Thomas Nagel

1937-present · American · Philosophy of Mind, Ethics, Political Philosophy, Metaphysics

If the mental is not itself merely physical, it cannot be fully explained by physical science.

When Thomas Nagel asked what it is like to be a bat, he was not being whimsical. A bat navigates by echolocation — we know the neurology — but we have no idea what the experience is like from the inside. That subjective character of consciousness is what any objective account must miss, and the 1974 essay became one of the most-cited in twentieth-century philosophy, launching the modern debate over the hard problem of consciousness.

Topics Thomas Nagel addresses

• the view from nowhere
• subjective and objective standpoints
• the subjective character of experience
• phenomenal consciousness
• anti-physicalism
• the incompletability of reconciliation
• false objectification
• agent-neutral reasons
• agent-relative reasons
• the possibility of altruism
• the hybrid theory of practical reason
• objective reason
• anti-relativism
• the self-undermining argument against subjectivism
• moral luck
• the fragmentation of value
• the absurd
• death
• sexual perversion
• war and massacre
• ruthlessness in public life
• the brain bisection paradox
• panpsychism
• the hard problem of consciousness

Converse with Thomas Nagel on Symposium. Every reply is grounded in Thomas Nagel's own writing and cites the page it came from. The corpus is public-domain text.