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Nagel is known for his critique of material reductionist accounts of the mind, particularly in his essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" (1974), and for his contributions to liberal moral and political theory in The Possibility of Altruism (1970) and subsequent writings.
6 days ago · American moral and political theorist. Born in the former Yugoslavia, Nagel was educated at Cornell, Oxford, and Harvard. He taught at Princeton from 1966 to 1980, and subsequently at New York University.
The American philosopher Thomas Nagel was one of the first contemporary moral philosophers to challenge Hume’s thesis that reason alone is incapable of motivating moral action. In The Possibility of Altruism (1969), he argued that, if Hume’s thesis is true, then the ordinary idea of prudence—i.e., the idea….
Thomas Nagel (1937-present) is an American philosopher whose work has spanned ethics, political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics (the nature of what exists) and, most famously, philosophy of the mind.
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Thomas Nagel (1937- ) is a prominent American philosopher, author of numerous articles and books, and currently University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University where he has taught since 1980.
Consider next the argument that our lives are absurd because we live in a tiny speck of a vast cosmos, or in a small sliver of time. Nagel argues that neither of these concerns makes life absurd. This is obvious because even if we were immortal or large enough to fill the universe, this would not change the fact that our lives might be absurd. Anot...
For Nagel, the discrepancy between the importance we place on our lives from a subjective point of view, and how gratuitous they appear objectively, is the essence of the absurdity of our lives. the collision between the seriousness with which we take our lives and the perpetual possibility of regarding everything about which we are serious as arb...
Think of how an ordinary individual sweats over his appearance, his health, his sex life, his emotional honesty, his social utility, his self-knowledge, the quality of his ties with family, colleagues, and friends, how well he does his job, whether he understands the world and what is going on in it. Leading a human life is full-time occupation to ...
Nagel further argues that reflection about our lives doesnt reveal that they are insignificant compared to what is really important, but that they are only significant by reference to themselves. So when we step back and reflect on our lives, we contrast the pretensions we have about the meaning of them with the larger perspective in which no stand...
Nagel contrasts his position on the absurd with epistemological skepticism. Skepticism transcends the limitations of thoughts by recognizing the limitations of thought. But after we have stepped back from our beliefs and their supposed justifications, we dont then contrast the way reality appears with an alternative reality. Skepticism implies that...
[i] Thomas Nagel, The Absurd, in The Meaning of Life, ed. E.D Klemke and Steven Cahn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008,)143.
NAGEL, THOMAS. (1937–) Thomas Nagel has contributed to a wide spectrum of philosophical topics in ethical theory, moral psychology, applied ethics, and political theory, as well as to metaphysics and epistemology. His work is distinguished by its breadth, clarity, and acumen.
Thomas Nagel is Emeritus University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University. He is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and a member of the American Philosophical Society.
