Breaking the Spell (Dennett book)
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LC Class BL2775.3 .D46 2006 | | |
Preceded by | Sweet Dreams |
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Part of a series on |
Irreligion |
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Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon is a 2006 book by American philosopher and cognitive scientist
Synopsis
The book is divided into three parts. Dennett's working definition of religions is: "social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought". He notes that this definition is "a place to start, not something carved in stone".
Part I
Part I discusses the motivation and justification for the entire project: Can science study religion? Should science study religion?
Part II
After answering in the affirmative, Part II proceeds to use the tools of
Part III
Part III analyzes religion and its effects in today's world: Does religion make us
Critical reception
The book has received differing reviews from various consumer, mass media outlets.
The Guardian
The Guardian's Andrew Brown describes it as giving "a very forceful and lucid account of the reasons why we need to study religious behaviour as a human phenomenon".[2]
Scientific American
In Scientific American, George Johnson describes the book's main draw as being "a sharp synthesis of a library of evolutionary, anthropological and psychological research on the origin and spread of religion".[3]
New Yorker
In The New Yorker, evolutionary biologist H. Allen Orr described the book as "an accessible account of what might be called the natural history of religion".[4]
The New York Review of Books
In The New York Review of Books, Freeman Dyson wrote:[5]
After Dennett's harsh depiction of the moral evils associated with religion, his last chapter, "Now What Do We Do?," is bland and conciliatory. "So, in the end," he says, "my central policy recommendation is that we gently, firmly educate the people of the world, so that they can make truly informed choices about their lives." This recommendation sounds harmless enough. Why can we not all agree with it? Unfortunately, it conceals fundamental disagreements. To give the recommendation a concrete meaning, the meaning of the little word "we" must be specified. Who are the "we" who are to educate the people of the world? At stake is the political control of religious education, the most contentious of all the issues that religion poses to modern societies. "We" might be the parents of the children to be educated, or a local school board, or a national ministry of education, or a legally established ecclesiastical authority, or an international group of philosophers sharing Dennett's views. Of all these possibilities, the last is the least likely to be implemented. Dennett's recommendation leaves the practical problems of regulating religious education unsolved. Until we can agree about the meaning of "we," the recommendation to "gently, firmly educate the people of the world" will only cause further dissension between religious believers and well-meaning philosophers.
From the religious community
The New York Times
Leon Wieseltier, former member of the editorial board of the Jewish Review of Books, called the book, in The New York Times, "a sorry instance of present-day scientism" and alleged it to be "a merry anthology of contemporary superstitions".[6]
The New Atlantis
A professor of a private, Catholic university and outspoken critic of the environmentalist movement, Charles T. Rubin, likened Dennett in The New Atlantis to "a tone-deaf music scholar", criticized his "unwillingness to admit the limits of scientific rationality" and accused him of "deploying the same old Enlightenment tropes that didn't work all that well the first time around".[7]
Philosophical reception
Thomas Nagel said that Dennett's book was 'beneath him' and Edward Feser has extensively critiqued his book, criticising his interpretation of theistic arguments, whilst maintaining praise for his passages on cognitive neuroscience.[8] Roger Scruton both praised and criticised Dennett's book in his book On Human Nature, endorsing his intellectual bravery and imaginative writing, yet criticising his reliance on the meme theory, and remaining sceptical of his view that all areas of human consciousness can be accessible through the neo-Darwinian human model alone.
Translations
Breaking the Spell has been translated into several other languages, including:
Dutch | De betovering van het geloof: religie als een natuurlijk fenomeen | Hans Bosman | Amsterdam: Contact 2006 | ISBN 978-84-96859-00-5 |
Persian | شکستن طلسم: دین به عنوان پدیده ای طبیعی | Amir Maniee | Published online, 2019 |
See also
- Religious studies
- Evolutionary psychology of religion
- Similar / related books: God is Not Great
- Similar / related books:
References
- ^ The University of Edinburgh (2009-02-10), Daniel Dennett: Breaking the Spell – Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, archived from the original on 2021-12-22, retrieved 2018-04-24
- ^ Brown, A. (2006). "Beyond Belief". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2016-05-18. Retrieved 2016-12-18.
- ^ "Getting a Rational Grip on Religion" Archived June 8, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, Scientific American, December 25, 2005.
- ^ "The God Project" Archived December 25, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, The New Yorker, April 3, 2006.
- ^ Dyson, Freeman (June 22, 2006). "Religion from the Outside" (PDF). The New York Review of Books. 53 (11).
- ^ "The God Genome" Archived August 12, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times, February 19, 2006.
- ^ "The God Meme" Archived March 13, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, The New Atlantis 12 (Spring 2006).
- ^ "The New Philistinism — the American Magazine". Archived from the original on 2013-04-21. Retrieved 2019-01-12.
External links
- "Breaking the Spell" panel, an audio recording and transcript of a discussion involving Daniel Dennett and Alister McGrath organized by the Royal Society of Arts. at archive.today (archived April 16, 2013)
Reviews
- David B. Hart, "Daniel Dennett Hunts the Snark" in First Things.
- George Johnson, "Getting a Rational Grip on Religion" in Scientific American.
- Leon Wieseltier, "The God Genome" in The New York Times.
- Dennett's letter to The New York Times editor and Wieseltier's reply at the Wayback Machine (archived November 14, 2012)
- Adam Kirsch, "If Men Are From Mars, What's God" in The New York Sun.
- James Brookfield, "Dennett’s dangerous idea", World Socialist Website.
- Armin W. Geertz, "How Not to Do the Cognitive Science of Religion Today" (University of Aarhusseminar paper).
- Charles T. Rubin, "The God Meme" in The New Atlantis.