Publisher's Synopsis
Let us not give wings to fear: fatalism is anti-evolutionary. Believing in free choice is the necessary condition to be free. These are Daniel C. Dennett's answers to the old questions: Are we free? Does freedom of action exist or are we only machines, whose engine is biological, evolutionary, materialistic determinism? If our sense of freedom - the intuitive gulf between our inner mental life and physical reality - is only an illusion of our mechanical brains: how can there be individual, moral and ethical responsibility? Dennett lays bare the paradox that makes free will and determinism incompatible, and postulates a certain freedom of choice: human beings are biological artifacts that can react to their environment with rational and responsible actions. This radical atheist's philosophy of mind helps us escape the fatalism and relativistic despair of our age; we do not have absolute freedom of behavior but we have control over it. Our sense of freedom has been selected because it is useful for our survival: the art of self-definition, the effort of thought to shape reality are rewarded by evolution.
