112-460: [REDACTED] Look up elbow room in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Elbow Room may refer to: Literature [ edit ] Elbow Room (Dennett book) , a 1984 book by Daniel Dennett Elbow Room (short story collection) , a 1977 book by James Alan McPherson Elbow Room , an 1804 pamphlet by Thomas Gilliland Elbow Room ,
224-829: A PhD in Islamic studies from Harvard University , was a covert counter-intelligence agent with the Office of Strategic Services posing as a cultural attaché to the American Embassy in Beirut . His mother, an English major at Carleton College , went for a master's degree at the University of Minnesota before becoming an English teacher at the American Community School in Beirut. In 1947, his father
336-536: A spectrum of theistic probability —the likelihood that each assigns to the statement "God exists". Before the 18th century, the existence of God was so accepted in the Western world that even the possibility of true atheism was questioned. This is called theistic innatism —the notion that all people believe in God from birth; within this view was the connotation that atheists are in denial. Some atheists have challenged
448-476: A theistic naturalism . Nevertheless, Oppy argues that a strong naturalism favors atheism, though he finds the best direct arguments against theism to be the evidential problem of evil, and arguments concerning the contradictory nature of God were one to exist. Some atheists hold the view that the various conceptions of gods, such as the personal god of Christianity, are ascribed logically inconsistent qualities. Such atheists present deductive arguments against
560-629: A 1939 poetry collection by Oliver St. John Gogarty Music [ edit ] Elbow Room , a 2005 album by Chris Murphy Elbow Room , a 2005 album by Vincent Gardner "Elbow Room", a song by John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner from Sargasso Sea Other uses [ edit ] "Elbow Room", an episode of Schoolhouse Rock! The Elbow Room , a nightclub in Birmingham, England Elbow Room (theatre company) , an Australian theatre company that has collaborated with Eryn Jean Norvill See also [ edit ] Elbo Room ,
672-591: A bar in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, US Lebensraum , a German expansionary concept Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Elbow Room . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elbow_Room&oldid=1106540959 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
784-701: A bipartite structure, he similarly divided Brainstorms into two sections. He would later collect several essays on content in The Intentional Stance and synthesize his views on consciousness into a unified theory in Consciousness Explained . These volumes respectively form the most extensive development of his views. In chapter 5 of Consciousness Explained, Dennett described his multiple drafts model of consciousness. He stated that, "all varieties of perception—indeed all varieties of thought or mental activity—are accomplished in
896-443: A certain amount of deliberation, I say to myself: "That's enough. I've considered this matter enough and now I'm going to act," in the full knowledge that I could have considered further, in the full knowledge that the eventualities may prove that I decided in error, but with the acceptance of responsibility in any case. Leading libertarian philosophers such as Robert Kane have rejected Dennett's model, specifically that random chance
1008-405: A divine mandate is not true ethical behavior but merely blind obedience. Baggini argues that atheism is a superior basis for ethics, claiming that a moral basis external to religious imperatives is necessary to evaluate the morality of the imperatives themselves—to be able to discern, for example, that "thou shalt steal" is immoral even if one's religion instructs it—and that atheists, therefore, have
1120-411: A generation of academics in the humanities disabled by their distrust of the very idea of truth and their disrespect for evidence, settling for "conversations" in which nobody is wrong and nothing can be confirmed, only asserted with whatever style you can muster. Dennett adopted and somewhat redefined the term "deepity", originally coined by Miriam Weizenbaum. Dennett used "deepity" for a statement that
1232-418: A god either leads to moral relativism and leaves one with no moral or ethical foundation, or renders life meaningless and miserable. Blaise Pascal argued this view in his Pensées . There is also a position claiming that atheists are quick to believe in God in times of crisis, that atheists make deathbed conversions , or that " there are no atheists in foxholes ". There have, however, been examples to
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#17327733697151344-509: A label of practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577. The term atheism was derived from the French athéisme , and appears in English about 1587. Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god . In the 20th century, globalization contributed to the expansion of
1456-416: A lost Attic drama that featured Sisyphus , which has been attributed to both Critias and Euripides , claims that a clever man invented "the fear of the gods" in order to frighten people into behaving morally. Does then anyone say there are gods in heaven? There are not, there are not, if a man is willing not to give foolish credence to the ancient story. Consider for yourselves, don't form an opinion on
1568-615: A means of explanation, and opposed arguments from religious authority . Other critics of religion and the Church during this time included Niccolò Machiavelli , Bonaventure des Périers , Michel de Montaigne , and François Rabelais . Historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote that the Reformation had paved the way for atheists by attacking the authority of the Catholic Church, which in turn "quietly inspired other thinkers to attack
1680-482: A number of openly atheistic followers, such as atheistic or humanistic Judaism and Christian atheists . Atheism is accepted as a valid philosophical position within some varieties of Hinduism , Jainism , and Buddhism . Ideas that would be recognized today as atheistic are documented from the Vedic period and the classical antiquity . Atheistic schools are found in early Indian thought and have existed from
1792-467: A persistent feature of political if not so much philosophical debate. Moral precepts such as "murder is wrong" are seen as divine laws , requiring a divine lawmaker and judge. However, many atheists argue that treating morality legalistically involves a false analogy , and that morality does not depend on a lawmaker in the same way that laws do. Philosophers Susan Neiman and Julian Baggini among others assert that behaving ethically only because of
1904-424: A proposition; they instead place noncognitivism in its own category. Most atheists lean toward ontological monism : the belief that there is only one kind of fundamental substance. The philosophical materialism is a view that matter is the fundamental substance in nature. This omits the possibility of a non-material divine being. According to physicalism , only physical entities exist. Philosophies opposed to
2016-545: A punishable offense. During the Early Middle Ages , the Islamic world experienced a Golden Age . Along with advances in science and philosophy, Arab and Persian lands produced rationalists who were skeptical about revealed religion, such as Muhammad al Warraq (fl. 9th century), Ibn al-Rawandi (827–911), and Abu Bakr al-Razi ( c. 865 –925), as well as outspoken atheists such as al-Maʿarri (973–1058). Al-Ma'arri wrote and taught that religion itself
2128-513: A reasonable expectation of public punishment. Although Voltaire is widely considered to have strongly contributed to atheistic thinking during the Revolution, he also considered fear of God to have discouraged further disorder, having said "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." The philosopher David Hume developed a skeptical epistemology grounded in empiricism , and Immanuel Kant 's philosophy has strongly questioned
2240-451: A rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism , which is the belief that at least one deity exists. Historically, evidence of atheistic viewpoints can be traced back to classical antiquity and early Indian philosophy. In the Western world, atheism declined after Christianity gained prominence. The 16th century and
2352-614: A significant influence on the work of evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller . Dennett was a vocal atheist and secularist , a member of the Secular Coalition for America advisory board, and a member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry , as well as an outspoken supporter of the Brights movement . Dennett was referred to as one of the " Four Horsemen of New Atheism ", along with Richard Dawkins , Sam Harris , and
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#17327733697152464-503: A valid refutation of physicalism . This view is rejected by neuroscientists Gerald Edelman , Antonio Damasio , Vilayanur Ramachandran , Giulio Tononi , and Rodolfo Llinás , all of whom state that qualia exist and that the desire to eliminate them is based on an erroneous interpretation on the part of some philosophers regarding what constitutes science. Dennett's strategy mirrored his teacher Ryle's approach of redefining first-person phenomena in third-person terms, and denying
2576-410: Is "possible in principle" to create AI with human-like comprehension and agency, Dennett maintained that the difficulties of any such " strong AI " project would be orders of magnitude greater than those raising concerns have realized. Dennett believed, as of the book's publication in 2017, that the prospect of superintelligence (AI massively exceeding the cognitive performance of humans in all domains)
2688-482: Is a justified and rational true belief, but offers no extended epistemological justification because current theories are in a state of controversy. Martin instead argues for "mid-level principles of justification that are in accord with our ordinary and scientific rational practice." Other arguments for atheism that can be classified as epistemological or ontological , assert the meaninglessness or unintelligibility of basic terms such as "God" and statements such as "God
2800-575: Is a proponent of materialism in the philosophy of mind . He argues that mental states, including consciousness, are entirely the result of physical processes in the brain. In his book Consciousness Explained (1991), Dennett presents his arguments for a materialist understanding of consciousness, rejecting Cartesian dualism in favor of a physicalist perspective. Dennett remarked in several places (such as "Self-portrait", in Brainchildren ) that his overall philosophical project remained largely
2912-686: Is a type of incandescent stone", an affirmation with which he tried to deny the divinity of the celestial bodies. In the late fifth century BCE, the Greek lyric poet Diagoras of Melos was sentenced to death in Athens under the charge of being a "godless person" (ἄθεος) after he made fun of the Eleusinian Mysteries , but he fled the city to escape punishment. In post-classical antiquity, philosophers such as Cicero and Sextus Empiricus described Diagoras as an "atheist" who categorically denied
3024-405: Is all-powerful." Theological noncognitivism holds that the statement "God exists" does not express a proposition, but is nonsensical or cognitively meaningless. It has been argued both ways as to whether such individuals can be classified into some form of atheism or agnosticism. Philosophers A. J. Ayer and Theodore M. Drange reject both categories, stating that both camps accept "God exists" as
3136-440: Is apparently profound, but is actually trivial on one level and meaningless on another. Generally, a deepity has two (or more) meanings: one that is true but trivial, and another that sounds profound and would be important if true, but is actually false or meaningless. Examples are "Que será será!", "Beauty is only skin deep!", "The power of intention can transform your life." The term has been cited many times. While approving of
3248-496: Is compatible with a naturalist view of the world ( Freedom Evolves ). Dennett saw evolution by natural selection as an algorithmic process (though he spelt out that algorithms as simple as long division often incorporate a significant degree of randomness ). This idea is in conflict with the evolutionary philosophy of paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould , who preferred to stress the "pluralism" of evolution (i.e., its dependence on many crucial factors, of which natural selection
3360-463: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Elbow Room (Dennett book) Daniel Clement Dennett III (March 28, 1942 – April 19, 2024) was an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. His research centered on the philosophy of mind , the philosophy of science , and the philosophy of biology , particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science . Dennett
3472-651: Is directly involved in a decision, on the basis that they believe this eliminates the agent's motives and reasons, character and values , and feelings and desires . They claim that, if chance is the primary cause of decisions, then agents cannot be liable for resultant actions. Kane says: [As Dennett admits,] a causal indeterminist view of this deliberative kind does not give us everything libertarians have wanted from free will. For [the agent] does not have complete control over what chance images and other thoughts enter his mind or influence his deliberation. They simply come as they please. [The agent] does have some control after
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3584-657: Is fragmentary, based largely on criticism of the ideas by other schools: "Though materialism in some form or other has always been present in India, and occasional references are found in the Vedas, the Buddhistic literature, the Epics, as well as in the later philosophical works we do not find any systematic work on materialism, nor any organized school of followers as the other philosophical schools possess. But almost every work of
3696-445: Is inconsistent with theism. For example, Oppy says arguing for naturalism is an argument for atheism since naturalism and theism "cannot both be true". Fiona Ellis describes the "expansive naturalism" of John McDowell , James Griffin , and David Wiggins while also asserting there are things in human experience which cannot be explained in such terms, such as the concept of value, leaving room for theism. Christopher C. Knight asserts
3808-584: Is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" Similar arguments have been made in Buddhist philosophy . Vasubandhu (4th/5th century) outlined numerous Buddhist arguments against God . Philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud have argued that God and other religious beliefs are human inventions, created to fulfill various psychological and emotional wants or needs. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels , influenced by
3920-430: Is not compatible with a world where there is evil and suffering , and where divine love is hidden from many people. Epicurus is credited with first expounding the problem of evil. David Hume in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) cited Epicurus in stating the argument as a series of questions: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he
4032-403: Is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs. In early ancient Greek , the adjective átheos ( ἄθεος , from the privative ἀ- + θεός "god") meant "godless". It was first used as a term of censure roughly meaning "ungodly" or "impious". In the 5th century BCE, the word began to indicate more deliberate and active godlessness in
4144-871: Is only one). Dennett's views on evolution are identified as being strongly adaptationist , in line with his theory of the intentional stance , and the evolutionary views of biologist Richard Dawkins. In Darwin's Dangerous Idea , Dennett showed himself even more willing than Dawkins to defend adaptationism in print, devoting an entire chapter to a criticism of the ideas of Gould. This stems from Gould's long-running public debate with E. O. Wilson and other evolutionary biologists over human sociobiology and its descendant evolutionary psychology , which Gould and Richard Lewontin opposed, but which Dennett advocated, together with Dawkins and Steven Pinker . Gould argued that Dennett overstated his claims and misrepresented Gould's, to reinforce what Gould describes as Dennett's "Darwinian fundamentalism". Dennett's theories have had
4256-629: Is positively correlated with irreligion. He found that there are much lower concentrations of atheism and secularity in poorer, less developed nations (particularly in Africa and South America) than in the richer industrialized democracies. His findings relating specifically to atheism in the US were that compared to religious people in the US, "atheists and secular people" are less nationalistic , prejudiced , antisemitic , racist , dogmatic , ethnocentric , closed-minded, and authoritarian, and in US states with
4368-603: Is that people will misunderstand the nature of basically "parasitic" AI systems, rather than employing them constructively to challenge and develop the human user's powers of comprehension. In the 1990s, Dennett collaborated with a group of computer scientists at MIT to attempt to develop a humanoid, conscious robot, named "Cog". The project did not produce a conscious robot, but Dennett argued that in principle it could have. As given in his penultimate book, From Bacteria to Bach and Back , Dennett's views were contrary to those of Nick Bostrom . Although acknowledging that it
4480-597: Is the conscious rejection of belief. It is usual to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism. For the purposes of his paper on "philosophical atheism", Ernest Nagel contested including the mere absence of theistic belief as a type of atheism. Graham Oppy classifies as innocents those who never considered the question because they lack any understanding of what a god is, for example one-month-old babies. Philosophers such as Antony Flew and Michael Martin have contrasted positive (strong/hard) atheism with negative (weak/soft) atheism. Positive atheism
4592-602: Is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. Negative atheism includes all other forms of non-theism. According to this categorization, anyone who is not a theist is either a negative or a positive atheist. Michael Martin, for example, asserts that agnosticism entails negative atheism. Agnostic atheism encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. However, many agnostics see their view as distinct from atheism. According to atheists' arguments, unproven religious propositions deserve as much disbelief as all other unproven propositions. Atheist criticism of agnosticism says that
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4704-439: Is to some degree undetermined, produces a series of considerations, some of which may of course be immediately rejected as irrelevant by the agent (consciously or unconsciously). Those considerations that are selected by the agent as having a more than negligible bearing on the decision then figure in a reasoning process, and if the agent is in the main reasonable, those considerations ultimately serve as predictors and explicators of
4816-418: Is unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god. This category would also include the child with the conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved, but who is still unaware of those issues. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist." Implicit atheism is "the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it" and explicit atheism
4928-597: The Age of Enlightenment marked the resurgence of atheistic thought in Europe. Atheism achieved a significant position worldwide in the 20th century. Estimates of those who have an absence of belief in a god range from 500 million to 1.1 billion people . Atheist organizations have defended the autonomy of science , freedom of thought , secular ethics and secularism . Arguments for atheism range from philosophical to social approaches. Rationales for not believing in deities include
5040-464: The Punch and Judy puppet show, they laugh because they know that they know more about what's going on than one of the characters does: Very young children watching a Punch and Judy show squeal in anticipatory delight as Punch prepares to throw the box over the cliff. Why? Because they know Punch thinks Judy is still in the box. They know better; they saw Judy escape while Punch's back was turned. We take
5152-597: The Roman Empire , Christians were executed for their rejection of the Roman gods in general and the Imperial cult of ancient Rome in particular. There was, however, a heavy struggle between Christians and pagans, in which each group accused the other of atheism, for not practicing the religion which they considered correct. When Christianity became the state religion of Rome under Theodosius I in 381, heresy became
5264-488: The Epicureans was to attain ataraxia ("peace of mind") and one important way of doing this was by exposing fear of divine wrath as irrational. The Epicureans also denied the existence of an afterlife and the need to fear divine punishment after death. Euhemerus ( c. 300 BCE ) published his view that the gods were only the deified rulers and founders of the past. Although not strictly an atheist, Euhemerus
5376-884: The Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement . He became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2009. In February 2010, he was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation 's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers. In 2012, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize , an annual award for a person who has made an exceptional contribution to European culture, society or social science, "for his ability to translate
5488-576: The Greek Cyrenaic school . This branch of Indian philosophy is classified as heterodox due to its rejection of the authority of Vedas and hence is not considered part of the six orthodox schools of Indian philosophy . It is noteworthy as evidence of a materialistic movement in ancient India. Satischandra Chatterjee and Dhirendramohan Datta explain in An Introduction to Indian Philosophy that our understanding of Chārvāka philosophy
5600-535: The Greek word into the Latin átheos . The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christians and Hellenists , with each side attributing it, in the pejorative sense, to the other. The term atheist (from the French athée ), in the sense of "one who ... denies the existence of God or gods", predates atheism in English, being first found as early as 1566, and again in 1571. Atheist as
5712-712: The Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon , Dennett attempted to account for religious belief naturalistically, explaining possible evolutionary reasons for the phenomenon of religious adherence. In this book he declared himself to be " a bright ", and defended the term. He did research into clerics who are secretly atheists and how they rationalize their works. He found what he called a "don't ask, don't tell" conspiracy because believers did not want to hear of loss of faith. This made unbelieving preachers feel isolated, but they did not want to lose their jobs and church-supplied lodgings. Generally, they consoled themselves with
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#17327733697155824-488: The advantage of being more inclined to make such evaluations. Some prominent atheists—most recently Christopher Hitchens , Daniel Dennett , Sam Harris , and Richard Dawkins , and following such thinkers as Bertrand Russell , Robert G. Ingersoll , Voltaire , and novelist José Saramago —have criticized religions, citing harmful aspects of religious practices and doctrines. The 19th-century German political theorist and sociologist Karl Marx called religion "the sigh of
5936-428: The agent's final decision. While other philosophers have developed two-stage models, including William James , Henri Poincaré , Arthur Compton , and Henry Margenau , Dennett defended this model for the following reasons: These prior and subsidiary decisions contribute, I think, to our sense of ourselves as responsible free agents, roughly in the following way: I am faced with an important decision to make, and after
6048-456: The ambiguity involved in defining atheism arises from the definitions of words like deity and god . The variety of wildly different conceptions of God and deities lead to differing ideas regarding atheism's applicability. The ancient Romans accused Christians of being atheists for not worshiping the pagan deities. Gradually, this view fell into disfavor as theism came to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity. With respect to
6160-459: The authority of the new Protestant churches". Deism gained influence in France, Prussia, and England. In 1546, French scholar Etienne Dolet was executed upon accusation of being an atheist. The philosopher Baruch Spinoza was "probably the first well known 'semi-atheist' to announce himself in a Christian land in the modern era", according to Blainey. Spinoza believed that natural laws explained
6272-415: The basis of my words! Protagoras has sometimes been taken to be an atheist, but rather espoused agnostic views, commenting that "Concerning the gods I am unable to discover whether they exist or not, or what they are like in form; for there are many hindrances to knowledge, the obscurity of the subject and the brevity of human life." The Athenian public associated Socrates ( c. 470–399 BCE ) with
6384-509: The belief that they were doing good in their pastoral roles by providing comfort and required ritual. The research, with Linda LaScola, was further extended to include other denominations and non-Christian clerics. The research and stories Dennett and LaScola accumulated during this project were published in their 2013 co-authored book, Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind . Dennett wrote about and advocated
6496-439: The beneficiary of hundreds of hours of informal tutorials on all the fields that interest me, from some of the world's leading scientists". Throughout his career, he was an interdisciplinarian who argued for "breaking the silos of knowledge", and he collaborated widely with computer scientists, cognitive scientists, and biologists. Dennett was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and two Guggenheim Fellowships . While he
6608-400: The brain by parallel, multitrack processes of interpretation and elaboration of sensory inputs. Information entering the nervous system is under continuous 'editorial revision.'" (p. 111). Later he asserts, "These yield, over the course of time, something rather like a narrative stream or sequence, which can be thought of as subject to continual editing by many processes distributed around
6720-521: The brain, ..." (p. 135, emphasis in the original). In this work, Dennett's interest in the ability of evolution to explain some of the content-producing features of consciousness is already apparent, and this later became an integral part of his program. He stated his view is materialist and scientific, and he presents an argument against qualia ; he argued that the concept of qualia is so confused that it cannot be put to any use or understood in any non-contradictory way, and therefore does not constitute
6832-758: The centrality and indispensability of the intentional stance to our conceptual scheme. Dennett was the recipient of a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences . He was a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism . He was named 2004 Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association . In 2006, Dennett received
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#17327733697156944-400: The chance considerations have occurred. But then there is no more chance involved. What happens from then on, how he reacts, is determined by desires and beliefs he already has. So it appears that he does not have control in the libertarian sense of what happens after the chance considerations occur as well. Libertarians require more than this for full responsibility and free will. Dennett
7056-467: The charges of atheism at his trial. From a survey of these 5th-century BCE philosophers, David Sedley has concluded that none of them openly defended radical atheism, but since Classical sources clearly attest to radical atheist ideas Athens probably had an "atheist underground". Religious skepticism continued into the Hellenistic period , and from this period the most important Greek thinker in
7168-469: The children's excitement as overwhelmingly good evidence that they understand the situation--they understand that Punch is acting on a mistaken belief (although they are not sophisticated enough to put it that way). Much of Dennett's work from the 1990s onwards was concerned with fleshing out his previous ideas by addressing the same topics from an evolutionary standpoint, from what distinguishes human minds from animal minds ( Kinds of Minds ), to how free will
7280-411: The coherence of the concepts which this approach struggles with. Dennett self-identified with a few terms: [Others] note that my "avoidance of the standard philosophical terminology for discussing such matters" often creates problems for me; philosophers have a hard time figuring out what I am saying and what I am denying. My refusal to play ball with my colleagues is deliberate, of course, since I view
7392-484: The consequent prejudice that warps his mind, that prevents its expansion, that renders him the slave of fiction, appears to doom him to continual error." In Great Britain, William Hammon and physician Mathew Turner authored a pamphlet in response to Joseph Priestley 's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever . Theirs was the first work in English to openly defend atheism, and implied that established sentiment of Christianity made speaking up in defense of atheism an act with
7504-412: The contrary, among them examples of literal "atheists in foxholes". There exist normative ethical systems that do not require principles and rules to be given by a deity. According to Plato's Euthyphro dilemma , the role of the gods in determining right from wrong is either unnecessary or arbitrary. The argument that morality must be derived from God , and cannot exist without a wise creator, has been
7616-509: The criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo." Sam Harris criticizes Western religion's reliance on divine authority as lending itself to authoritarianism and dogmatism . Multiple studies have discovered there to be a correlation between religious fundamentalism and extrinsic religion (when religion is held because it serves ulterior interests) and authoritarianism, dogmatism, and prejudice. These arguments—combined with historical events that are argued to demonstrate
7728-522: The cultural significance of science and technology to a broad audience". In 2018, he was awarded an honorary doctorate (Dr.h.c.) by the Radboud University in Nijmegen , Netherlands , for his contributions to and influence on cross-disciplinary science. Atheist Atheism , in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities . Less broadly, atheism is
7840-693: The dangers of religion, such as the Crusades , inquisitions , witch trials , and terrorist attacks —have been used in response to claims of beneficial effects of belief in religion. Believers counter-argue that some regimes that espouse atheism , such as the Soviet Union , have also been guilty of mass murder. In response to those claims, atheists such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have stated that Stalin's atrocities were influenced not by atheism but by dogmatic ideology, and that while Stalin and Mao happened to be atheists, they did not do their deeds in
7952-504: The development of atheism was the philosopher Epicurus ( c. 300 BCE ). Drawing on the ideas of Democritus and the Atomists, he espoused a materialistic philosophy according to which the universe was governed by the laws of chance without the need for divine intervention (see scientific determinism ). Although Epicurus still maintained that the gods existed, he believed that they were uninterested in human affairs. The aim of
8064-495: The divine essence could not be intuitively or rationally apprehended by human intellect. Sects deemed heretical such as the Waldensians were also accused of being atheistic. The resulting division between faith and reason influenced later radical and reformist theologians. The Renaissance did much to expand the scope of free thought and skeptical inquiry. Individuals such as Leonardo da Vinci sought experimentation as
8176-536: The entanglement of language, consciousness, and reality. He posited that our discourse about reality is mediated by our cognitive and linguistic capacities, marking a departure from Naïve realism . Dennett's philosophical stance on realism was intricately connected to his views on instrumentalism and the theory of real patterns. He drew a distinction between illata, which are genuine theoretical entities like electrons, and abstracta, which are "calculation bound entities or logical constructs" such as centers of gravity and
8288-589: The equator, placing beliefs and the like among the latter. One of Dennett's principal arguments was an instrumentalistic construal of intentional attributions, asserting that such attributions are environment-relative. In discussing intentional states, Dennett posited that they should not be thought of as resembling theoretical entities, but rather as logical constructs, avoiding the pitfalls of intentional realism without lapsing into pure instrumentalism or even eliminativism. His instrumentalism and anti-realism were crucial aspects of his view on intentionality, emphasizing
8400-516: The existence of God, which assert the incompatibility between certain traits, such as perfection, creator-status, immutability , omniscience , omnipresence , omnipotence , omnibenevolence , transcendence , personhood (a personal being), non-physicality, justice , and mercy . Theodicean atheists believe that the world as they experience it cannot be reconciled with the qualities commonly ascribed to God and gods by theologians. They argue that an omniscient , omnipotent , and omnibenevolent God
8512-535: The existence of gods but on the theist to provide a rationale for theism. Writers disagree on how best to define and classify atheism , contesting what supernatural entities are considered gods, whether atheism is a philosophical position or merely the absence of one, and whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejection; however, the norm is to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism. Atheism has been regarded as compatible with agnosticism , but has also been contrasted with it. Some of
8624-464: The existence of gods, recommending that one should suspend judgment regarding the matter. His relatively large volume of surviving works had a lasting influence on later philosophers. The meaning of "atheist" changed over the course of classical antiquity. Early Christians were widely reviled as "atheists" because they did not believe in the existence of the Graeco-Roman deities. During
8736-505: The existence of the gods, but in modern scholarship Marek Winiarczyk has defended the view that Diagoras was not an atheist in the modern sense, in a view that has proved influential. On the other hand, the verdict has been challenged by Tim Whitmarsh , who argues that Diagoras rejected the gods on the basis of the problem of evil , and this argument was in turn alluded to in Euripides' fragmentary play Bellerophon . A fragment from
8848-411: The highest percentages of atheists, the murder rate is lower than average. In the most religious states, the murder rate is higher than average. Joseph Baker and Buster Smith assert that one of the common themes of atheism is that most atheists "typically construe atheism as more moral than religion". One of the most common criticisms of atheism has been to the contrary: that denying the existence of
8960-453: The increase in efficiency that humans reap by using resources such as expert systems in medicine or GPS in navigation, Dennett saw a danger in machines performing an ever-increasing proportion of basic tasks in perception, memory, and algorithmic computation because people may tend to anthropomorphize such systems and attribute intellectual powers to them that they do not possess. He believed the relevant danger from artificial intelligence (AI)
9072-405: The lack of evidence , the problem of evil , the argument from inconsistent revelations , the rejection of concepts that cannot be falsified , and the argument from nonbelief . Nonbelievers contend that atheism is a more parsimonious position than theism and that everyone is born without beliefs in deities; therefore, they argue that the burden of proof lies not on the atheist to disprove
9184-427: The late Christopher Hitchens . In Darwin's Dangerous Idea , Dennett wrote that evolution can account for the origin of morality. He rejected the idea that morality being natural to us implies that we should take a skeptical position regarding ethics, noting that what is fallacious in the naturalistic fallacy is not to support values per se, but rather to rush from facts to values. In his 2006 book, Breaking
9296-708: The materialism or physicalism include idealism , dualism and other forms of monism. Naturalism is also used to describe the view that everything that exists is fundamentally natural, and that there are no supernatural phenomena. According to naturalist view, science can explain the world with physical laws and through natural phenomena. Philosopher Graham Oppy references a PhilPapers survey that says 56.5% of philosophers in academics lean toward physicalism; 49.8% lean toward naturalism. According to Graham Oppy, direct arguments for atheism aim at showing theism fails on its own terms, while indirect arguments are those inferred from direct arguments in favor of something else that
9408-400: The modern sense was extremely rare in ancient Greece. Pre-Socratic Atomists such as Democritus attempted to explain the world in a purely materialistic way and interpreted religion as a human reaction to natural phenomena, but did not explicitly deny the gods' existence. Anaxagoras , whom Irenaeus calls "the atheist", was accused of impiety and condemned for stating that "the sun
9520-417: The name of atheism. People who self-identify as atheists are often assumed to be irreligious , but some sects within major religions reject the existence of a personal, creator deity . It has been said that atheism is not mutually exclusive with respect to some religious and spiritual belief systems, including modern Neopagan movements. In recent years, certain religious denominations have accumulated
9632-402: The need for the term "atheism". In his book Letter to a Christian Nation , Sam Harris wrote: In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non- astrologer " or a "non- alchemist ". We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism
9744-440: The notion of memetics as a philosophically useful tool, his last work on this topic being his "Brains, Computers, and Minds", a three-part presentation through Harvard's MBB 2009 Distinguished Lecture Series. Dennett was critical of postmodernism , having said: Postmodernism, the school of "thought" that proclaimed "There are no truths, only interpretations" has largely played itself out in absurdity, but it has left behind
9856-436: The oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people ". He goes on to say, "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo,
9968-472: The other schools states, for refutation, the materialistic views. Our knowledge of Indian materialism is chiefly based on these." Other Indian philosophies generally regarded as atheistic include Classical Samkhya and Purva Mimamsa . The rejection of a personal creator "God" is also seen in Jainism and Buddhism in India. Western atheism has its roots in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy , but atheism in
10080-662: The range of phenomena being rejected, atheism may counter anything from the existence of a deity, to the existence of any spiritual , supernatural , or transcendental concepts. Definitions of atheism also vary in the degree of consideration a person must put to the idea of gods to be considered an atheist. Atheism has been defined as the absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas. As far back as 1772, Baron d'Holbach said that "All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God." Similarly, George H. Smith suggested that: "The man who
10192-434: The same from his time at Oxford onwards. He was primarily concerned with providing a philosophy of mind that is grounded in empirical research. In his original dissertation , Content and Consciousness , he broke up the problem of explaining the mind into the need for a theory of content and for a theory of consciousness. His approach to this project also stayed true to this distinction. Just as Content and Consciousness has
10304-418: The sense of "severing relations with the gods" or "denying the gods". The term ἀσεβής ( asebēs ) then came to be applied against those who impiously denied or disrespected the local gods, even if they believed in other gods. Modern translations of classical texts sometimes render átheos as "atheistic". As an abstract noun, there was also ἀθεότης ( atheotēs ), "atheism". Cicero transliterated
10416-509: The standard philosophical terminology as worse than useless—a major obstacle to progress since it consists of so many errors. In Consciousness Explained , he affirmed "I am a sort of ' teleofunctionalist ', of course, perhaps the original teleofunctionalist". He went on to say, "I am ready to come out of the closet as some sort of verificationist ." (pp. 460–61). Dennett was credited with inspiring false belief tasks used in developmental psychology. He noted that when four-year-olds watch
10528-450: The term to refer to disbelief in all deities, though it remains common in Western society to describe atheism as "disbelief in God". Skepticism , based on the ideas of David Hume , asserts that certainty about anything is impossible, so one can never know for sure whether or not a god exists. Hume, however, held that such unobservable metaphysical concepts should be rejected as "sophistry and illusion". Michael Martin argues that atheism
10640-520: The times of the historical Vedic religion . Among the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy, Samkhya , the oldest philosophical school of thought, does not accept God, and the early Mimamsa also rejected the notion of God. The thoroughly materialistic and anti-theistic philosophical Chārvāka (or Lokāyata ) school that originated in India around the 6th century BCE is probably the most explicitly atheistic school of philosophy in India, similar to
10752-452: The trends in pre-Socratic philosophy towards naturalistic inquiry and the rejection of divine explanations for phenomena. Aristophanes ' comic play The Clouds (performed 423 BCE) portrays Socrates as teaching his students that the traditional Greek deities do not exist. Socrates was later tried and executed under the charge of not believing in the gods of the state and instead worshipping foreign gods. Socrates himself vehemently denied
10864-572: The unprovability of a god's existence does not imply an equal probability of either possibility. Australian philosopher J.J.C. Smart argues that "sometimes a person who is really an atheist may describe herself, even passionately, as an agnostic because of unreasonable generalized philosophical skepticism which would preclude us from saying that we know anything whatever, except perhaps the truths of mathematics and formal logic." Consequently, some atheist authors, such as Richard Dawkins , prefer distinguishing theist, agnostic, and atheist positions along
10976-595: The very possibility of metaphysical knowledge. Both philosophers undermined the metaphysical basis of natural theology and criticized classical arguments for the existence of God . One goal of the French Revolution was a restructuring and subordination of the clergy with respect to the state through the Civil Constitution of the Clergy . Attempts to enforce it led to anti-clerical violence and
11088-690: The work of Feuerbach, argued that belief in God and religion are social functions, used by those in power to oppress the working class. According to Mikhail Bakunin , "the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, in theory, and practice." He reversed Voltaire 's aphorism that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, writing instead that "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him." Sociologist Phil Zuckerman analyzed previous social science research on secularity and non-belief and concluded that societal well-being
11200-450: The workings of the universe. In 1661, he published his Short Treatise on God . Criticism of Christianity became increasingly frequent in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in France and England. Some Protestant thinkers, such as Thomas Hobbes , espoused a materialist philosophy and skepticism toward supernatural occurrences. By the late 17th century, deism came to be openly espoused by intellectuals. The first known explicit atheist
11312-420: Was a "fable invented by the ancients" and that humans were "of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains". Despite the fact that these authors were relatively prolific writers, little of their work survives, mainly being preserved through quotations and excerpts in later works by Muslim apologists attempting to refute them. In Europe, the espousal of atheistic views
11424-408: Was a confirmed compatibilist on free will , in "On Giving Libertarians What They Say They Want"—chapter 15 of his 1978 book Brainstorms —Dennett articulated the case for a two-stage model of decision making in contrast to libertarian views. The model of decision making I am proposing has the following feature: when we are faced with an important decision, a consideration-generator whose output
11536-628: Was a member of Hertford College . His doctoral dissertation was entitled The Mind and the Brain: Introspective Description in the Light of Neurological Findings; Intentionality . From 1965 to 1971, Dennett taught at the University of California, Irvine , before moving to Tufts University where he taught for many decades. He also spent periods visiting at Harvard University and several other universities. Dennett described himself as "an autodidact —or, more properly,
11648-493: Was a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment who is best known for his atheism and for his voluminous writings against religion, the most famous of them being The System of Nature (1770) but also Christianity Unveiled . "The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature. The pertinacity with which he clings to blind opinions imbibed in his infancy, which interweave themselves with his existence,
11760-451: Was a student of Willard Van Orman Quine . He had decided to transfer to Harvard after reading Quine's From a Logical Point of View and, thinking that Quine was wrong about some things, decided, as he said "as only a freshman could, that I had to go to Harvard and confront this man with my corrections to his errors!" In 1965, Dennett received his DPhil in philosophy at the University of Oxford , where he studied under Gilbert Ryle and
11872-522: Was at least 50 years away, and of far less pressing significance than other problems the world faces. Dennett was known for his nuanced stance on realism. While he supported scientific realism , advocating that entities and phenomena posited by scientific theories exist independently of our perceptions, he leant towards instrumentalism concerning certain theoretical entities, valuing their explanatory and predictive utility, as showing in his discussion of real patterns . Dennett's pragmatic realism underlines
11984-706: Was killed in a plane crash in Ethiopia . Shortly after, his mother took him back to Massachusetts. Dennett's sister is the investigative journalist Charlotte Dennett. Dennett said that he was first introduced to the notion of philosophy while attending Camp Mowglis in Hebron, New Hampshire, at age 11, when a camp counselor said to him, "You know what you are, Daniel? You're a philosopher." Dennett graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1959, and spent one year at Wesleyan University before receiving his BA degree in philosophy at Harvard University in 1963. There, he
12096-406: Was later criticized by Plutarch for having "spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods". In the 3rd century BCE, the Hellenistic philosophers Theodorus Cyrenaicus and Strato of Lampsacus were also reputed to deny the existence of the gods. The Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus ( c. 200 CE ) compiled a large number of ancient arguments against
12208-550: Was rare during the Early Middle Ages and Middle Ages (see Medieval Inquisition ). There were, however, movements within this period that furthered heterodox conceptions of the Christian god, including differing views of the nature, transcendence, and knowability of God. William of Ockham inspired anti-metaphysical tendencies with his nominalist limitation of human knowledge to singular objects, and asserted that
12320-527: Was referred to as one of the " Four Horsemen " of New Atheism , along with Richard Dawkins , Sam Harris , and Christopher Hitchens . Daniel Clement Dennett III was born on March 28, 1942, in Boston, Massachusetts , the son of Ruth Marjorie (née Leck; 1903–1971) and Daniel Clement Dennett Jr. (1910–1947). Dennett spent part of his childhood in Lebanon , where, during World War II , his father, who had
12432-622: Was the German critic of religion Matthias Knutzen in his three writings of 1674. He was followed by two other explicit atheist writers, the Polish ex-Jesuit philosopher Kazimierz Łyszczyński (who most likely authored the world's first treatise on the non-existence of God ) and in the 1720s by the French priest Jean Meslier . In the course of the 18th century, other openly atheistic thinkers followed, such as Baron d'Holbach , Jacques-André Naigeon , and other French materialists . Baron d'Holbach
12544-575: Was the co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University in Massachusetts . Dennett was a member of the editorial board for The Rutherford Journal and a co-founder of The Clergy Project . A vocal atheist and secularist , Dennett has been described as "one of the most widely read and debated American philosophers". He
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