Abstract

One of the characteristic aspects of Daniel Dennett’s thought is his belief in the explanatory power of science. For Dennett, in order to make progress with certain philosophical problems, e.g. questions about the nature of consciousness, philosophers need to engage with the findings of empirical science. In this paper, I will take up the question of the relation between science and philosophy and I will start by giving a general overview of Dennett’s view of this relation while also addressing the question of whether he can properly be said to embrace scientism. In the second part of this paper, I will argue that philosophical thinking is continuous with science and that, though at the level of theoretical frameworks the intension of the words “philosophy” and “science” are the same, there is a distinction that can be made in practice if we look at the extensions of the terms.