This volume presents a selection of Hubert Dreyfus's pioneering work in bringing phenomenology and existentialism to bear on the philosophical and scientific study of the mind. Each of the thirteen essays interprets, develops, and extends the insights of his predecessors working in the European philosophical tradition. One of Dreyfus' central contributions to reading the historical canon of philosophy comes from his recognition that great philosophers help us to understand the "background practices" of a culture - the practices that shape and embody our most basic understanding of ourselves and the things and situations we encounter in our world. Background practices are all too often overlooked completely, or else their importance is misunderstood. Each chapter in this volume shows in one way or another how a broad range of philosophical topics can only be properly understood when we recognize how they are grounded in the background practices that shape our lives and give meaning to our activities, our tasks, our normative commitments, our aims and our goals.
Hubert Lederer Dreyfus was born in Terre Haute, Indiana on October 15, 1929. He received a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1951, a master's degree in 1952, and a doctorate in 1964 from Harvard University. He taught at Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining the philosophy department at the University of California, Berkeley in 1968.
He wrote or co-wrote numerous books during his lifetime including Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence, What Computers Can't Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics written with Paul Rabinow, Mind Over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition and Expertise in the Era of the Computer, What Computers Still Can't Do, Philosophy: The Latest Answers to the Oldest Questions, All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age written with Sean D. Kelly, and Skillful Coping: Essays on the Everyday Phenomenology of Everyday Perception and Action. He and Mark Wrathall edited numerous guides devoted to existentialism, phenomenology, and Heidegger's philosophy. He died of cancer on April 22, 2017 at the age of 87.
