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 Philosopher
of the Month
April
2003 - Dan Dennett
Guy
Douglas and Stewart Saunders
Daniel.C.Dennett
is currently Distinguished Arts and Science Professor and Director
of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University in the United
States. A noticeable aspect of Dennett’s work is his desire
to make serious philosophy accessible to the general reader in many
of his books. He is a member of a regrettably small number of contemporary
philosophers who are able to do philosophy in public, and do it
well. This is in some ways related to his distinctive use of examples,
metaphors and what he calls ‘intuition pumps’ which are
analogies designed to prime the reader’s intuitions in such
as way as to make his arguments vivid and plausible. In recent books
such as The Intentional Stance, Consciousness Explained and
Kinds of Minds, Dennett presents a way to understand the
human mind. He seeks to clarify what a mind is, what consciousness
is, and what mental states like beliefs, desires and thoughts are.
Dennett
is perhaps most famous in philosophical circles for his approach
to the problem of intentionality. When philosophers say the mind
exhibits intentionality they are referring to the fact that mental
states can be about something. When we think, we tend to
think about objects in the world, and this thinking leads us to
rational action and effective interaction with world. Dennett suggests
that intentionality is not so much an intrinsic feature of agents,
rather, it is more a way of looking at agents. Dennett calls the
seeing of agents as intentional beings, or beings that act according
to their beliefs and desires, as taking the intentional stance.
Dennett
asks us to consider the various ways we can look at an object with
the goal of predicting and understanding what it is going to do.
The most accurate, but least practical, is taking the physical stance.
For this we would apply the principles of the physical sciences
to the object. A more practical approach, especially if the object
is an artifact, is to take the design stance. When we do this we
assume that the object will behave as it is designed to behave.
For instance, we assume that the alarm will go off at the right
time because it has been designed to do so by its human creator.
Finally, there is the intentional stance: here we assume that the
object has a mind and has goals or desires and that it will tend
to operate in order realise its goals (according to its understanding
of the world, or what could be called its beliefs).
So
is intentionality really there, or is it only a useful fiction according
to Dennett? His answer is that in taking the intentional stance
one is perceiving a certain complex pattern exhibited by the agent.
And this pattern is as real as any pattern. One should not assume,
however, that the nature of this pattern is in anyway reflected
in the internal constitution of the agent. This is the basis of
Dennett’s criticism of intentional realists (like Jerry Fodor)
who hold that intentionality is supported by internal mechanisms
that reflect the structure of beliefs and desires.
In
Darwin’s Dangerous Idea and Kinds of Minds, Dennett
has focused on the idea that the intentionality characteristic of
humans and other animals is a result of evolutionary processes.
As such, the intentional stance is really a special case of the
design stance, except here the object has been ‘designed’
by evolutionary processes. In this way Dennett hopes to account
for the origin of the ‘patterns of intentionality’ within
a framework that is consonant with natural science. This move is
controversial, as many theorists believe that natural selection
by itself can not explain all features of an organism, arguing that
often features are accidental by-products of evolutionary processes.
Hence the present debate over Dennett’s theory concerns whether
the appeal to natural selection alone can provide a complete account
of the intentionality of minds.
In
Consciousness Explained, Dennett aims to dispel the
myth that there is a central theatre, literally or metaphorically
inside the head where the ‘stream of consciousness’ is
viewed. While he admits that no theorist actually defends this view,
it is his belief that a residual alliance to this way of thinking
about the mind instils confusion in many of the current approaches
to the topic of consciousness.
A
more plausible candidate, he argues, is the Multiple Drafts Model.
The Multiple Drafts Model consists of a number of aspects. Firstly,
there is no one place where consciousness happens. Our mental states
are processed in parallel in the brain, and there is no place where
the signals have to reach in order to be conscious. Instead all
the mental activity in the brain is accomplished as a result of
parallel processes of elaboration and interpretation of sensory
inputs. Information is therefore under continuous editorial revision
as it enters the nervous system. There is no canonical stream of
consciousness to refer to in making a decision as to what we are
actually conscious of, and when we first become conscious of it.
But
as Dennett wants to argue that there is no central control, then
how is it that it seems to others as though there is, and it seems
subjectively as though I am a singular conscious agent? Dennett
has at least two metaphors designed to be of assistance here. Firstly,
he has the theory that the idea of self is a product of a ‘centre
of narrative gravity’. What he means by this is this is that
the brain works in parallel to process narratives of content. In
many ways it is a natural language that serves to present the appearance
of a unified stream of consciousness, and a unified ‘intender’.
Secondly he has the idea that consciousness is a species of ‘mental
fame’: "Those contents are conscious that persevere, that
monopolize resources long enough to achieve certain typical and
symptomatic effects - on memory, on the control of behaviour and
so forth." (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.53,1993
p.929)
A
possible weak point in Dennett’s account is the claim that
the phenomenal aspect of our experience is a complex of judgements
and dispositions. Many philosophers see the central question of
consciousness as explaining the seemingly ineffable subjective quality
of our experience, or qualia. Dennett claims that there are
no such thing as qualia; the quality of conscious experience is
a result of micro-judgements made by various parts of our brain.
For Dennett there is no reality to the subjective quality of our
experience over an above the fact that there seems to be
that subjective quality.
A
new philosopher of the month will be featured early May 2003
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