How are we able to understand and anticipate each other in everyday life, in our daily interactions? Through the use of such "folk" concepts as belief, desire, intention, and expectation, asserts Daniel Dennett in this first full-scale presentation of a theory of intentionality that he has been developing for almost twenty years. We adopt a stance, he argues, a predictive strategy of interpretation that presupposes the rationality of the people - or other entities - we are hoping to understand and predict.These principles of radical interpretation have far-reaching implications for the metaphysical and scientific status of the processes referred to by the everday terms of folk psychology and their corresponding terms in cognitive science.While Dennett's philosophical stance has been steadfast over the years, his views have undergone successive enrichments, refinements, and extensions. The Intentional Stance brings together both previously published and original material: four of the book's ten chapters - its first and the final three - appear here for the first time and push the theory into surprising new territory. The remaining six were published earlier in the 1980s but were not easily accessible; each is followed by a reflection - an essay reconsidering and extending the claims of the earlier work. These reflections and the new chapters represent the vanguard of Dennett's thought. They reveal fresh lines of inquiry into fundamental issues in psychology, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary theory as well as traditional issues in the philosophy of mind.Daniel C. Dennett is Distinguished Arts and Sciences Professor at Tufts University and the author of Brainstorms and Elbow Room. The Intentional Stance, along with these works, is a Bradford Book.
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"Dennett's essays are vivid, witty and admirably provocative." P. N. Johnson Laird , The London Review of Books "This is Dennett in action: reflecting, joking, clarifying, criticizing - and always stimulating... Anyone interested in the philosophy of mind will find both interest and excitement in these essays." Margaret Boden , Sussex University
About the Author
Daniel C. Dennett is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. He is the author of Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness (MIT Press) and other books.
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Talking about the mind, for many people, is rather like talking about sex: slightly embarrassing, undignified, maybe even disreputable. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Talking about the mind, for many people, is rather like talking about sex: slightly embarrassing, undignified, maybe even disreputable. Read the first page
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3.6 out of 5 stars
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
An intro to Dennett's thought on consciousness
24 Jan 2006
By S. J. Snyder
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Anybody who wants to seriously wrestle with Dennett's thought on consciousness needs to start here, then move to "Consciousness Explained," and from there to "Freedom Evolves." (It is an update of "Elbow Room," which means that can be skipped. And, although it has some germs of Dennett's thought, "Brainstorms" can also be bypassed.)
Does one have to have a philosophy course touching on intentionality before reading this book? No, not if one is well-enough read in philosophy, psychology or sociology in general to grasp the background of Dennett's ideas.
I rate this a star higher than most of Dennett's later work primarily because it is more introductory, and so we see less of Dennett tripping himself up or avoiding some of the logical conclusions of his speculations.
That said, Dennett is never dull or boring; agree or disagree, he will stimulate your thought.
Does one have to have a philosophy course touching on intentionality before reading this book? No, not if one is well-enough read in philosophy, psychology or sociology in general to grasp the background of Dennett's ideas.
I rate this a star higher than most of Dennett's later work primarily because it is more introductory, and so we see less of Dennett tripping himself up or avoiding some of the logical conclusions of his speculations.
That said, Dennett is never dull or boring; agree or disagree, he will stimulate your thought.
23 of 28 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Classic
15 Feb 2003
By J. Alfonso
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
I believe this work should be considered a classic given the enormous influence the articles in it have had on philosophy of mind, among other areas in philosophy. Much in here is stated more clearly about the Intentional Stance than it is in later works, such as Brain Children. That isn't a criticism. I think that around the time this work was published Dennett was more into legitimizing and explaining the Intentional Stance than into polishing up his account of mind. Indeed in later works, such as "Consciousness Explained" and "Kinds of Minds", he builds off the foundation he laid here to develop his account of mind more fully.
In IS, Dennett comments on just which philosophical schools he aligns himself with, for instance, interpretivism, methodological behaviorism, and functionalism. Part of the message to take home about exactly where he aligns himself is that it isn't really important to him. He lays his arguments down and lets others worry about whether that makes him an interpretivist or methodological behaviorist. A clearer statement of his position regarding categorization of his views can be found in the "Back to the Drawing Board" chapter in "Dennett and His Critics".
In later works, Dennett further clarifies in what sense the entities the Intentional Stance makes use of are real, entities such as beliefs and desires. The most important of these later works is probably "Real Patterns", which appears in "Brain Children". In short, beliefs are part of compression algorithms of behavior that has been subjected to radical interpretation (See Davidson) from the Intentional Stance. A compression algorithm is (you guessed it) something that compresses some series of data. For instance, imagine you wanted to print 1000 1's and you had a computer that understood a programming language that would allow you to do so. One way to output the 1000 1's would be to specify that the computer print 1 and to repeat this command a thousand times. This doesn't compress anything however. Instead, you might tell the computer to "print 1 x 1000". This program has far fewer bits than does 1000 1's. 1000 1's has 1000 bits; the program has around log (base 2) 1000 bits. Hence, because it has fewer bits than what itd output does, that program is a compression algorithm of what it outputs. I recommend reading Gregory Chaitin for further info on Algorithmic Information Theory. In "Real Patterns" (in Brain Children), Dennett makes nice use of the mathematical definition of randomness to define compression algorithms and to set a plausible standard for what makes something a useful abstract object and thus, in a sense, just as real as are all the other useful scientific objects. Much more can be said about this, but this is enough for now.
This book is an excellent starting point for future study. Dennett's writing is as always engaging, insightful, and fairly straightforward.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
not fo the light reader
26 Oct 2008
By Ivan L Freitas S
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
I've been trying to read every Dennett book since 1996 when I got to read the "elbow room" that really impressed my way of thinking, specially being a psychologist. I usually don't shift books on an author till I got to finish the one I'm into and its been almost two years trying to finish this book to start reading "breaking the spell" that's getting covered in dust.
This book unlikely the most recent Dennett books its a pretty deep investigation and defense into one of the most important ideas of the author as it is the intentional system, but in a rigorous way, so rigorous that some times it gets tedious so I have to let it go for a few days before continue the struggling to keep going through the pages.
I recommend this book only for those who want to know how Dennett got to the "Consciousness Explained" in a step by step and detailed way, but you can get to "Consciousness Explained" and understand it in a "mild" language skipping this sound step if you want to.
I will continue my pain since I decided to read all his books, but like I said before you can enjoy all his other great books skipping this one, but if you do, arm yourself with lots of patience cause you will see as the chapter you'r reading never comes to an end.
Good luck
This book unlikely the most recent Dennett books its a pretty deep investigation and defense into one of the most important ideas of the author as it is the intentional system, but in a rigorous way, so rigorous that some times it gets tedious so I have to let it go for a few days before continue the struggling to keep going through the pages.
I recommend this book only for those who want to know how Dennett got to the "Consciousness Explained" in a step by step and detailed way, but you can get to "Consciousness Explained" and understand it in a "mild" language skipping this sound step if you want to.
I will continue my pain since I decided to read all his books, but like I said before you can enjoy all his other great books skipping this one, but if you do, arm yourself with lots of patience cause you will see as the chapter you'r reading never comes to an end.
Good luck
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