Daniel C. Dennett’s Language of Consciousness Cover Image

Daniela C. Dennetta hipoteza językowej genezy świadomości
Daniel C. Dennett’s Language of Consciousness

Author(s): Witold Marzęda
Subject(s): Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Special Branches of Philosophy, Contemporary Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science
Published by: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL & Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II
Keywords: consciousness; Daniel C. Dennett; language; behaviorism; verbal behavior; empirical tests

Summary/Abstract: The paper discusses the lingual genesis of consciousness. The author reconstructs Daniel C. Dennett’s naturalization strategy, showing how, according to Dennett, language enables the emergence of consciousness in the evolution of humankind. This naturalization assumes a behavioristic view according to which consciousness is a covert verbal behavior. The author shows that Dennett adopts and transforms Mead’s, Skinner’s, and Jaynes’s original behavioristic approaches inscribing them into a course of human evolution. This inscription leads to specific problems discussed in the final part of the paper:There are actually two definitions of consciousness in Dennett’s philosophy—first says that consciousness is a kind of verbal behavior, second says that it is a virtual memetic machine.There is no explanation of the execution rule that could show how given mind content becomes conscious; Dennett introduces the competition metaphor instead. Some contentful events in the brain (mind contents) simply win with others. Inscription of the possible scenario of consciousness development in the evolutionary landscape does not mean that one can testify the theory yet.

  • Issue Year: 69/2021
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 125-143
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Polish