Dennett’s Evolution of Minds
Daniel Dennett delights us with the wondrous and sometimes counterintuitive power of evolution in the development of consciousness (or, more generally, “minds”), notably in his psychohistory journey, From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds.
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Daniel Dennett
Philosopher
Daniel C. Dennett (1942–2024) was an American philosopher and cognitive scientist, perhaps the leading naturalistic thinker on mind, consciousness, evolution, and religion. Long affiliated with Tufts University, he developed influential accounts of intentionality, free will, memes, and consciousness, especially in Brainstorms, The Intentional Stance, Consciousness Explained, and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Rejecting Cartesian inner-theater models and intrinsic qualia, he advanced the Multiple Drafts Model and heterophenomenology as methods for naturalizing consciousness. His work shaped analytic philosophy of mind, cognitive science, evolutionary theory, and public debates over atheism and scientific materialism. A leading New Atheist, he closed his career with the memoir I've Been Thinking (2023), remaining materialism's most inventive systematic defender.
Key Takeaways
Core Claim
Minds, including consciousness, evolved through natural selection without invoking any mysterious processes.
How It Works
Evolution produced increasingly complex organisms that built “thinking tools,” enabling self-reflective minds.
Distinguishing Idea
Consciousness is not a starting point but a product of cultural and biological evolution over time.
Implications
Human minds can now understand their own origins—something no other species can do.
Raises the Question
If minds evolved gradually, when did self-awareness truly begin?
Dennett’s Evolution of Minds
Daniel Dennett delights us with the wondrous and sometimes counterintuitive power of evolution in the development of consciousness (or, more generally, “minds”), notably in his psychohistory journey, From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds (Dennett, 2017). Even if one doesn't wholly subscribe to Dennett's own explanations of consciousness (9.2.4)—which I don't—everyone's understanding of consciousness can be enriched by Dennett's probative and insightful way of thinking (Dennett, 2007, 2023a, 2023b). Dennett describes evolution as a “universal acid” that “eats through just about every traditional concept, revolutionizing world-views” (Dennett, 1995).
“How come there are minds?” is Dennett's big evolutionary question, “And how is it possible for minds to ask and answer this question?” His short answer is that “minds evolved and created thinking tools that eventually enabled minds to know how minds evolved, and even to know how these tools enabled them to know what minds are … We know there are bacteria; dogs don't; dolphins don't; chimpanzees don't. Even bacteria don't know there are bacteria. Our minds are different. It takes thinking tools to understand what bacteria are, and we're the only species (so far) endowed with an elaborate kit of thinking tools” (Dennett, 2017).
Dennett reflects that he has been struggling through the “thickets and quagmires” of the mind question for over fifty years, and he has found a path, built on evolution, that “takes us all the way to a satisfactory—and satisfying—account of how the ‘magic’ of our minds is accomplished without any magic, but it is neither straight nor easy” (Dennett, 2017).
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