Daniel Dennett Quotes

There's a long tradition in Western thought that humans are not shackled by biology, whereas animals are pure instinct machines.

Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.

The human's place in the universe will be set in the scheme of evolution, the product of our biological inheritance.

There's a common criticism of evolutionary psychology that it's fatalistic and it dooms us to eternal strife, 'Why even try to work toward peace if we're just bloody killer apes and violence is in our genes?'

Evolutionary theory informs our understanding of some frankly inexcusable social behavior and renders it perfectly normal.

We have to accept that we are just machines. That's certainly what modern molecular biology says about us.

The idea that being human and having rights are equivalent - that rights are inherent - is unintelligible in a Darwinian world.

Hyper-selectionism has been with us for a long time in various guises; for it represents the late nineteenth century's scientific version of the myth of natural harmony all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds (all structures well designed for a definite purpose in this case). It is, indeed, the vision of foolish Dr. Pangloss, so vividly satirized by Voltaire in Candide the world is not necessarily good, but it is the best we could possibly have.

Whether man is a product of evolution or is 'created' becomes the question, 'Who is man? Is he part of the world or something different from it?'

I think almost everything about humans and human civilization is explained better by evolution than anything else.

Knowledge doesn't really form part of human nature. Conflict, combat, the outcome of the combat, and, consequently, risk and chance are what gives rise to knowledge. Knowledge is not instinctive; it is counter instinctive, just as it is not natural but counter natural.

Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution, or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate.

God made man to be free. Anybody can do whatever they want.

From spending my decades thinking about behavior and the biological influences on it, I'm convinced by now free will is what we call the biology that hasn't been discovered yet. It's just another way of stating that we're biological organisms determined by the physical laws of the universe.

It's insanely difficult for people to accept the extent to which we are biological organisms without agency.

The explanatory power of evolutionary psychology is limitless!

A world grows up around me. Am I shaping it, or do its predetermined contours guide my hand?

People behave agentically, but they produce theories that afford people very little agency.

The Darwinian revolution is about essence. The Darwinian revolution is about who we are, it's what we're made of, it's what our life means insofar as science can answer that question.

My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.

i realize that the future, though invisible, has weight. We are in the gravitational pull of past and future. It takes huge energy -speed of light power- to break the gravitational pull. How many of us ever get free of our orbit? We tease ourselves with fancy notions of free will and self-help courses that direct our lives. We believe we can be our own miracles, and just a lottery win or Mr.right will make the world new.

Aegistheus, the kings have another secret.... Once liberty has exploded in the soul of a man, the Gods can do nothing against that man. It is a matter for men to handle amongst themselves, and it is up to other men and to them alone to let him flee or to destroy him.

For man is not the creature and product of Mechanism; but, in a far truer sense, its creator and producer.

I think I was probably wondering, having looked at human beings for a long time, wondering if evolution ever took place. And I still have my doubts.