Dennett: Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking
Summary: A philosopher’s toolkit — named thinking tools (intuition pumps) that can clarify or mislead — including Rapoport’s Rules for honest critique, the chmess problem, the intentional stance, and a defense of compatibilism.
Sources: Clippings/Dennett-Intuition-Pumps.md
Source pages: Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking — Quotes, Quotes batch 4
Quote pages: Q01, Q02, Q03, Q04, Q05, Q06, Q07, Q08, Q09, Q10, Q11, Q12, Q13, Q14, Q15, Q16, Q17, Q18, Dennett — Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking
Last updated: 2026-05-07
Philosophy’s role
“Philosophy — in every field of inquiry — is what you have to do until you figure out what questions you should have been asking in the first place.”
Philosophy is not a permanent discipline so much as a transitional one: it occupies the space before a domain matures enough to become a proper science. This framing is both humble (philosophy cedes territory when it succeeds) and ambitious (every field needs it at the frontier).
Rapoport’s Rules: how to actually criticize an idea
The most cited passage in the book is Dennett’s restatement of the psychologist Anatol Rapoport:
“to compose a successful critical commentary: 1. You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, ‘Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.’ 2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement). 3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target. 4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.”
This is also described as “the opposite of a strawman.” The four steps aren’t just courtesy — they force the critic to actually understand the position before attacking it, which changes what the critique ends up being. See narrative-bias: the mind constructs its preferred version first; Rapoport’s Rules force reconstruction of the actual version.
The chmess problem: working on the wrong questions
“Some philosophical research projects… are rather like working out the truths of chmess. Chmess is just like chess except that the king can move two squares in any direction, not one. I just invented it… There are just as many a priori truths of chmess as there are of chess (an infinity), and they are just as hard to discover… Here is where psychologist Donald Hebb’s dictum comes in handy: If it isn’t worth doing, it isn’t worth doing well.”
Chmess is Dennett’s name for the failure mode of philosophy (and any intellectual field): generating impressive, difficult, internally consistent work on a question that doesn’t actually matter. The rigor is genuine; the stakes are not. Checking whether a question is about chess or chmess before investing is itself a skill.
The intentional stance
“Anything that is usefully and voluminously predictable from the intentional stance is, by definition, an intentional system… many fascinating and complicated things that don’t have brains or eyes or ears or hands, and hence really don’t have minds, are nevertheless intentional systems.”
The intentional stance: attribute beliefs, desires, and rationality to any system in order to predict its behavior. This is a pragmatic tool, not a metaphysical claim. A thermostat can be usefully described as “wanting” the room to be 70 degrees. An AI agent is an intentional system in exactly the same sense. The stance is valid when it’s predictively useful, regardless of whether the system “really” has intentions.