“The problems that Daniel Dennett addresses in his essays are crucial ones for philosophy and contemporary science. With a sure touch and a great deal of insight, he has subjected to analysis questions that lie at, or perhaps just beyond, the frontiers of the scientific study of mind and brain. Dennett’s work should help guide progress in the understanding of the profound and troubling issues that have intrigued and perplexed critical minds for many centuries. His work is stimulating and impressive. …”
—Noam Chomsky
“Starting with a profound knowledge of general philosophy, including the older work of the ‘ordinary language’ school, Dennett has developed a very sophisticated version of the ‘functionalist’ position in the philosophy of mind—a version which combines philosophical and psychological sophistication in an extraordinary way. The papers the Dennett has published since Content and Consciousness show in particular that Dennett is aware of all of the subtleties of the problems involving such psychological phenomena as pain and mental imagery and that he is capable of integrating psychological information and philosophical discussion in an extremely exciting way. I think that his work in the philosophy of mind is of very great importance.”
—Hilary Putnam
“There is a new coherent field in which cognitive psychologists, neurophysiologists, computer scientists in artificial intelligence, and epistemological philosophers collaborate as equals, carefully studying each other’s works. The names for the field are not as yet stabilized or equi-centered: naturalistic epistemology, descriptive epistemology, psychological epistemology, cognitive-neuropsychology, brain science, theory of intelligence (expanded from ‘artificial intelligence’), etc. Dennett is one of the leading philosophers forming this new area. He has really done his homework on computers, learning theory, central nervous system neurophysiology, and psycholinguistics. Readers in these fields will recognize Dennett as a fellow scientist, as well as a skilled philosopher, as he relates your findings and theories to the traditional epistemological puzzles of intentionality, the mind-body (mind-brain) problem, and free will. Cognitive psychologists interested in integrating their theories with neurophysiology and behavior will find this book exciting and relevant, even if they have not previously indulged an interest in epistemology issues. I enthusiastically recommend Brainstorms to all of us verging on and into this exciting new field!”
—Donald Campbell
“The essays in this volume comprise what is perhaps the most important single, sustained contribution by a philosopher to the current inter-disciplinary conversation about the nature and methodology of the ‘cognitive sciences.’ This book will surely provide a landmark in what the optimists among us think of as the post-behaviorist period in the philosophy of mind. Informed discussion of explanation in linguistics, cognitive psychology and AI starts here.”
—Jerry Fodor
“These essays are delightful philosophical gems. I have assigned most of them in courses, both graduate and undergraduate, and have found them extraordinarily useful. They make the reader think. Dennett’s writing—like that of Putnam and Kripke—is somehow comprehensible and illuminating to students at all levels. The convergence of research in philosophy of mind with work in psychology and artificial intelligence has created a need for teaching material that is sophisticated about all these fields. Dennett’s book fills the bill. It is one of those rare books that pushes back the frontiers of knowledge, and at the same time is charming, entertaining, and accessible. For anyone interested in foundational issues in the sciences of the mind, Dennett’s book is a must.”
—Ned Block
“Dennett’s studies in the philosophy of psychology are gems of conceptual analysis. His expert knowledge of the many disciplines which deal in one way or another with the nature and behavior of intentional systems gives what he has to say a substantive content which distinguishes his dialectic from the usual ballet of shadows. The topics he takes up are of strategic importance in the philosophy of mind. Each essay stands on its own feet, and that is how one would meet them if it were not for this publishing venture. Bound together, they constitute a whole which is truly more than the sum of its parts. They are deftly written and a joy to read.”
—Wilfrid Sellars
“I am delighted to see that Daniel Dennett’s essays are being collected into a book. Dennett is one of the few writers who combines philosophical sophistication with a clear insight into the nature of computers and artificial intelligence. He raises issues which are of crucial importance to understanding what researchers in artificial intelligence are really doing, and he does so in a clear common-sensical way. He succeeds at clarifying the problems, rather than entering into the partisan debate which all too often ensues when scientists and philosophers tangle. I look forward to seeing the book and to participating in the discussion which it is bound to provoke.”
—Terry Winograd