Daniel Dennett

Breaking the Spell is Daniel Dennett's most innovative and important work yet; it offers a profound challenge to society and a compelling new history of belief. In this provocative and timely book, Dennett seeks to uncover the origins of religion, and discusses why and how different faiths have commanded allegiance and shaped so many lives. He argues passionately for the need to understand this phenomenon and offers a truly original and comprehensive explanation for religion. What was the psychological and cultural soil in which it first took root? How did it evolve? Is it the product of blind evolutionary instinct or of rational choice? Dennett shows how these ideas could have spread from individual superstitions, via shamanism and the early `wild' strains of religion to today's institutionalized systems. Dennett brings religion into the realm of real public debate - and, in so doing, he breaks the spell.

Detallada investigación sobre la conciencia humana, el presente libro, uno de los más originales ensayos de los últimos tiempos, refuta la teoría tradicional de la conciencia basada en el sentido comun y presenta un nuevo modelo fundamentado en una ingente cantidad de datos, tomados a su vez de campos tan diversos como la neurociencia, la psicologia, la filosofia y la inteligencia articifial. La vision de Dennett sobre el tema, asi, es antiintuitiva pero convincente, y, como en toda teoria revolucionaria, su fuerza y su capacidad para sorprender aparecen intimamente relacionadas. El resultado es un util y accesible recorrido por el campo de la filosofia de la mente a partir del cual nuestras actuales teorias sobre la vida consciente -de las personas, de los animales e incluso de los robots- puede que se vean profundamente afectadas por nuevas y fascinantes perspectivas. Sin duda uno de los mejores ejemplos de libro cientifico dirigido tanto a profesionales como a lectores no especializados, La conciencia explicada constituye finalmente un trabajo filosofico de la mejor especie: sencillo, pero sin caer en la trivialidad; bien documentado, pero sin abrumar con un exceso de informacion. Como ha dicho Howard Gardner, "una notable reflexion sobre la conciencia? a cargo de uno de nuestros mas sobresalientes pensadores".

Desde que Daniel Dennett publicó su influyente obra ’La conciencia explicada’, en 1991, la investigación científica sobre la conciencia se ha convertido en un campo de batalla entre teorías rivales,

Breaking the Spell is Daniel Dennett's most innovative and important work yet; it offers a profound challenge to society and a compelling new history of belief. Few forces in the world are as potent as religion: it comforts people in their suffering and inspires them to both magnificent and terrible deeds. In this provocative and timely book, Dennett seeks to uncover the origins of this power, and discusses why and how different faiths have commanded allegiance and shaped so many lives. He does not contest these beliefs. Rather, he argues passionately for the need to understand this multifaceted phenomenon, and he offers a truly original and comprehensive explanation for religion. What was the psychological and cultural soil in which it first took root? How did it evolve? Is it the product of blind evolutionary instinct or of rational choice? Dennett shows how these ideas could have spread from individual superstitions, via shamanism and the early wild' strains of religion to today's institutionalized systems. Dennett's extraordinary achievement is to weave such a richly detailed narrative, to imagine it so vividly, and to argue for it so forcefully.

Few forces in the world are as potent as religion: it comforts people in their suffering and inspires them to both magnificent and terrible deeds. In this provocative and timely book, Daniel C. Dennett seeks to uncover the origins of religion and discusses how and why different faiths have shaped so many lives, whether religion is an addiction or a genuine human need, and even whether it is good for our health. Arguing passionately for the need to understand this multifaceted phenomenon, Breaking the Spell offers a truly original and comprehensive explanation for faith.

Un apasionado debate sobre un amplio abanico de cuestiones fundamentales de neurociencia y filosofía. Esta obra recoge el provocativo debate entre tres destacados filósofos y uno de los principales neurocientificos contemporaneos sobre los supuestos conceptuales de la neurociencia cognitiva. El libro se inicia con un pasaje de Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, de Maxwell Bennett y Peter Hacker, texto en el que se cuestionan los planteamientos de los neurocientificos cognitivos y, a continuacion, Daniel Dennett y John Searle expresan sus discrepancias con la postura de los anteriores. Por ultimo, Bennett y Hacker exponen sus argumentos contra estas criticas. - De manera clara y atractiva, los autores ponen al alcance del lector interesado las distintas concepciones del metodo filosofico y de la explicacion neurocientifica y cognitiva y de la naturaleza humana.