American philosopher Daniel Dennett has died at the age of 82 from a lung disease, American media report. Dennett was one of the most read and cited American philosophers.
For Daniel Dennett, religion was an illusion and free will was a fantasy. He viewed our brains as a kind of computer. The philosopher died on Friday in Portland, Maine, from lung disease.
Dennett wrote more than 20 books, reaching a wide audience thanks to his accessible style. A number of these were also translated into Dutch. Darwin’s dangerous idea and The Evolution of Free Will are the best known.
He did not avoid controversy and even provocation. “There is simply no polite way to tell people that they have devoted their lives to an illusion,” the diehard atheist told The New York Times in 2013.
That year he published a book based on conversations with priests who were secretly atheists themselves. That book formed the basis for a play, The Unbelieving, written by Marin Gazzaniga.
