Daniel C. Dennett was an American philosopher and cognitive scientist whose work centered on the philosophy of mind and on how evolutionary biology bears on it. Dennett served as Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University in Massachusetts and co-directed its Center for Cognitive Studies. Books by Dennett include Darwin's Dangerous Idea, on evolution and the meanings of life, and Breaking the Spell, which treats religion as a natural phenomenon. Dennett also edited The Mind's I with Douglas R. Hofstadter, a collection of essays and stories on consciousness and the self.
