Imagine that somehow your body and brain were separated but are still working as a team. Your brain sits in a vat. Your body can move around, remotely connected to your brain by some kind of signal.

Daniel C. Dennett, University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, photographed in his office at Tufts.

Tufts University called him a major intellectual figure globally with his research on the philosophy of mind, science and particularly on evolutionary biology. He was one of the most widely read and ...