Thomas Nagel Quotes
Thomas Nagel is an American philosopher long associated with New York University, whose work has shaped contemporary thinking in the philosophy of mind, ethics, and political philosophy. His essay What Is It Like to Be a Bat? The quotes below are attributed to Thomas Nagel, organized by topic.
Browse Thomas Nagel by topic
Thomas Nagel on Death
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“I should not really object to dying if it were not followed by death.”
Mortal Questions(1979) | "Death" (1970), p. 3 footnote.
Thomas Nagel on Justice
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“To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how to decide what to believe.”
Mortal Questions(1979) | "The Fragmentation of Value" (1977), p. 135.
Thomas Nagel on Knowledge
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“The Last Word, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 130-131.”
In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking -
“Everyone is entitled to commit murder in the imagination once in a while, not to mention lesser infractions.”
Concealment and Exposure and Other Essays (1998). -
“Concealment and Exposure and Other Essays (1998).”
Everyone is entitled to commit murder in the imagination once in a while, not to mention lesser infractions. -
“Any reductionist program has to be based on an analysis of what is to be reduced. If the analysis leaves something out, the problem will be falsely posed.”
p. 167. -
“Eventually, I believe, current attempts to understand the mind by analogy with man-made computers that can perform superbly some of the same external tasks as conscious beings will be recognized as a gigantic waste of time.”
The View From Nowhere(1986) | p. 16.
Thomas Nagel on Life
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“Leading a human life is a full-time occupation, to which everyone devotes decades of intense concern.”
Mortal Questions(1979) | "The Absurd" (1971), p. 15.
Thomas Nagel on Mind
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“I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat.”
p. 168. -
Attributed to Thomas Nagel:
“The mind-body problem is not just a local problem about consciousness; it is a problem about the world.”
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“I believe that there is a necessary connection in both directions between the physical and the mental, but that it cannot be discovered a priori. Opinion is strongly divided on the credibility of some kind of functionalist reductionism , and I won't go through my reasons for being on the antireductionist side of that debate. Despite significant attempts by a number of philosophers to describe the ”
Conceiving the Impossible and the Mind-Body Problem," Royal Institute of Philosophy annual lecture, given in London on February 18, 1998, published in Philosophy vol. 73 no. 285, July 1998, pp 337-352, Cambridge University Press, p. 337. -
“Consciousness is what makes the mind–body problem really intractable.”
p. 165. -
“Without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting. With consciousness it seems hopeless.”
p. 166. -
“Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up.”
The View From Nowhere(1986) | p. 12.
Thomas Nagel on Nature
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Attributed to Thomas Nagel:
“Materialism, taken as a complete account of nature, is almost certainly false.”
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“[E]very subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view , and it seems inevitable that an objective physical theory will abandon that point of view.”
p. 167.
Thomas Nagel on Time
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“Bats … present a range of activity and a sensory apparatus so different from ours that the problem I want to pose is exceptionally vivid (though it certainly could be raised with other species). Even without the benefit of philosophical reflection, anyone who has spent some time in an enclosed space with an excited bat knows what it is to encounter a fundamentally alien form of life.”
p. 168. -
“Even if I could by gradual degrees be transformed into a bat, nothing in my present constitution enables me to imagine what the experiences of such a future stage of myself thus metamorphosed would be like. The best evidence would come from the experience of bats, if we only knew what they were like.”
p. 169.
Thomas Nagel on Truth
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Attributed to Thomas Nagel:
“An objective view from nowhere offers part of the truth, but only part.”
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“It is often remarked that nothing we do now will matter in a million years. But if that is true, then by the same token, nothing that will be the case in a million years matters now.”
Mortal Questions(1979) | "The Absurd" (1971), p. 11.
Thomas Nagel on Virtue
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Attributed to Thomas Nagel:
“Reason has a proper authority over the will, even when it conflicts with our private interests.”
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“Ethics increases the range of what it is about ourselves that we can will—extending it from our actions to the motives and character traits and dispositions from which they arise. We want to be able to will the sources of our actions down to the very bottom.”
The View From Nowhere(1986) | p. 135.