Daniel C. Dennett, the director of the Center for
Cognitive Studies at Tufts
University, is one of a handful of philosophers who feel this
quest is so
important that they have become as conversant in psychology,
neuroscience and
computer science as they are in philosophy. "Consciousness
Explained" is his
attempt, as audacious as its title, to come up with a scientific
explanation for
that feeling, sometimes painful, sometimes exhilarating, of being
alive and
aware, the object of one's own deliberations.