Daniel Clement Dennett III

Daniel Clement Dennett III was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied philosophy under W. V. O. Quine at Harvard University and earned his DPhil at the University of Oxford under Gilbert Ryle in 1965. In 1971, he joined the faculty of Tufts University, where he taught for over fifty years and directed the Center for Cognitive Studies.

Dennett was a passionate naturalist who argued that the mind, free will, and human consciousness are not supernatural mysteries, but evolved physical mechanisms of computation and natural selection. His 1991 book Consciousness Explained boldly attacked Cartesian dualism and the illusion of the "Cartesian theater," proposing the "multiple drafts" model of consciousness. In Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995), he hailed evolutionary natural selection as a "universal acid" that dissolves traditional philosophical dogma. Dennett was renowned alongside Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens as one of the "Four Horsemen" advocating scientific rationalism and religious skepticism.