Daniel C. Dennett

Daniel C. Dennett

Daniel C. Dennett was born on March 28th, 1942. Daniel passed away April 19th, 2024 at 82 years old. Daniel C. Dennett was born in Boston, MA, United States.

Daniel C. Dennett was a cognitive scientist and philosopher. His research centered on the philosophy of science, the philosophy of biology, and the philosophy of mind, especially those fields related to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.

He was the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy and the co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University in Massachusetts. He was a co-founder of The Clergy Project and a member of the editorial board for The Rutherford Journal.

A camp counselor told him he was a philosopher, which introduced him to the notion of philosophy while attending Camp Mowglis in Hebron, New Hampshire, when he was 11.

He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1959 and spent a year at Wesleyan University before he got his BA degree in Philosophy at Harvard University in 1963. There, he was one of Willard Van Orman Quine’s students. He’d decided to transfer to Harvard after he read Quine’s From A Logical Point of View and, believing that Quine got a few things wrong, decided to go to Harvard and face this guy with corrections to his errors, as only a first-year student could do.

He received his DPhil in philosophy at the University of Oxford in 1965, where he studied under Gilbert Ryle and was a member of Hertford College.

From 1965 to 1971, he taught at the University of California, Irvine, before moving to Tufts University, where he taught for several decades. Daniel also spent periods visiting Harvard and many other universities.

Throughout his career, he was an interdisciplinarian that argued for breaking silos of knowledge, and collaborated widely with computer scientists, biologists, and cognitive scientists.

Daniel received 2 Guggenheim Fellowships and a Fulbright Fellowship.

Daniel was a vocal atheist and secularist. He has been described as one of the most widely debated and read American philosophers. He was referred to as one of the “Four Horsemen” of New Atheism, along with Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris.

In Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, which is a book that is both accessible and groundbreaking, Daniel focuses his unerringly logical mind on the theory of natural selection. He illustrates exactly how Darwin’s great idea illuminates and transforms our traditional view of humanity’s place in the universe.

He vividly describes the theory itself and then extends Darwin’s vision with impeccable arguments to their often surprising conclusions, challenging the views of some of the most famous scientists of our day.

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4. Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale Series.
5. Isaac Asimov, author of the Foundation Series.

Daniel C. Dennett: F.A.Q