Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Content and Consciousness | 1969 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 2 | Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology | 1978 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 3 | The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul | 1981 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 4 | Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting | 1984 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 5 | The Moral First Aid Manual: The Tanner Lectures on Human Values | 1986 | Daniel C. Dennett | N/A |
| 6 | The Philosophical Lexicon | 1987 | Daniel C. Dennett | N/A |
| 7 | The Intentional Stance | 1987 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 8 | Quining Qualia | 1988 | Daniel C. Dennett | N/A |
| 9 | Consciousness Explained | 1991 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 10 | Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life | 1995 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 11 | Brainchildren: Essays on Designing Minds | 1998 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 12 | Mind and Reality: The Nature of Mind and the Expansion of Consciousness | 1999 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 13 | The Computational Perspective | 2001 | Daniel C. Dennett | N/A |
| 14 | Freedom Evolves | 2003 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 15 | Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness | 2005 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 16 | Thank Goodness! | 2006 | Daniel C. Dennett | N/A |
| 17 | Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon | 2006 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 18 | Where Am I? | 2008 | Daniel C. Dennett | N/A |
| 19 | Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? | 2010 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 20 | Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind | 2011 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 21 | Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking | 2013 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 22 | Convergence of Biogenetics, Cognitive Neuroscience and Computing | 2015 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 23 | Caught in The Pulpit:Leaving Belief Behind | 2015 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 24 | From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds | 2017 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 25 | The Four Horsemen | 2019 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 26 | Just Deserts: Debating Free Will | 2021 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
| 27 | I’ve Been Thinking | 2023 | Daniel C. Dennett | Buy |
Dennett’s bibliography stretches from his doctoral work, Content and Consciousness (1969), through I’ve Been Thinking (2023), a memoir published a year before his death. The arc shows a consistent set of preoccupations: How does mind arise from matter? Can evolution explain everything that seems to require a designer? What do we really mean by free will, or by consciousness, or by belief?
The major works hit those questions repeatedly from different angles. Brainstorms (1978) and The Intentional Stance (1987) established his philosophical approach. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995) is his most sustained engagement with evolutionary biology. Freedom Evolves (2003) addresses free will. Breaking the Spell (2006) turns the evolutionary lens on religion. From Bacteria to Bach and Back (2017) returned to consciousness with a broader evolutionary argument. Across the catalog, Dennett remained committed to the view that the scientific and philosophical questions about mind are the same question, approached from different directions.