I hope to have given some impression of the range of
topics, without pretending to have surveyed them. As I have
made clear, there is much in this book that is disputable.
And Dennett is at times aggravatingly smug and confident
about the merits of his arguments (comparing his
`revelations' about consciousness to a magician's revealing
the operation of stage tricks, for example; p. 434). All in
all Dennett's book is annoying, frustrating, insightful,
provocative and above all annoying. Unfortunately---in this
age of academic overproduction---I must conclude that for now
consciousness Explained is unavoidable reading for those
who intend to think seriously about the problems of
consciousness.