I've Been Thinking

One of philosophy’s finest minds looks back over a life in thought

‘Who would have guessed that a philosopher’s life could be so full of adventures?’

Daniel C. Dennett, philosopher and cognitive scientist, has spent his career considering consciousness. I’ve Been Thinking traces the development of Dennett’s own intellect and instructs us how we too can become good thinkers.

Dennett’s restless curiosity leads him from his childhood in Beirut to Harvard, and from Parisian jazz clubs to ‘tillosophy’ on his tractor in Maine. Along the way, he encounters and debates with a host of legendary thinkers, and reveals the breakthroughs and misjudgments that shaped his paradigm-shifting philosophies. Thinking, Dennett argues, is hard, and risky. In fact, all good philosophical thinking is inevitably accompanied by bafflement, frustration and self-doubt. It is only in getting it wrong that we, very occasionally, find a way to get it right.

This memoir by one of the greatest philosophers of our time will speak to anyone who seeks a life of the mind with adventure and creativity.

Author Biography

Daniel C. Dennett was University Professor Emeritus at Tufts University and the author of numerous books including From Bacteria to Bach and Back, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Breaking the Spell, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, and Consciousness Explained. He died on 19 April 2024.