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Tallis in Wonderland

Naming Airy Nothings

Raymond Tallis maps the gaps between language and reality.

“the poet’s pen… gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.”
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 5, Scene 1)

Daniel Dennett is one of those thinkers who make you glad to be alive and philosophising. He writes beautifully, using language in a rich and inventive way, and he sets out his positions lucidly and wittily. Added to which, he is – or so I believe – exhilaratingly wrong about some very important matters.

For instance, he subscribes to a version of the mind-brain identity theory which sees the mind-brain in computational terms.

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