Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking
One of the world’s leading philosophers offers aspiring thinkers his personal trove of mind-stretching thought experiments.Over a storied career, Daniel C. Dennett has engaged questions about science and the workings of the mind. His answers have combined rigorous argument with strong empirical...
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One of the world’s leading philosophers offers aspiring thinkers his personal trove of mind-stretching thought experiments.Over a storied career, Daniel C. Dennett has engaged questions about science and the workings of the mind. His answers have combined rigorous argument with strong empirical grounding. And a lot of fun. Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking offers seventy-seven of Dennett’s most successful "imagination-extenders and focus-holders" meant to guide you through some of life’s most treacherous subject matter: evolution, meaning, mind, and free will. With patience and wit, Dennett deftly deploys his thinking tools to gain traction on these thorny issues while offering readers insight into how and why each tool was built. Alongside well-known favorites like Occam’s Razor and reductio ad absurdum lie thrilling descriptions of Dennett’s own creations: Trapped in the Robot Control Room, Beware of the Prime Mammal, and The Wandering Two-Bitser. Ranging across disciplines as diverse as psychology, biology, computer science, and physics, Dennett’s tools embrace in equal measure light-heartedness and accessibility as they welcome uninitiated and seasoned readers alike. As always, his goal remains to teach you how to "think reliably and even gracefully about really hard questions." A sweeping work of intellectual seriousness that’s also studded with impish delights, Intuition Pumps offers intrepid thinkers—in all walks of life—delicious opportunities to explore their pet ideas with new powers.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN:
9780393082067 (0393082067)
Publish date: May 6th 2013
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Pages no: 512
Edition language: English
Category:
Non Fiction,
Writing,
Essays,
Science,
Technology,
Biology,
Self Help,
Philosophy,
Psychology,
Neuroscience,
Evolution,
Brain
This book reads more like a science book than a philosophy book. The author, a philosopher, uses the tools of philosophy to fill in the blanks about how we proceed with science.The book starts off by how we sometimes can be mislead by 'intuition pumps", thought experiments, and how we should correct...