Daniel C. Dennett

Dennett spent his career arguing that consciousness is not a mystery requiring a new physics but a set of processes that look mysterious from inside. Consciousness Explained denied that qualia exist in the form most philosophers assume, which is the dispute he is known for and which David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel have never conceded. Darwin's Dangerous Idea treats natural selection as a universal acid that dissolves every explanation resting on design from above. From Bacteria to Bach and Back is the late summary, built on competence without comprehension: things that work well without anything understanding why. He was grouped with Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens as one of the four public atheists of the two thousands, and was by some distance the most patient of them. He taught at Tufts for decades and died in April 2024.