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The Last Word 1st Edition

by Thomas Nagel (Author)

4.2 36 ratings

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If there is such a thing as reason, it has to be universal. Reason must reflect objective principles whose validity is independent of our point of view--principles that anyone with enough intelligence ought to be able to recognize as correct. But this generality of reason is what relativists and subjectivists deny in ever-increasing numbers. And such subjectivism is not just an inconsequential intellectual flourish or badge of theoretical chic. It is exploited to deflect argument and to belittle the pretensions of the arguments of others. The continuing spread of this relativistic way of thinking threatens to make public discourse increasingly difficult and to exacerbate the deep divisions of our society. In The Last Word, Thomas Nagel, one of the most influential philosophers writing in English, presents a sustained defense of reason against the attacks of subjectivism, delivering systematic rebuttals of relativistic claims with respect to language, logic, science, and ethics. He shows that the last word in disputes about the objective validity of any form of thought must lie in some unqualified thoughts about how things are--thoughts that we cannot regard from outside as mere psychological dispositions.

Review

"...[a] subtle, compact, and forceful book....The Last Word is a work of philosophical reflection...a significant contribution to the culture wars of our time."--New York Review of Books

Book Description

A timely and vigorous defense of reason from one of our leading philosophers.

From the Back Cover

If there is such a thing as reason, it has to be universal. Reason must reflect objective principles whose validity is independent of our point of view - principles that anyone with enough intelligence ought to be able to recognize as correct. But this universality of reason is what relativists and subjectivists deny in ever-increasing numbers. And such subjectivism is not just an inconsequential intellectual flourish or badge of theoretical chic. It is exploited to deflect argument and to belittle the pretensions of the arguments of others. The continuing spread of this relativistic way of thinking threatens to make public discourse increasingly difficult and unproductive. In The Last Word, Thomas Nagel, one of the most influential philosophers writing in English, presents a sustained defense of reason against the attacks of subjectivism, delivering systematic rebuttals of relativistic claims with respect to language, logic, science, and ethics. He shows that the last word in disputes about the objective validity of any form of thought must lie in some unqualified thoughts about how things are - thoughts that we cannot regard from outside as mere psychological dispositions. His work sets a new standard in the debate on this crucially important question and should generate intense interest both within and outside the philosophical community.

About the Author

Thomas Nagel is Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University. He is the author of The View from Nowhere, What Does It All Mean?, The Possibility of Altruism, Mortal Questions, Equality and Partiality, and Other Minds: Critical Essays, 1969-1994.

ISBN-10

0195149831
ISBN-13

978-0195149838
Edition

1st
Publisher

Oxford University Press
Publication date

November 1, 2001
Language

English
Dimensions

8.2 x 0.52 x 5.54 inches
Print length

160 pages
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; 1st edition (November 1, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 160 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0195149831
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0195149838
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1460L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.2 x 0.52 x 5.54 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,268,342 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #221 in Epistemology (Books)
- #1,024 in Epistemology Philosophy
- #1,085 in Philosophy of Logic & Language

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4.2 36 ratings

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Thomas Nagel

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Thomas Nagel (/ˈneɪɡəl/; born July 4, 1937) is an American philosopher, currently University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University in the NYU Department of Philosophy, where he has taught since 1980. His main areas of philosophical interest are philosophy of mind, political philosophy and ethics.

Nagel is well known for his critique of reductionist accounts of the mind, particularly in his essay "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?" (1974), and for his contributions to deontological and liberal moral and political theory in The Possibility of Altruism (1970) and subsequent writings. Continuing his critique of reductionism, he is the author of Mind and Cosmos (2012), in which he argues against a reductionist view, and specifically the neo-Darwinian view, of the emergence of consciousness.

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Richard B. Schwartz

Saving the Enlightenment

Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2016

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Thomas Nagel’s The Last Word is a defense of reason and objectivity against the claims of subjectivism, so-called perspectivalism and relativism. The postmodernists have made subjectivism and relativism key tools in their attempt to combat the force of the enlightenment. The notion that reason is simply a hegemonic tool used by some to dominate others opens the door to a great number of possibilities and a good deal of mischief. It valorizes ‘feelings’ and reinforces attitudes, arguments and beliefs that are not supportable by reason and logic. It eschews the empirical method, devalues science and furthers the efforts of politicizing the academy. It reassures the young who have many feelings and wish to express them without logical challenge. In today’s academy (at least in the humanities and soft social sciences) it is in the ascendant and any attempt to counter its claims will draw significant fire, as anyone who looks at the responses which Nagel has received will quickly see. Philosophers are very clever and nearly every position taken will find itself vulnerable to criticism of some sort. Still, Nagel’s argument is persuasive.

Basically, he argues that we cannot get beyond reason if we seek to challenge it. We must face it on its own terms and within its own boundaries. Hence, anyone seeking to argue against the primacy or viability of reason cannot get ‘outside’ of it to launch his or her claims. Reason’s boundaries (and logic’s, and mathematics’) are inescapable and the insistence of its presence constitutes the objectivity against which the subjectivist seeks to war.

Nagel makes the case in 7 chapters in a relatively brief book. He addresses questions of language, logic, science, ethics and evolutionary naturalism. He repeats the core argument on multiple occasions and some might find the chapters repetitive. Since he writes at a relatively high level of abstraction with very few concrete examples, I found the repetition helpful.

This is an important book on an important subject.

16 people found this helpful

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John S. Ryan

A defense of rationalism against subjectivism and relativism

Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2000

In this volume, Thomas Nagel mounts his case for rationalism against the onslaught of several varieties of subjectivism and relativism.
The kernel of his case is his more-or-less-Kantian claim that there is a "category of thoughts that we cannot get outside of," which in some way provide a basic structure that we have ultimately no choice but to regard as objective. Once we recognize this category of thoughts, he maintains, "the range of examples turns out to be quite wide."
He proceeds to demonstrate his point in the areas of language, logic, science, and ethics (to each of which he devotes a chapter). His arguments are intended to show, essentially, that meaning, logical necessity, the demand for order in objective reality, and normativity are not reducible to matters of pure subjectivity, and for the most part they are fairly successful.
His closing chapter -- "Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion" -- is remarkable for several reasons, not least of which is its stunning candor. Nagel is an atheist who nevertheless recognizes that his somewhat Platonic commitment to reason, and in particular to a Peircian belief in an objective "order of . . . logical relations among propositions," raises the question "what world picture to associate it with." He cannot avoid the "suspicion that the picture will be religious, or quasi-religious," and notes that rationalism "has always had a more religious flavor than empiricism."
And -- here comes the candor -- he attributes at least some anti-rationalism to a "fear of religion" which he confesses himself to share: "I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that."
He finds, though, that he must acknowledge the distinct possibility that "the capacity of the universe to generate organisms with minds capable of understanding the universe is itself somehow a fundamental feature of the universe." He adds at once that this view need not amount to "anything that should count literally as religious belief" -- though, honestly, it is hard to see why not.
At any rate, whatever the implications for religion, Nagel's arguments in this volume are delivered with his usual clarity and flair and will be of interest to anyone seeking a philosophical defense of reason. As Nagel himself notes not far from the outset of his book, the knowledge that subjectivism is self-refuting may be as "old as the hills," but it seems that it cannot be too often repeated.

78 people found this helpful

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Cornell

Thomas Nagel shows why only realism can be consistent and intelligible

Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2013

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This has to be one of the best books I've read on the debate between realism vs relativism.

Nagel who is also a rationalist takes the side of realism and argues on the relevant topics such as science, language, ethics and logic. In fact the chapter on logic was my favorite, he devotes a good amount of time towards Rene'Descartes with criticisms and aspects that he is in agreement with. In the end Thomas Nagel actually holds to the 'cogito' and rightly so. Of course you'll see the names of other prominent philosophers from the past and present pop up such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Saul Kripke, Immanuel Kant and Hilary Putnam.

One of his finest quotes in the book shows why cases of objectivism in certain circumstances are basically inescapable.

"The general aim for such reasoning is the to make sense of the world in which we find ourselves and of how it appears to us and others. We proceed by generating, comparing, and ranking possible versions, and it is these comparisons that are the substance of the process. But we begin from the idea that there is some way the world is, and this, I believe, is an idea to which there is no intellible alternative and which cannot be subordinated to or derived from anything else. My aim is to argue that even a subjectivist cannot escape from or rise above this idea".

Indeed it appears that objectivism seems to have 'The Last word" on matters.

This book is more towards an intermediate reader of philosophy, though I can see a beginner grasping the 'gist' of this book as well.

I highly recommend this

9 people found this helpful

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Joao Pires

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 6, 2018

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great everything as ordered

philscotted

More sad is the chapter on ethics

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 15, 2018

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The lesson here is not to expect too much from a book this short which plans to defend realist/rationalist positions in language, logic, science and ethics.

Or maybe just don't expect much from Nagel. By page 15, we already have the tired line that logical positivism is defeated by the application of its verification principle to itself. I am always saddened that so many analytic philosophers have such a low opinion of their forebears. The likes of Carnap could digest a diagonal argument before breakfast and knew in detail the very necessary technical machinery needed to circumvent them. Yet somehow he was such an incompetent buffoon that he missed the world's most trivial argument from self-refutation?

More sad is the chapter on ethics, which decides to concern itself entirely with moral subjectivism, the weakest of the non-realist metaethical stances that is usually only mentioned by way of insult.

To fill in for a paucity of real counterarguments, Nagel has to argue repeatedly from incredulity, and invite us to laugh at Richard Rorty quotes. He then lets an unreflective use of choice words like "hierarchy", "dominate", "foundations" and "domains of thought" to do his work for him. These aren't words I have much interest in using (perhaps I've read too much Rorty).

Nagel builds a picture of a mystical hierarchy, but has little interest in spelling out details, admitting that such details are always up for revision anyway -- only the rigid topology stands; is that is? It's not clear to me why I shouldn't question that part too.

Another reviewer noted that our beliefs about logic have been reviewed and changed quite aggressively, not least with Brouwer's intuitionism, so that I do now find myself wanting to investigate old favourites such as the rule "modus ponens", an example Nagel uses repeatedly. And I might point out that his cute argument for how the mind must transcend the finite is challenged fairly hotly by modern day finitists, who take their cue from David Hilbert, whose own mathematical credentials are not up for debate. The foundations of mathematics have been turned on their head and churned over the centuries, and placing any bets only 100 years after the last crisis seems foolhardy.

Ultimately, I find that these rationalist accounts are often, at best, gilding the lily, or, at worst, needlessly constraining our imagination.

2 people found this helpful

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