The Intentional Stance
Feb. 10th, 2010 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowQuite a few years ago, I bought The Intentional Stance, by Daniel Dennett. I don't remember what prompted the purchase. I've had it shelved with the books on linguistics, but, as I discovered when I took it down a week or so ago, it's actually a philosophy text, on the theory of mind and the nature of belief. Not what I expected.
I'm finding it a tough read, but an interesting one. The oddest connections keep popping up: to the disputes in philosophy of mathematics since Cantor's time, to the work of Csányi and de Waal on the minds of animals, to works of fiction like Bear's Queen of Angels and Bujold's Memory....
I realize that I'm probably missing a lot; the book is confessedly a contribution to a long dispute, and - not having read any other parts of that dispute - I can't really assess how strong the book's arguments are, or even, in full, what they mean. I recognize names - Hilary Putnam, W. V. O. Quine, Saul Kripke, Jerry Fodor - but little more than that. (Kripke and Quine, in particular, I ought to investigate. I've got at least one book by each of them, sitting unread on my shelves.)
Interesting or no, I probably won't be reviewing it. It's too dense and, frankly, too far from my main areas of interest. Still, I think I'm glad I picked it up, even if I don't remember why.
I'm finding it a tough read, but an interesting one. The oddest connections keep popping up: to the disputes in philosophy of mathematics since Cantor's time, to the work of Csányi and de Waal on the minds of animals, to works of fiction like Bear's Queen of Angels and Bujold's Memory....
I realize that I'm probably missing a lot; the book is confessedly a contribution to a long dispute, and - not having read any other parts of that dispute - I can't really assess how strong the book's arguments are, or even, in full, what they mean. I recognize names - Hilary Putnam, W. V. O. Quine, Saul Kripke, Jerry Fodor - but little more than that. (Kripke and Quine, in particular, I ought to investigate. I've got at least one book by each of them, sitting unread on my shelves.)
Interesting or no, I probably won't be reviewing it. It's too dense and, frankly, too far from my main areas of interest. Still, I think I'm glad I picked it up, even if I don't remember why.
