Social Utility and the Value of Free Inquiry

Top o' the Stack.

Daniel Dennett died yesterday at age 82. A philosophical provocateur of influence, his brilliance far outstripped his insight. But a day after his demise, de mortuis nil nisi bonum remains in force. So I will say something good about him. I agree entirely with what he says in the following passage:

Comments

[Malcolm Pollack]

Excellent post, Bill, and even though your (rightly asserted) point was that the search for truth is an end in itself, your use of complex numbers in electrical engineering was a splendid (and instructive) example of the unexpected utility that pure research so often provides, long after the original inquiry.

As I mentioned in my own brief post, Dennett did other good work as well, in particular his explication of evolution in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, and his two excellent books on compatibilism, Elbow Room and Freedom Evolves.

(I'll leave it there for now, as anything else I might say might be somewhat less bonum.)

[BV]

Thanks, Malcolm. I hope to say something shortly about Dennett's compatibilism.