At Home in Little Deer Isle With Free-will Philosopher Daniel Dennett

LITTLE DEER ISLE—At the end of a long and winding dirt road on Little Deer Isle, Daniel Dennett—philosopher, cognitive scientist and writer—sits in the living room of a large, modern house overlooking Eggemoggin Reach.

- Anne Berleant

A Christmas tree sparkles beside his padded chair, and steam from fresh mugs of coffee gently evaporates as he settles in for an interview.

Co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and professor at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., Dennett has spent summers, weekends and vacations on the Peninsula for decades, moving to Little Deer Isle from a Blue Hill farm four years ago.

“It keeps me sane and healthy,” he said. “Here, I prefer to be the guy who bought the Brooks place.”

Dennett’s professional life includes being named one of The Four Horsemen of the New Atheism, which is, in the 21st century, both an academic school of thought and a Facebook page. Recently, he said goodbye to a New Yorker journalist who had been “tagging around me for a while” for an upcoming profile to coincide with Dennett’s latest book, which comes out next month.

The son of a former OSS officer and Islamic historian, Dennett spent his early childhood in Beirut, moving to New England with his mother when his father was killed in 1947 while on a mission. Dennett was 5 years old at the time.

“He was a very charismatic man. I lived with his ghost for many years,” he recalls.