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The View from Nowhere Revised ed. Edition
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the relation between moral and other values, the meaning of life, and death. Excessive objectification has been a malady of recent analytic philosophy, claims Nagel, it has led to implausible forms of reductionism in the philosophy of mind and elsewhere. The solution is not to inhibit the objectifying impulse, but to insist that it learn to live alongside the internal perspectives that cannot be either discarded or objectified. Reconciliation between the two standpoints, in the end, is not always possible.
- ISBN-100195056442
- ISBN-13978-0195056440
- EditionRevised ed.
- PublisherOxford University Press
- Publication dateFebruary 9, 1989
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions8.03 x 5.43 x 0.66 inches
- Print length256 pages
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"In writing this remarkable book, Thomas Nagel has succeeded in combining qualities that are rarely found together. Its aims are intellectually ambitious, and their achievement involves the unqualified repudiation of cherished views held by many of Nagel's more or less eminent contemporaries....He engages with precisely those philosophical doubts and anxieties that the reflective nonprofessional may be supposed to feel, and that are often inadequately dealt with by those whose professional business is philosophy."--P. F. Strawson, The New Republic
"Remarkable....All of his discussions are clear and insightful, but some reach a level of originality and illumination that opens genuinely new avenues of philosophical thought....A rare combination of profundity and clarity, along with simplicity of expression. It should be recommended to all those who are bored with or despair about philosophy."--Charles Taylor, Times Literary Supplement
"At a time when so much philosophy is devoted to technical discussion of esoteric questions, Nagel has written an original book, accessible to any educated reader, on some of the largest questions about our knowledge of the world and our place in it....Those who read it will be made to question many of their deepest beliefs, to consider new possibilities, and as a result to become more intellectually awake."--Jonathan Glover, The New York Review of Books
"An illuminating book by one of the most provocative philosophers writing today."--Religious Studies Review
"The clarity of [Nagel's] argument and the courage of his convictions are admirable. Highly recommended."--Key Reporter
About the Author
Thomas Nagel is University Professor in the Department of Philosophy and the School of Law at New York University. His books include The Possibility of Altruism, The View from Nowhere, and What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. In 2008, he was awarded the Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy and the Balzan Prize in Moral Philosophy.
Product details
- Publisher : Oxford University Press; Revised ed. edition (February 9, 1989)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0195056442
- ISBN-13 : 978-0195056440
- Lexile measure : 1380L
- Item Weight : 11.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 8.03 x 5.43 x 0.66 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #518,760 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #51 in Epistemology (Books)
- #56 in German Language Instruction (Books)
- #352 in Epistemology Philosophy
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About the author

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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In almost every area of philosophy - metaphysicals, politics, ethics, Nagel again and again fails to resolve any of the tension between these radically opposed perspectives. What is perhaps more frustrating however, is the obfuscating waffle routinely emloyed to fill the gap between the definition of the problem, and the solution that never comes.
You only have to read Nagel's famous "what is it like to be a bat?" to see what a severe problem of Nagel's this has always from the very beginning of his career. The descriptions of consciousness in that essay are amongst the most lucid descriptions ever commited to print. His last ditch attempt to provide a normative argument however, reprensents the very worst in pseudo-intellectual waffle.
Sadly the exact same is true here - the descriptions of existential crisis and ethical dilemma are the best you are likely to encounter, but Nagel does not seem to have the intellectual capacity to provide a coherent precise solution to any of the problems he outlines. But since so much of the text is this book is cloaked in dense, impenetrable sophistry, many will probably come away thinking he's actually put some kind of argument forward. Look very closely though, and you'll see that the most he ever commits to is an anti-physicalist, anti-utitliarian stance. Beyond that, i believe its almost impossible to pin Nagel down on anything.
This is a great shame because the object/subjective dichotomy is the 'fly in the ointment' for just about any philosophical position going. Unlike Nagel however, most philosophers either do not seem to be aware of this problem, or do not want to accept that the problem exists in the first place due to the disastrous consequences it can have on a philosophical project once consciously acknowledged.
This is partly i think why the physicalist programme has proven so popular over the years. While we can never meaningfully define consciousness (the first person perspective) with third person tools, physicalists like Dennett at least provide a solution, the possiblity of philosophical and scientific progress.
While I believe Nagel's rather than Dennett's position has the weight of evidence and reason on its side, there is never any chance of such a position being popular when philosophers like Nagel throw their hands up in the air whenever pushed to provide an alternative method to the brute accumulation of 3rd person facts.
Until someone comes along and attempts to do this (and Nagel certainly isnt) we are stuck with the prevailing philosophical dogma: 'neural events are identical with mental states'. Which while empricially unverifable, at least offers some sort of beacon of hope for those who want to get to the bottom of consciousness.
While Nagel in this book has more than competently illustrated the inadaquacies of philosophical atomism, he has as yet i believe, managed to provide to a coherent alternative solution.