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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

What you can imagine depends on what you know. Philosophers who know only philosophy consign themselves to a janitorial role in the great enterprises of exploration that are illuminating the mysteries of our lives.
DANIEL DENNETT

Imagination Live Mystery Ourselves Philosophy
I am a philosopher, not a scientist, and we philosophers are better at questions than answers.
DANIEL DENNETT

Better Philosophy Question Science Way Yourself
A scholar is just a library’s way of making another library.
DANIEL DENNETT

Library Scholar Way
True, you don’t have to be religious to be crazy, but it helps. Indeed, if you are religious, you don’t have to be crazy in the medically certifiable sense in order to do massively crazy things.
DANIEL DENNETT

Crazy Medical Religious True Yourself
Problems in science are sometimes made easier by adding complications.
DANIEL DENNETT

Add Complication Easy Problem Science Time
If I know better than you know what I am up to, it is only because I spend more time with myself than you do.
DANIEL DENNETT

Better Myself Time Yourself
The way evolution always discovers reasons is by retroactive endorsement.
DANIEL DENNETT

Discover Endorsement Evolution Reason
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
Religion is defined as social systems whose participants avow a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought.
DANIEL DENNETT

Natural Religion Social System
In the long run I certainly hope information is the cure for fanaticism, but I am afraid information is more the cause than the cure.
DANIEL DENNETT

Afraid Cure Fantasy Hope Information Myself
The chief trick to making good mistakes is not to hide them-especially not from yourself.
DANIEL DENNETT

Goodness Hide Mistake Trick Yourself
We live in a world that is subjectively open. And we are designed by evolution to be “informavores”, epistemically hungry seekers of information, in an endless quest to improve our purchase on the world, the better to make decisions about our subjectively open future.
DANIEL DENNETT

Decision Future Improvement Live Open World
Not a single one of the cells that compose you knows who you are, or cares.
DANIEL DENNETT

Care Knowledge Yourself
The best thing about saying thank goodness in place of thank God this that here really are lots of ways of repaying your debt of goodness – by setting to create more of it, for the benefit of those to come.
DANIEL DENNETT

Best Creation Goodness Place Thankful
I think religion for many people is some sort of moral viagra.
DANIEL DENNETT

Moral Myself People Thinking
Life itself is just a thin coat of paint on the planet, and we hold the paintbrush.
DANIEL DENNETT

Hold Life Paint Philosophy

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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