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There is no such thing as philosophy-free science, just science that has been conducted without any consideration of its underlying philosophical assumptions.

Daniel Dennett

In the beginning, there were no reasons; there were only causes. Nothing had a purpose, nothing has so much as a function; there was no teleology in the world at all.
DANIEL DENNETT

Beginning Purpose Reason World
Minds are in limited supply, and each mind has a limited capacity for memes, and hence there is considerable competition among memes for entry in as many minds as possible.
DANIEL DENNETT

Competition Consider Mindset Possible
The earth has grown a nervous system, and it’s us.
DANIEL DENNETT

Earth Growth Nervous Ourselves
A scholar is just a library’s way of making another library.
DANIEL DENNETT

Library Scholar Way
I am inclined to think that nothing could matter more than what people love. At any rate, I can think of no value that I would place higher. I would not want to live in a world without love.
DANIEL DENNETT

Love Myself People Rate Thinking
Darwin’s idea of natural selection makes people uncomfortable because it reverses the direction of tradition.
DANIEL DENNETT

Direction Ideas Natural People Tradition
As every scuba diver knows, panic is your worst enemy: when it hits, your mind starts to thrash and you are likely to do something really stupid and self-destructive.
DANIEL DENNETT

Destruction Enemy Hit Mindset Panic Worst Yourself
I am a philosopher, not a scientist, and we philosophers are better at questions than answers.
DANIEL DENNETT

Better Philosophy Question Science Way Yourself
Cost is always an object – the second law of thermodynamics sees to that.
DANIEL DENNETT

Cost Law Object Science See
To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant — inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write.
DANIEL DENNETT

Fair Ignorance Learning Myself Process Reading Writing
Philosophers’ Syndrome: mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity.
DANIEL DENNETT

Failure Imagination Mistake Necessary Philosophy
Go ahead and believe in God , if you like, but don’t imagine that you have been given any grounds for such a belief by science.
DANIEL DENNETT

Belief Believe God Ground Imagination Science
The evidence for evolution pours in, not only from geology, paleontology, biogeography, and anatomy, but of course from molecular biology and every other branch of the life sciences.
DANIEL DENNETT

Evidence Life Science Subject
I think that what one can see from a Darwinian account is how the addition of culture in our species turns us into a very special sort of animal, an animal that can be a moral agent in a way that no other animal can be.
DANIEL DENNETT

Agency Animal Culture Moral See Thinking
Human freedom is not an illusion; it is an objective phenomenon, distinct from all other biological conditions and found in only one species – us.
DANIEL DENNETT

Condition Freedom Human Mistake Objection Oneself
The mind is the effect, not the cause.
DANIEL DENNETT

Effect Mindset Science

There is no such thing as philosophy-free science, just science that has been conducted without any consideration of its underlying philosophical assumptions.

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There is no such thing as philosophy-free science, just science that has been conducted without any consideration of its underlying philosophical assumptions.

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