If you want to reason about faith, and offer a reasoned (and reason-responsive) defense of faith as an extra category of belief worthy of special consideration, I'm eager to participate. I certainly grant the existence of the phenomenon of faith; what I want to see is a reasoned ground for taking faith as a way of getting to the truth, and not, say, just as a way people comfort themselves and each other (a worthy function that I do take seriously). But you must not expect me to go along with your defense of faith as a path to truth if at any point you appeal to the very dispensation you are supposedly trying to justify. Before you appeal to faith when reason has you backed into a corner, think about whether you really want to abandon reason when reason is on your side.
- Daniel Dennett in 'Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
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Dan Dennett is a man, who presents philosophy like science while currently scientists have started talking like philosophers. “Consciousness Explained” is a must read, this man has knowledge of science (bio-phy-chem), sociology, literature, Music and computer science too. With all these, what he talks is philosophy. It’s a wonderful cocktail of knowledge that gets me high.
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