Daniel Clement Dennett obtained his first degree at Harvard, where, as he tells us in Brainchildren (1998), he vigorously resisted the most influential American philosopher of the twentieth century, Willard van Orman Quine. He then did a D. Phil. in Oxford in a brief two years under Gilbert Ryle, the most influential Oxford philosopher of his time, finishing in 1966.

His first book was Content and Consciousness (1969). These two words, content and consciousness, encapsulate much of Dennett's mission. Content refers to the contents of the mind—all the beliefs, desires, values, emotions, hopes, expectations, memories, and so forth that make up the mind. Consciousness refers, of course, to consciousness. In Dennett's view, the correct order in which to examine these topics is content first and then consciousness. Dennett's central project is already clear in this book, the project of "naturalizing the mind." This is...