How to Think Like a Philosopher, with Daniel Dennett | Big Think Mentor | Big Think
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- How to Think Like a Philosopher, with Daniel Dennett
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Daniel Dennett, one of the best-known living philosophers and a professor at Tufts University, believes it's time to unmask the philosopher's art and make thought experimentation accessible to a wider audience. "How to Think Like a Philosopher," Dennett's five-part workshop, is a journey into the labyrinthine mind games played by Dennett and his colleagues
For the more utilitarian-minded, these are mental practices that will improve your ability to focus and think both rationally and creatively.
How to Think Like a Philosopher takes you on a guided tour through many of Dennett's favorite "tools for thinking." Along the way, he teaches you:
- The value of "intuition pumps" (or thought experiments) and how to use them.
- How to recognize common rhetorical tricks for manufacturing consent.
- Why free will doesn't always imply unpredictability.
- How to "twiddle the knobs" of thought, exploring alternatives and the conclusions they lead to.
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DANIEL DENNETT:
Daniel C. Dennett is the author of Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Breaking the Spell, Freedom Evolves, and Darwin's Dangerous Idea and is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He lives with his wife in North Andover, Massachusetts, and has a daughter, a son, and a grandson. He was born in Boston in 1942, the son of a historian by the same name, and received his B.A. in philosophy from Harvard in 1963. He then went to Oxford to work with Gilbert Ryle, under whose supervision he completed the D.Phil. in philosophy in 1965. He taught at U.C. 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 École Normale Supérieure in Paris.
His first book, Content and Consciousness, appeared in 1969, followed by Brainstorms (1978), Elbow Room (1984), The Intentional Stance (1987), Consciousness Explained (1991), Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995), Kinds of Minds (1996), and Brainchildren: A Collection of Essays 1984-1996. Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness, was published in 2005. He co-edited The Mind's I with Douglas Hofstadter in 1981 and he is the author of over three hundred scholarly articles on various aspects on the mind, published in journals ranging from Artificial Intelligence and Behavioral and Brain Sciences to Poetics Today and the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.
Dennett gave the John Locke Lectures at Oxford in 1983, the Gavin David Young Lectures at Adelaide, Australia, in 1985, and the Tanner Lecture at Michigan in 1986, among many others. He has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Science. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987.
He was the Co-founder (in 1985) and Co-director of the Curricular Software Studio at Tufts, and has helped to design museum exhibits on computers for the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Science in Boston, and the Computer Museum in Boston.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Daniel Dennett: Intuition pumps are sometimes called thought experiments. More often they're called thought experiments. But they're not really formal arguments typically. They're stories. They're little fables. In fact, I think they're similar to Aesop's fables in that they're supposed to have a moral. They're supposed to teach us something. And what they do is they lead the audience to an intuition, a conclusion, where you sort of pound your fist on the table and you say, "Oh yeah, it's gotta be that way, doesn't it." And if it achieves that then it's pumped the intuition that was designed to pump. These are persuasion machines. Little persuasion machines that philosophers have been using for several thousand years.
I think that intuition pumps are particularly valuable when there's confusion about just what the right questions are and what the right -- what matters. What matters to answer the question. I think we're all pretty good at using examples to think about things and intuition pumps are usually rather vivid examples from which you're supposed to draw a very general moral. And they come up in many walks of life. Anytime you're puzzled...
Read the full transcript at bigthink.com/videos/daniel-de...
@ Jacob Harrison - Dennett's full workshop is available on Big Think Mentor - you can get full access and test the waters with a 14-day free trial (follow the link in the video description). Thanks for watching!
After I found philosophy, my life starting to change. My thinking skill increases. I'm more quiet, observe & listen more. Philosophical topic that I interested into is existence. Purpose of individual's existence & essential meaning of life. My high school didn't teach me these. I'm learning it all by myself.
Hows your philosophical journey going?
Can we have a talk?
I have soo Many questions and am not being able to find the answer. This is because a person similar to me who his learning by his own (you) can understand me better than the whole internet.
How to think like a philosopher.
Step 1: Grow a beard.
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women right now😰😰
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I’ve been trying. No luck yet.
camus didn't had it
As an ex-philosophy student I have to say this is not the way to become a philosopher overnight. It takes training and practice if you will, as with maths or any other discipline. You see, thought experiments and the likes are tools. Tools for people who wish to examine reasoning, find truthful and untruthful statements, and deduct how certain convictions work. What holds these convictions together? Is the conviction legit? And last but not least: how can we use or alter those convictions to our benefit?
That's what philosophy is about in a nutshell I believe, and techniques may be practiced until you're fairly adept. I can assure you, not many people like to do this, or even see the importance of it. A quarter of all philosophy students attend their first lecture expecting to hear about mystic mumbo jumbo. When philosophy fails to meet that expectation they usually quit. Such a big chunk of people interested in philosophy stop because of this reason, that I believe among the general public the percentage will be much, much higher. Only few people wish to think like a philosopher, and even fewer actually can.
WOw!!!! i hope i have understand you completely.....I dont know if i could be making an related comment to just make a statement...But i didnt have a complete sense of what the old guy has to say!!! extreme philosophy is i feel hard to understand for normal people....hence may be it was hard for me...but i could relate to you...i truly enjoyed your comment.....really can make to think to that infinite level.......i dont know for how long it can be sane though.....also it is hard sometimes to explain the philosophy in simple language for a layman like me. I hope i made sense here
wael hussain
You made sense although it seems like English isn't your first language. No problemo, I understand.
To the layman philosophy may sound difficult, and hard to understand. But actually it's a very logical process of thinking, which is why you need training to be good at it. People aren't naturally logical
Philosophers usually have sane thoughts, which is the entire point of philosophy, to be as sane as possible. But you're right, sometimes ideas are so complex that they almost seem insane. But then again, if you hear a neurologist talking about how the brain functions, that sounds almost insane. Yet it's true... Don't dismiss an idea on how crazy it sounds, but by the arguments that are given.
+crimron I love you
crimron FUCKING. BORING.
crimron maybe u attended a scam class and your defying that this old man is a fake philosopher sorry for bad inglish English is my 7th language I’m DONT know if the word defying is used correctly
What people can't seem to accept is that philosophy is a skill -- much like playing the piano -- so quite naturally you need good training and lots of practice to become remotely good at it. Instead of accepting this, they adopt the attitude that what they're doing -- the garbage they call thinking or reasoning -- is on par with what trained philosophers are doing.
Nice pfp
Well that's encouraging
So this was technically an intuition pump. :) The moral of the story is to give problems as much perspectives as you can think of. That's what turning the knobs is all about. I'm really glad that I've started to do all these things before I've even heard of this video. Guess I'm heading in the right direction.
Did you head in the right direction
To have people thinking and debating is my favorite part about this world.
Sorry Ocelot, philosophy is and always will be relevant as long as we're still asking questions like "what value does this idea have or what is the right thing to do?" We can collect all the empirical data in the world but the conversation about how say...implementing eugenics is usually not one of scientific utility but rather ethics (which is philosophy)
Morpheus X But what definitive answers can philosophers provide to ethical dilemmas, or questions of value? Their positions are always, by the very nature of the subject of ethics itself, radically contingent or relative. And what did philosophers do to prevent the implementation of a eugenic "philosophy" by Hitler in Nazi Germany? Heidegger's writings, for example, were read, in part at least, as in some way a defence of the Third Reich. As Woody Allen put it in his movie 'Manhattan' in reply to a friend who said he'd just read a great satirical piece in the NY Times regarding a forthcoming fascist rally in the city: "yes well, a satirical piece in the Times is great of course, but when it comes to Nazis I've always believed that smashing them over the head with a large polo mallet is more effective".
Philosophy can't provide an objective answer to an ethical dilemma and neither can science. Science can, however, inform the course of our decision but it must be contingent to some assumed ethical model. Science can't forge an 'ought', just information about consequences.
Sorry, for the super late response. I just realize I never responded to this.
I really needed to hear this right at this moment. thank you!
"I call them boom crushes because they explode in your face," was the last thing I expected to hear from a philosopher lol.
His voice is my favorite.
If someone's willing to argue, there's the potential for learning to take place as long as long as the opposing sides can avoid getting too heated and taking personal shots at one another. As long as you have an open mind, no argument is without reason.
Also, the ego is a destructive thing when mishandled. Once a person reaches a certain level of awareness they become aware of the likelihood of there being others operating on a higher awareness than themselves. Everyone starts from somewhere.
I agree with everything you say. I never said it was good or bad, i said it can't explain that it might be either good or bad in terms of it's ultimate usefulness for people in accordance to the rest of the universe that we can't mentally grasp. Which we know exists because we know there are things we don't understand. For example: why the universe, infinity, and pi. I don't really think 'thinking' outside of logic is very possible. I think our capacity stops at simply observing it as a function
Even if you think the other person's position is unreasonable, there still might be something for both of you to learn if you see the argument through. That's not to say that all arguments have equal gain, or that a person will always be better off if they follow through on every argument, but it could prove unwise if one is quick to judge the potential of an argument as zero, since there is no way to know all the fruits of an endeavor before it takes place.
The mass of the object does not add anything to its speed in free fall. Both you and the elevator would be falling down with the exact same speed, in weightlessness. If someone however pushes the elevator down (or pulls down, depends on point of view :), that is to say gives additional acceleration, only then hitting the roof of the elevator would be possible. One such setting would be if the elevator is a steel cage and there is a very strong magnet attached to the earth.
I think a nice and simple way to put is "The purpose of life is a life with a purpose" I don't know if he was quoting but I first heard it in the lyrics of Immortal Technique.
Yes, he said so in the beginning.
So essentially, when given an answer. don't just take it at face value, but mess with it and see if it falls apart. If it does, then figure out why.
That's called debating as war. That is a way of thinking like a philosopher in an argument (there's a TEDtalk on it), but there are also at least two other ways of thinking/debating.
I emphasize.
"But it gets boring really fast."
So yes. Point conceded.
If you spend any time at all learning science and philosophy you will find a pretty cool connection. philosophy often informs science. it creates ideas and concepts that hundreds of years later end up being tested and proven by scientists. philosophy breaks creative ground for science to follow. it paves the way.
No, unless you have a reaction like stretching your legs pushing you upwards. What does this pump?
Thanks for the example.
Yes lots of thinkers on this planet and that's why it feels like peaceful paradise.
Answering both of your comments, the answer is cause and effect.
Logic is what we use to explain it. Everything we know about reality is cause and effect. Without it, you can't predict anything, and we know things are predictable, all our science and technology is around to prove it.
Logic isn't good or bad, the same way I could say it's both. I say it's neither because it's neither of them specifically. Good and bad are only subjectively appliable, depending on our definitions of those terms.
It's the same outro music as the Personality Hacker (personality psychology) podcast. Did anyone notice that?
You're actually metaphorically right on. A W
Of course it does!
A good an informative book!
Hey Afshi,
Long time no see? Are you stil in Manchester? Happy new year! :)
Happy new year Hsuuuuuuuuu!!
How are you doing?
How is Mick?
@@afshinjafarian2363 mick is greatt
Logic is not a matter of semantics. There is only one meaning. It is the use of valid reasoning to support a point or the study of that reasoning. If p then q, p, therefore q is the most common example.
This really needed examples.
Logic is just a layer of our mind. It does not explain everything nor will ever understand the mind. There are things that is beyond our logic and sometimes we tap into that. Examples of this is creativity and insights. Also there's a branch of Buddhism that specifically train the mind for this.
That's an interesting way of putting. Are you saying that we have the ability to understand it all if there were no human limitations like time and energy? If so, how are you so sure of that statement? What indicates to you that we can do this?
Try to think of the term intuition as a term that means different things to different people.
Context is a major playor.
Like how "theory" in everyday context often differs from "scientific theory".
Well the intuition pumps a word he used for Intuition itself rather than doing it the other way around by breaking down the "moving parts" i.e the though-experiments. So stray away from using intuition when it comes to non-reflect thoughts. That's how I interpreted it.
(2) Also, philosophy is looking at everything from the perspective of what is, not right or wrong, for you don't know why anything exists, you only know that it is here, and can look at it only for what it is, which is what it does, and what it affects, and any judgements made on the inherent 'effectiveness' something has on something else is entirely humanly based.
is there any practical use for being able to think like a philosopher?
It can't explain if it's good or bad because it's neither. It is however usefull if you use it properly, since our understanding of reality depends heavily our ability to describe it. Logic is the tool we use to build the models that work.
Other than that, logic relies heavily on cause and effect. And, like cause and effect, there are indeed (possibly), things that might break it. But only on the most extreme conditions of reality.
"Inside" time & space, logic should work, anywhere, anytime!
I'd point out the parallel with how a good sci-fi/fantasy does a way better job at describing and helping us understand our complex reality, by the clever use of good intuition pumps as a matter of fact, than many other kinds of works which generally are considered to be more realistic, because the genre is not limited in how creative it can be with its comparisons and examples.
What a great series of videos you have. So much brain food, AMAZING channel, I can't say it enough ^^.
The intuition pump is an idea that makes a shortcut in your thinking. A thought experiment can be used to expose a faulty intuition pump. No they're not the same thing.
he said it in the beginning. the word "thought experiment" implies more sophistication than it actually has, so intuition pump is more appropriate.
I have to agree metaphysics and existentialism tends to get a little boring after awhile.
I'm not a philo major yet, but I have an interest in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. (particularly phenomenology) Thanks for the literature recommendation.
Ethics is bleh for me because it just seems like attempts at articulations of moral intuitions being flung back and forth.
I thought in order to think like a philosopher you must argue with everyone and whenever that person's logic is destroying your argument, question the validation of things like "science" and "rules" and how they can never be right to begin with, until that person is pissed, leaves and you announce yourself the winner of the debate ^^
read some of his stuff in a book edited by ned block. excellent!
I enjoy that too
My take on it is that most religion can help with building moral intuition because they teach of being a morally good person in order to reach "heaven" i do, however believe if you use only religion as a guide your moral intuition can only get to a certain point thus inhibiting it as you said. Expanding your knowledge of any subject will build moral intuition by giving you ideas and thoughts to back your judgment with. The end result being no judgment, which cannot be reached in our life
sure
what's the name of the song at the end?
Moreover, the people arguing should at least have a willingness to recede from a point and submit when they're backed up against a wall. Charging forwards instead is a symptom of someone who isn't trying.
The best arguments happen when both parties can put themselves in each others' positions, actually understand what the other person is saying from their perspective and acknowledge why they're saying it.
An example of said "Intuition pump" would be nice. This left me bit unsure of what the exact thought progress was this video referring to.
Amen.
So what he's explaining is a intuition pump about intuition pumps right? I wonder what happens when you turn the knobs on it...
He's not. He's just presenting the idea. There's no ulterior motive behind it.
'Once a person reaches a certain level of awareness they become aware of the likelihood of there being others operating on a higher awareness than themselves.' Acid bro... been there done that.
what music is at the end? artist? composer?
I think my previous comment is almost as clear as it can get. But here's another go then.
Even though you can ponder on the existence of things you have never thought about, thinking the "unthinkable" is simply not possible due to the very nature and definition of something that's unthinkable.
We are all philosophers,the only differences are to what extent our philosophies are identified & integrated into our lives.
I think he meant fables from the bible, as a reader it can be acknowledged that the bible exhibits stories attempting to teach morals. The bible, whether true or not, is still part of literature just as Shakespeare's work, not necessarily valued at the same degree, that solely depends on anyone's individual opinion.
Never said logic wasn't a tool, nor that it is the highest good or even the subject of philosophical investigation. Just that it is a necessary component of philosophical arguments - all of them require the use of some logic. It is impossible to think outside logic, because logic is the structure by which we think about arguments. That would be like calculating without math. Most of these comments just don't understand what logic is...
Daniel Dennett, with All my Respects - please allow me to say some words. Thank you. In the parliamentary debate with Jeremy Corbyn Boris Johnson said that his government would uphold the rights of journalists and whistleblowers. This means that he is going to support Julian Assange who is a journalist and offers a platform for whistleblowers exposing war crimes, constructed war reasons and other crimes. To defend freedom of information is important. Hence I would like to ask you to say some sentences supporting the freedom of
Julian Assange.
Sincerely and FREEDOM for Assange!
Michael
Haas
Philosophy is God and God is Philosophy. Philosophy is the mother of all sciences and all theologies. Economics, sociology, psychology and many other sciences come from Philosophy even though some refuse to give her credit. Education is the only answer to our problems but, this Education- and not just a mere indoctrination, domestication or training- must be comprised of a thorough study of Philosophy and the Humanities as well of all theologies. If there is a God, such a God is Philosophy.
Idries Shah used to have stories in his books , meant to turn on intuition.
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Note then that insofar that one can create meaning for themselves, the question is still valid.
So in order for the question to be 'void and mute', you'd have to disprove meaning as a concept so that one cannot create meaning for themselves.
Ergo, taking the existential nihilist stance.
Dennett and Jackendoff taught me to think like a philosopher. Ironically, they now work together.
what music is the background of the start and end of the video
Seriously, you're going to argue on this with Daniel Dennett? The man knows what he means to say.
please give us an example!
More Dr Kaku and Dr Neil please
which county?
Would be nice to hear an example.
(3) Meaning, it is a human who judges purpose and use, and the human interpretation is not a true definition of what is, but of only what the human see's as good. It is more of a reflection upon the person making the judgements than it is of an ultimate definition for an object. This is a nature in which we, however, cannot change, or think too far out of. This is not to say there is a creator who knows, but that we don't know.
How about this for persuasion?
Objects did not make you because they can't.
They are not able make you without first being directed, by directives written by a Director.
What's that music at the beginning?
So the only interesting question you can think of is what happens after you die?
What about all the interesting questions to ask about while we're still alive? About what is right or wrong, what is true or untrue, what is real and what is not?
Even existentialism rarely deals with the question of "meaning of life" so broadly construed. Sure, entry level philosophy just poses broad questions, but once you are out of first year and actually doing philosophy, its mostly logic directed at very specific questions. Not that existentialism is really taken up in contemporary philosophy. BTW, google won't get you shit, go to the SEP and look up where existentialism is in contemporary thought.
logic is the cornerstone of philosophy
Examples?
electric has the same typ of multivese as magnet.
interesting but I really wanted an example or two
The goal of philosophy is not to answer questions (at least, not completely), but to formulate more questions to give insight.
So in pursuing the meaning of life, we can arrive at Existentialism and the like, and the explore from there on.
We can then conclude that there is either no meaning, inherent meaning, or meaning we are to create for ourselves, or something totally different altogether.
I'm just skimming the surface and not doing it justice though. So go google :P
As is with everyone, in every discipline, because the infinite regress is too overpowered.
But radical skepticism won't get you anywhere, because it's a dead end epistemologically speaking. So move on, live life and explore it the best you can after making provisional assumptions or subscribing to coherentism and the like.
It does actually
this vid kinda went over my head someone give me an example of this intuition pump thing
What is the color of jealousy? Just because you ask a question doesn't mean it deserves respect you only exist because your parents made you if they had never met you wouldn't exist so why should anyone have a purpose. I believe you give yourself purpose rather than being born with one
How can you be empirical in philosophy?
Logic is a tool to help the mind make humanly rational sense of a given scenario. Logic itself is not the basis of philosophy. Philosophy existed way before Aristotle. Philosophy is the smoke behind the finite thinking structure of human existence. It is each persons subjective(agree?) interpretation of the 'good' of the objective reality in which we all live in. Logic cannot explain why logic might be the highest good. Can we think outside of logic? What are your parameters for 'logic'?
(cont.)
You also seem to be talking more about our own limitations rather than the limitations of the tool. Like trying to dig a mountain with a pickaxe. Even though the pickaxe might be able do it, "I" can't!
sshhhh! I'm trying to think!
I see...I'm a hell of a philosopher!
Why hasn’t anyone tested the theory on first sign of civilization by mead or Freud???
that is LITERALLY what this video is about.
Not ALL religion... Christian law is based on finding why the laws are placed there; The Spirit Of The Law. It's important that Christians build moral intuition to understand the biblical laws fully. I cannot speak for other religions as I am not familiar.
Search here on YT for "Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence" and watch from 1:15 on. There's a good example.
You also have the Socrate's allegory of the cave.
You've just described Dennet, a man whose most profound idea is that natural religion is indeed religion which is natural.
So what would you think about biological robotics>?
Might be true of the analytic schools but many continental schools wouldn't agree that their work is about logic. They might be metalogical but that makes logic their subject of study, not the field within which they work. This does not mean that these schools are about spirituality or metaphysics; that claim already shows that you stand outside of them judging them with a linguistic apparatus that they don't conform to. If they did, you wouldn't need to criticize them in the first place.
I think you meant to say "unanswerable" problem. Because an "unthinkable" problem, will never be a problem at all.
And answering your statement directly, that's all fine to think about and all, but you'll soon discover that is impossible to do, which is in line with the notion of something that is unanswerable. Much like trying to imagine "nothing".
Philosophy isn't about trying to answer the unaswerable. Philosophy is simply about trying to understand things using mental experiences.
Hello bro how are you this a true statement
multiverse also have typs
I'm actually surprised that a lot of people think that Philosophy is useless. Ever heard of Socrates, Plato, and/or Confucius? No? I didn't think so, because if you did, you would think otherwise.
i like his darwin head