Nehaveigur

Like all artisans, a blacksmith needs tools, but – according to an old (indeed almost extinct) observation – blacksmiths are unique in that they make their own tools.

I met Daniel Dennett in Ghent in 2008. The students of the Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie had been organizing a symposium that I attended, and he was one of the guest speakers. I remember that one evening I was sitting next to him during dinner, but I absolutely can’t remember what we talked about. I don’t know if the passage of time is to blame, or the high alcohol content of Belgian beer.

When he died a year ago, I wrote that I was going to return to his book Intuition Pumps. My edition of Intuition Pumps on its cover promises that is “Contains over 70 tools to help you think better.” Dennett early on writes that most of the tools that feature in this book are simpler ones, not the precise, systematic machines of mathematics and science but the hand tools of the mind.

This isn’t completely wrong, but it isn’t completely true either. Intuition Pumps has 77 chapters, each of which contains some of Dennett’s thoughts on a particular aspect of philosophy. 77 is over 70, so that part is true. My objection comes from what I understand a tool to be: Something that can be applied multiple times, under different circumstances, to make one’s work easier. This definition applies to some of the chapters, but the thought experiments in others are too specialized to qualify. They’re interesting, but they’re not tools.

Dennett’s writing is wonderfully accessible, and Intuition Pumps has many quotable passages. Since they’re quotable, I’ll now quote some, starting with this one:

My other indelible memory of that conference was of [Karl] Popper’s dip in the Grand Canal. He slipped getting out of the motorboat at the boathouse of the Isola di San Giorgio and fell feet first into the canal, submerged up to his knees before being plucked out and set on the pier by two nimble boatmen. The hosts were mortified and ready to rush back to the hotel to get nonagenarian Sir Karl a dry pair of trousers, but the pants he was wearing was the only pair he’d brought—and he was scheduled to lead off the conference in less than half an hour! Italian ingenuity took over, and within about five minutes I enjoyed an unforgettable sight: Sir Karl, sitting regally on a small chair in the exact middle of a marble-floored, domed room (Palladio designed it) surrounded by at least half a dozen young women in miniskirts, on their knees, plying his trouser legs with their hairdryers. The extension cords stretched radially to the walls, making of the tableau a sort of multicolored human daisy, with Sir Karl, unperturbed but unsmiling, in the center. Fifteen minutes later he was dry and pounding his fist on the podium to add emphasis to his dualistic vision.