Reviews for Know thyself

The average rating for Know thyself based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-10-20 00:00:00 Steven Holzer I listened to this via audio book format as read wonderfully by Dennett himself. Last night/early morning I woke up abruptly in the grip of a vague sort of existential terror and once I got my footing again, I felt a type of comfort in hearing Dennett's calm yet extremely engaged and enthusiastic voice--explaining complex things about the improbable evolution of sentient beings--emerging from the tiny speakers of my laptop. At first, I was seized by a thought like, "I don't want to hear about this, I don't wanna die!" but then I stopped acting like a child who thinks the universe is created for them to enjoy, that their life is supposed to never end, and fell back into trying to appreciate the fact that I'm allowed to live at all, to appreciate the astounding confluence of myriad forces holding all that is beautiful and makes life worthy living together. I see Dennett as an unknowing player in a third wave of existentialism ( Owen Flanagan incisively identifies three waves of existentialism ), a more proactive period in philosophy which makes real and serious attempts to overcome the "nausea" Sartre spoke of, and all the other variations of this so-called "existential despair." This would get five stars if I wasn't already so familiar with many of the central ideas in this book from Dennett's other work and lectures. Much of this seems like a rehashing of the (great) ideas found within The Intentional Stance (the name of one of the chapters), Consciousness Explained, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Freedom Evolves and Elbow Room. Dennett's explanation of and solution to the problem of free will is brilliantly executed, albeit not terribly unique. His position on this is called "compatiblism" and it's been floating around at least since the days of David Hume, but regardless it is explained in a very uniquely understandable and morally edifying way. Dennett is fast becoming one of my favorite philosophers of all time. I really enjoy his use of metaphor throughout all of his writing. He makes incredibly deep ideas "tangible" through this adept and dare I say "literary" or "poetic" use of language, and his immensely clear and direct wielding of concepts. His work is pretty consistently a wonderful interweaving of multiple fields of philosophy and both the "hard" and "soft" sciences and he also displays a quasi-polymathic understanding of the fine arts as well. Even when those he's pitted against philosophically describe this as an insult, I find it to be a compliment, i.e., Thomas Nagel once glibly referred to Dennett as "Gilbert Ryle meets Scientific American." But I say fuck you, Nagel, and I say three cheers for scientifically informed philosophy and philosophically informed science.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-02-06 00:00:00 John Fruchey Raises very potent questions but answers almost none. Dennett is content with showing 3-4 potential ways of looking at any question and then telling us that to go beyond is a challenge even for modern science. The arguments are smooth and the book gives a good evolutionary understanding of the way we frame thoughts and ascribe consciousness. The model of mind that Dennett has created is a bit dated for me, but I enjoyed the long range perspective he brought into it. the section on dogs was probably the best part for me. PS. References to Susan Sontag is becoming overwhelming in books I read and I guess I will end up ordering one of her books soon.