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A review by meisterkleister
Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking by Daniel C. Dennett
5.0
'You can't do much carpentry with your bare hands, and you can't do much thinking with your bare brain.'
'The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term.'
The solutions to the most difficult questions in existence, about the universe, life, meaning, free will and consciousness are not intuitive. If they were, we would've figured them out long ago. Daniel Dennett's book offers a plethora of Thinking Tools drawn from computer science, biology and many other realms which, like the apps on your phone, give you the power to do more things better - to think difficults thoughts more easily, and even tackle the most difficult questions about meaning and consciousness. It's designed to change your way of thinking and to nudge you out of some ultimately wrong intuitions you may hold. It is basically a summary of his life's work.
I think Dennett's toolkit, which is made out of many thought experiments ('Intuition Pumps') and more, is extremely useful for any aspiring thinker, whether you agree with him or not.
'The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term.'
The solutions to the most difficult questions in existence, about the universe, life, meaning, free will and consciousness are not intuitive. If they were, we would've figured them out long ago. Daniel Dennett's book offers a plethora of Thinking Tools drawn from computer science, biology and many other realms which, like the apps on your phone, give you the power to do more things better - to think difficults thoughts more easily, and even tackle the most difficult questions about meaning and consciousness. It's designed to change your way of thinking and to nudge you out of some ultimately wrong intuitions you may hold. It is basically a summary of his life's work.
I think Dennett's toolkit, which is made out of many thought experiments ('Intuition Pumps') and more, is extremely useful for any aspiring thinker, whether you agree with him or not.