Daniel Dennett, Human nature and belief, Wed 8 July
Duration: 29 mins 33 secs
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| Description: |
Darwin and the evolution of ‘why’?
Professor Daniel C Dennett (Centre for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA) Summary: We human beings are the only living things that can represent, transmit and criticize reasons for doing things and making things. This creates a perspective for us that we can then use to interpret all the rest of the life on the planet, cautiously. Mother nature’s reasons are not just like our reasons. It is our evolved capacity to ask, and answer, ‘Why’ questions that gives us, in the end, the kinds of free will worth wanting, the kinds that no other animal has. |
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| Created: | 2009-10-15 14:49 |
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| Collection: | Darwin Festival 2009 |
| Publisher: | University of Cambridge |
| Copyright: | University of Cambridge, Darwin Festival 2009 |
| Language: | eng (English) |
| Distribution: |
World
(downloadable)
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| Keywords: | Darwin; evolution; science; Daniel; Dennett; nature; free; will; religion; natural; phenomenon; |
| Explicit content: | No |
| Aspect Ratio: | 4:3 |
| Screencast: | No |
| Bumper: | /sms-ingest/static/new-4x3-bumper.dv |
| Trailer: | /sms-ingest/static/new-4x3-trailer.dv |
| Abstract: | Biography: Daniel C Dennett, the author of Consciousness Explained (1991) and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995), is University Professor and Co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He received his BA in philosophy from Harvard University in 1963, and his DPhil in philosophy from Oxford University in 1965. He taught at the University of California, Irvine from 1965 to 1971, when he moved to Tufts, where he has taught ever since, aside from periods visiting at Harvard, Pittsburgh, Oxford and the Ecole Normal Supérieure in Paris. His most recent book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, was published in 2006. |
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