Volume 27, Number 9 · May 29, 1980
Who Am I Anyway?
By Douglas R. Hofstadter
Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology
by Daniel C. Dennett
Bradford Books, 352 pp., $8.95 (paper)
This is a time of many facile answers and pseudo answers to the question of consciousness. Many writers are making money from the so-called 'consciousness market.' Some of them are sincere but muddled, others are out for the quick buck. Most people, it should be clear, do not want hard answers to deep questions—they want catchwords and slogans. It is too bad that the crowds of people looking for Big Answers About Brains will probably pass by the book Brainstorms by the Tufts philosopher Daniel Dennett. It is too bad, because people who probably could read Dennett's book will instead turn elsewhere and find small pithy slogans instead of big answers.
Review, 4676 words
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