticism, I came away from the book with a strong personal liking for Mr. Dennett. It would be great fun to meet him and spend a few hours chatting. I'm sure that he'd find some of my thinking amateurish and not fully formed, but I also think that he would be kind about it and guide me in directions that would help me to think more deeply about the things that interest me.
He comes off in the book as a good person who tries to be constructive. He encourages his students to question and to think on their own. He has had productive collaborations with other well-known philosophers and scientists. He tries to engage in positive debates with other scholars who disagree with him. And he seems to have a strong family life. I'm sure that some of this is just Mr. Dennett seeing himself in his own best light and wanting to paint a pretty picture of his own life. Most of it feels genuine, though sometimes in his descriptions of his more contentious arguments with other scholars, he protests a bit too much, so I wonder if he was really as innocent as he makes himself out to be. But if to some extent we become the roles that we play, it's always better to play the good guy than the villain.
Despite my skepticism, I came away from the book with a strong personal liking for Mr. Dennett. It would be great fun to meet him and spend a few hours chatting. I'm sure that he'd find some of my thinking amateurish and not fully formed, but I also think that he would be kind about it and guide me in directions that would help me to think more deeply about the things that interest me.
August 5, 2025
I’VE BEEN THINKING by Daniel C. Dennett
Biography of a modern, contemporary philosopher with Socratic face (bald and long bearded - the words Dennett used for himself) seems to be a boring and dry read. But on any count, it is witty and insightful at the same time and also inspirational.
A Tufts University scholar, snake catching philosopher, with additional talents of sailing, playing piano, dismantling obscure antique robots, art of making tea and fermenting cider wine and as well as plants species explorer - while on academic level exploring frontiers of Consciousness, Free Will and Artificial Intelligence.
He is telling his life experiences in humorous way, starting from his childhood in Beirut, early death of his father, academic career, intellectual development, and encounters with other philosophers, thinkers, writers and mathematicians.
Book is not a tedious chronological narrative, rather each chapter is a philosophical essay. Some are apologetic counter-reviews of his own books, kind of prologues. Some his confrontations and insight into academia – iconoclastic sharp wit with refined modesty. Others on development of ideas emerging trends on the subjects like Philosophy of Mind, the Philosophy of Science, and Evolutionary Biology and Cognitive Science.
In sharing his life experiences he is imaginative with thought experiments and his habits are creative and inspirational. I’ve read a few of his books and intend to read more, but I will recommend his biography to those as well who are not even interested in his philosophies.
This is not a biography of any military general or politician or statesman. But Dinette’s vast encounters with thinkers across the globe, including UK, Italy, France, Eastern Europe (before fall of Iron Curtain) and Russia (Soviet), gives a glimpse of mindset in these places and times, makes this read interesting for general readers as well. Surprisingly no encounter with China or Eastern Philosophies.
Dennett’s raises many interesting questions in cursorily passing; such as why does humor exists; what is it like to be a vulture or a bat; and - also the title of the last chapter - What if I’m wrong?
Biography of a modern, contemporary philosopher with Socratic face (bald and long bearded - the words Dennett used for himself) seems to be a boring and dry read. But on any count, it is witty and insightful at the same time and also inspirational.
A Tufts University scholar, snake catching philosopher, with additional talents of sailing, playing piano, dismantling obscure antique robots, art of making tea and fermenting cider wine and as well as plants species explorer - while on academic level exploring frontiers of Consciousness, Free Will and Artificial Intelligence.
He is telling his life experiences in humorous way, starting from his childhood in Beirut, early death of his father, academic career, intellectual development, and encounters with other philosophers, thinkers, writers and mathematicians.
Book is not a tedious chronological narrative, rather each chapter is a philosophical essay. Some are apologetic counter-reviews of his own books, kind of prologues. Some his confrontations and insight into academia – iconoclastic sharp wit with refined modesty. Others on development of ideas emerging trends on the subjects like Philosophy of Mind, the Philosophy of Science, and Evolutionary Biology and Cognitive Science.
In sharing his life experiences he is imaginative with thought experiments and his habits are creative and inspirational. I’ve read a few of his books and intend to read more, but I will recommend his biography to those as well who are not even interested in his philosophies.
This is not a biography of any military general or politician or statesman. But Dinette’s vast encounters with thinkers across the globe, including UK, Italy, France, Eastern Europe (before fall of Iron Curtain) and Russia (Soviet), gives a glimpse of mindset in these places and times, makes this read interesting for general readers as well. Surprisingly no encounter with China or Eastern Philosophies.
Dennett’s raises many interesting questions in cursorily passing; such as why does humor exists; what is it like to be a vulture or a bat; and - also the title of the last chapter - What if I’m wrong?
April 16, 2024
Autobiography of a distinguished philosopher of mind. He's been at Tufts forever, though I'm guessing his departmental and university colleagues must be fairly envious -- sounds like he was the President's pet when Jean Mayer the nutritionist was there shaking things up, and he did guest/visiting stints frequently all over the world.
You get a little of the thinking leading him to one or another position on evolution of mind and why he's anti-organized religion, plus some details on his side hobbies/passions such as farming (they got a sizable place in Maine when he was an assistant professor at UC Irvine--quite the commute) and competitive sailing.
Otherwise, mostly inside baseball and an unpleasant degree of score-settling, not so much exposition of his ideas. Ex. I am not a philosopher and only hazily remember reading Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?" paper in college. I could use a refresher on his main points and what other philosophers thought of them. Instead, there's a brief self-congratulatory passage re how Dennett wrote a clever footnote indicating where Nagel actually got the idea to use bats as his example, how Nagel had lost track of having read the earlier source but admitted it when Dennett pointed this out etc. etc.
That's a benign one for one of his friends. There are also much more detailed, rant-like, discussions of what's wrong personally and professionally with various scholars he can't stand (ex. Stephen Jay Gould).
Not fair I guess to knock a book for failing to be some other book, but I guess I'd say if you only have time for one Dennett book this year maybe pick one of his substantive works on consciousness or what not. If you are a Dennett stan and share his apparently very high opinion of himself and want to savor the blow-by-blow of how he's killed it at a bunch of TED talks, knows the best restaurants everywhere, etc. etc., then this is the book for you.
You get a little of the thinking leading him to one or another position on evolution of mind and why he's anti-organized religion, plus some details on his side hobbies/passions such as farming (they got a sizable place in Maine when he was an assistant professor at UC Irvine--quite the commute) and competitive sailing.
Otherwise, mostly inside baseball and an unpleasant degree of score-settling, not so much exposition of his ideas. Ex. I am not a philosopher and only hazily remember reading Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?" paper in college. I could use a refresher on his main points and what other philosophers thought of them. Instead, there's a brief self-congratulatory passage re how Dennett wrote a clever footnote indicating where Nagel actually got the idea to use bats as his example, how Nagel had lost track of having read the earlier source but admitted it when Dennett pointed this out etc. etc.
That's a benign one for one of his friends. There are also much more detailed, rant-like, discussions of what's wrong personally and professionally with various scholars he can't stand (ex. Stephen Jay Gould).
Not fair I guess to knock a book for failing to be some other book, but I guess I'd say if you only have time for one Dennett book this year maybe pick one of his substantive works on consciousness or what not. If you are a Dennett stan and share his apparently very high opinion of himself and want to savor the blow-by-blow of how he's killed it at a bunch of TED talks, knows the best restaurants everywhere, etc. etc., then this is the book for you.
November 20, 2025
"I've Been Thinking" is a memoir by Daniel Dennett, a leading philosopher known for his work on cognition, consciousness, and evolution. Rather than offering a chronological recounting of his life, Dennett structures the book in several parts that trace his intellectual journey through select personal and professional moments. The narrative is reflective and episodic, often requiring readers to pay close attention to the shifting timeline.
The emphasis here is not on Dennett’s philosophical theories but on the people and experiences that shaped him. Parts 1 through 3 chart his development from student to established thinker, while Part 4 shifts focus to his interactions with fellow academics and his commentary on their behaviors and personalities. Readers are exposed to a wide range of philosophers and scholars, many of whom are mentioned without introduction, making the context difficult to follow for those outside the academic circle.
Although not the primary focus, the book includes descriptions of Dennett’s evolving ideas and the debates that surrounded them. These philosophical discussions serve as a backdrop to the memoir’s narrative, adding depth to his personal and professional reflections. However, the ideas are often presented without a comprehensive explanation, leaving readers unfamiliar with Dennett’s work or the academic context feeling somewhat adrift.
The memoir is deeply personal and occasionally self-congratulatory, particularly evident in the book’s introduction and conclusion. It reads, in part, like a retrospective addressed to colleagues and contemporaries—more a reflective apologia than a public-facing autobiography. Nevertheless, it remains an engaging read for those outside the field. While the book may not serve as an entry point into Dennett’s ideas, it offers a unique perspective on the man behind the philosophy and, more broadly, on the lives of contemporary philosophers.
The emphasis here is not on Dennett’s philosophical theories but on the people and experiences that shaped him. Parts 1 through 3 chart his development from student to established thinker, while Part 4 shifts focus to his interactions with fellow academics and his commentary on their behaviors and personalities. Readers are exposed to a wide range of philosophers and scholars, many of whom are mentioned without introduction, making the context difficult to follow for those outside the academic circle.
Although not the primary focus, the book includes descriptions of Dennett’s evolving ideas and the debates that surrounded them. These philosophical discussions serve as a backdrop to the memoir’s narrative, adding depth to his personal and professional reflections. However, the ideas are often presented without a comprehensive explanation, leaving readers unfamiliar with Dennett’s work or the academic context feeling somewhat adrift.
The memoir is deeply personal and occasionally self-congratulatory, particularly evident in the book’s introduction and conclusion. It reads, in part, like a retrospective addressed to colleagues and contemporaries—more a reflective apologia than a public-facing autobiography. Nevertheless, it remains an engaging read for those outside the field. While the book may not serve as an entry point into Dennett’s ideas, it offers a unique perspective on the man behind the philosophy and, more broadly, on the lives of contemporary philosophers.
September 24, 2025
Daniel Dennett's memoir is a well-paced account of an academic philosopher's peregrinations, through Harvard, Oxford, UC/Irvine, and Tufts, where he taught for many years. Dennett is unapolgetic about how smart he is, but he admits he can't do at least a few things, which makes some of his bragging less obnoxious. He doesn't do much to recap the many books he has written. That's probably a good choice. Over the years he became very involved in cognitive science and AI, subjects that more than a few philosophers avoid. Without stating it as clearly as I will now, Dennett's underlying theory seems to be that survival, in the Darwinian sense, has affected the entirety of human experience, including consciousness. Baldly, we learned to think to survive. As the human brain evolved, it generated capabilities, including memory, critical thinking, and that mist of thoughts, images, perceptions and fantasies that we call consciousness, from which we can, as necessary, extract survival strategies that in today's world enable us to pass tests in school, learn trades, get and keep jobs, and plan and conduct wars. So Dennett presents himself as a materialist and a rationalist, with the two facets intertwined. There's no cause or room for divinity in his philosophy. You use reason to plumb your material circumstances to survive and thrive. Dennett includes social cooperation, the arts, and other human endeavors but everything starts with this single thing, the brain/mind. This a long book; it features a number of scholarly feuds; and it sketches out the activities that engaged Dennett beyond thinking--sailing, making apple cider, promoting young scholars, looking after his family, and restoring an old farmhouse.
November 1, 2023
As a memoir, this was an entertaining - and relatable - read for me. I’m of roughly the same generation (8 years younger) as Dennett, raised as a privileged, white, male, Protestant in the Boston area, Ivy-league educated, non-resident state-of-Mainer, science-inclined devout atheist. The parallels end there, however, as Dennett applied his considerable talents and brilliant mind to a lifelong investigation of consciousness and free will. Among his talents is vivid story-telling; sometimes unbridled and self-serving, but mostly amusing.
I was hoping for more explication of Dennett’s philosophical thinking, and was disappointed. There’s a lot of name dropping, much inside dope on the academic worlds of philosophy, physchology, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, computer science, AI, etc. Brief and teasing references to Dennett’s writings are a motivation to read back through his oeuvre. His final chapters provide a helpful summary of his thinking process and his conceptual “findings” on language, consciousness, and free will. His prologue offers a pointed (and personal) put down of religious irrationality. But overall, the book achieves its objective as memoir, and should not be criticized as philosophically superficial.
I was hoping for more explication of Dennett’s philosophical thinking, and was disappointed. There’s a lot of name dropping, much inside dope on the academic worlds of philosophy, physchology, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, computer science, AI, etc. Brief and teasing references to Dennett’s writings are a motivation to read back through his oeuvre. His final chapters provide a helpful summary of his thinking process and his conceptual “findings” on language, consciousness, and free will. His prologue offers a pointed (and personal) put down of religious irrationality. But overall, the book achieves its objective as memoir, and should not be criticized as philosophically superficial.
February 17, 2024
I read this to use it as an introduction to his works other works since I have only read Intuition Pumps so far. What I found inside was a glimpse into the high echelons of academia, an account of his good life, how he jousts with windmills, and some funny stories.
I loved his Introduction because he shows his gratitude to goodness--the good people and things of this life. I liked reading his clean, direct sentences; he has the gift of narrative and clarity; he is the kind of writer who writes such that I wanted to read the next sentence and the next sentence and the next sentence.
I also appreciate his gentleness with confronting religion and religious people. For an atheist, he has remarkable dignity and care. This shows him to be a great model to many.
Sure, there was a great amount of name dropping, but he has earned it. His obit in the NYTimes with fill a section of the newspaper. Not only do I want to read more of his books but also, I want to read some of the other philosophers he mentions.
I loved his Introduction because he shows his gratitude to goodness--the good people and things of this life. I liked reading his clean, direct sentences; he has the gift of narrative and clarity; he is the kind of writer who writes such that I wanted to read the next sentence and the next sentence and the next sentence.
I also appreciate his gentleness with confronting religion and religious people. For an atheist, he has remarkable dignity and care. This shows him to be a great model to many.
Sure, there was a great amount of name dropping, but he has earned it. His obit in the NYTimes with fill a section of the newspaper. Not only do I want to read more of his books but also, I want to read some of the other philosophers he mentions.
August 21, 2024
I thought of giving the book 3 stars and mentioning 3.5 in the review but gave it 4 stars in the end.
While Dennett's memoir offers intriguing insights into his philosophical career and personal life, it occasionally veers into excessive name-dropping and dwells on academic feuds. To his credit, Dennett acknowledges his own limitations and apparent arrogance, demonstrating a degree of self-awareness.
The book paints a portrait of a multifaceted thinker with diverse interests, albeit one who often found himself at odds with his contemporaries. Dennett's ideas and the topics he explores are undeniably fascinating, yet his writing style can be challenging and borderline boring to engage with.
Despite its occasional tedium, the memoir succeeds in providing an authentic representation of Dennett's character and intellectual journey. While not always an enjoyable read, the book's honest portrayal of this influential philosopher ultimately makes it a worthwhile read for those interested in understanding the man behind the ideas.
While Dennett's memoir offers intriguing insights into his philosophical career and personal life, it occasionally veers into excessive name-dropping and dwells on academic feuds. To his credit, Dennett acknowledges his own limitations and apparent arrogance, demonstrating a degree of self-awareness.
The book paints a portrait of a multifaceted thinker with diverse interests, albeit one who often found himself at odds with his contemporaries. Dennett's ideas and the topics he explores are undeniably fascinating, yet his writing style can be challenging and borderline boring to engage with.
Despite its occasional tedium, the memoir succeeds in providing an authentic representation of Dennett's character and intellectual journey. While not always an enjoyable read, the book's honest portrayal of this influential philosopher ultimately makes it a worthwhile read for those interested in understanding the man behind the ideas.
November 22, 2024
Less than 10% of this book is philosophy. The rest is just old Dennett remembering his glorious days for his fans and maybe for someone who can glimpse any traces of a genius in all of this. Additionally there are the extended details about him as a failed musician, sculptor, sailor, farmer and so on. Then there are tons of silly anecdotes and direct references to more or less famous people. Next are his countless achievements and self-congratulations as a popularizing of atheistic and materialistic philosophy. Eventually there are the personal grudges, rivals, denunciations, and accounts to settle and put in print before dying. The culminations of all these are the rather obscene details of private and free cruises offered by the extra rich to him. I guess there is not much to expect from someone who identifies philosophy with good programming skills. However, his fans should not miss him too much – it seems there is a dedicated LLM that will continue to parrot Dennett until the end of time.
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