Daniel Dennett Dead At 82

[pood]

True, he did. And he also famously said that philosophy is dead …

Did he say that? I never heard that one. I know that Stephen Hawking said “philosophy is dead” on the very first page of one of his books, and then proceeded to write an entire book that was nothing but philosophy. It confirmed Dennett’s point that science is shot through with philosophy, even though it seems many scientists, even Hawking, don’t realize that. Other philosophers, like Norman Swartz, have stressed the same point.

 

[Angry Floof]

True, he did. And he also famously said that philosophy is dead …

Did he say that? I never heard that one. I know that Stephen Hawking said “philosophy is dead” on the very first page of one of his books, and then proceeded to write an entire book that was nothing but philosophy. It confirmed Dennett’s point that science is shot through with philosophy, even though it seems many scientists, even Hawking, don’t realize that. Other philosophers, like Norman Swartz, have stressed the same point.

I could have sworn it was Dennett. Thanks for the correction. Next time I won't be so lazy to not check something I last heard about 14 years ago. lol

 

[lpetrich]

Daniel Dennett has died by PZ Myers

PZM met DD at a Darwin Day event.

We got along famously, and corresponded for a while afterwards, until the fact that I was disenchanted with Dawkins, despised Harris, thought the whole idea of the “four horsemen” was disappointing jingo, and that sexism was poisoning everything, made me persona non grata among prominent atheists. Oh, well, we were friends for a while.

Now Dennett has died. That’s a sadness, because he was a good guy and brought a thoughtful, humanist perspective to atheism. I hope someone is taking care of his apples.

With Hitchens and Dennett dead, and Dawkins doddering on the edge of irrelevant crankiness, I guess that leaves young Mr Harris, the least of the quartet, holding the legacy of the Four Horsemen, and that propaganda concept can now fade away, unlamented. Dennett’s legacy will continue and his books are worth thinking about, even when I disagree with them.

In the comments, PZ responds to some others:

My response to the free-willers has been, “If you truly believe you have free will, why do you choose to waste your time debating it with people who think they are meat robots? Do you think you will make a difference?”

Wasting your time with pseudo-philosophers like Harris is even worse.

and

Oh god, I started reading that Medium transcript, and right away hit the Harris defense: “If I have to spend ninety percent of my energy taking your words out of my mouth, then this thing begins to look purely adversarial, so one thing I’ve been struggling for in my professional life is a way of having conversations like this, even ones where there’s much less goodwill than you and I have for one another”

Nobody ever understands anything Sam Harris says correctly. I stopped reading at that point, there’s no reason to continue, because he is such a shitty communicator of shitty ideas.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

I will agree that Harris is shitty.

 

[lpetrich]

Deepity - RationalWiki

Deepity is a term employed by Daniel Dennett in his 2009 speech to the American Atheists conference, coined by the teenage daughter(Who?) of one of his friends. The term refers to a statement that is apparently profound but actually asserts a triviality on one level and something meaningless on another. Generally, a deepity has (at least) two meanings: one that is true but trivial, and another that sounds profound, but is essentially false or meaningless and would be "earth-shattering" if true. To the extent that it's true, it doesn't have to matter. To the extent that it has to matter, it isn't true (if it actually means anything). This second meaning has also been called "pseudo-profound bullshit".[1]

The example that Dennett used to illustrate a deepity is the phrase "love is just a word." On one level, the statement is perfectly true (i.e., "love" is a word), but the deeper meaning of the phrase is false; love is many things — a feeling, an emotion, a condition — and not simply a word.

...
Although he is a frequent source of deepities,[1] the name does not come from Deepak Chopra.

...
As well as a criticism of bad prose and poetry, the term "deepity" can refer to many religious sentiments and some of the more meaningless rhetoric. Dennett argued that theology is full of deepities, and notes that the sophisticated theological statement "God is no being at all" is equivalent to "No being at all is God." Other deepities he refers to are "God is Being itself" and "God is the God beyond God."