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Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel (; born July 4, 1937) is an American philosopher. He is the University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University, where he taught from 1980 to 2016. His main areas of philosophical interest are legal philosophy, political philosophy, and ethics. 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. He continued the critique of reductionism in '' Mind and Cosmos'' (2012), in which he argues against the neo-Darwinian view of the emergence of consciousness. Life and career Nagel was born on July 4, 1937, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), to German Jewish refugees Carolyn (Baer) and Walter Nagel. He arrived in the US in 1939, and was raised in and around New York. He had no religious upbringing, but regards himself as a Jew. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belgrade
Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. Nearly 1,166,763 million people live within the administrative limits of the City of Belgrade. It is the third largest of all List of cities and towns on Danube river, cities on the Danube river. Belgrade is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe and the world. One of the most important prehistoric cultures of Europe, the Vinča culture, evolved within the Belgrade area in the 6th millennium BC. In antiquity, Thracians, Thraco-Dacians inhabited the region and, after 279 BC, Celts settled the city, naming it ''Singidunum, Singidūn''. It was Roman Serbia, conquered by the Romans under the reign ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the non-denominational all-male institution began its first classes near City Hall based on a curriculum focused on a secular education. The university moved in 1833 and has maintained its main campus in Greenwich Village surrounding Washington Square Park. Since then, the university has added an engineering school in Brooklyn's MetroTech Center and graduate schools throughout Manhattan. NYU has become the largest private university in the United States by enrollment, with a total of 51,848 enrolled students, including 26,733 undergraduate students and 25,115 graduate students, in 2019. NYU also receives the most applications of any private institution in the United States and admission is considered highly selective. NYU is organized ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reductionist
Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical position that interprets a complex system as the sum of its parts. Definitions '' The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'' suggests that reductionism is "one of the most used and abused terms in the philosophical lexicon" and suggests a three-part division: # Ontological reductionism: a belief that the whole of reality consists of a minimal number of parts. # Methodological reductionism: the scientific attempt to provide an explanation in terms of ever-smaller entities. # Theory reductionism: the suggestion that a newer theory does not replace or absorb an older one, but reduces it to more basic terms. Theory reduction itself is divisible into three parts: translation, derivation, and explanation. Reductionism can be applied to any phenomeno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Materialism
Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are by-products or epiphenomena of material processes (such as the biochemistry of the human brain and nervous system), without which they cannot exist. This concept directly contrasts with idealism, where mind and consciousness are first-order realities to which matter is dependent while material interactions are secondary. Materialism is closely related to physicalism—the view that all that exists is ultimately physical. Philosophical physicalism has evolved from materialism with the theories of the physical sciences to incorporate more sophisticated notions of physicality than mere ordinary matter (e.g. spacetime, physical energies and forces, and dark matter). Thus, the term ''physicalism'' is preferr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subjective Character Of Experience
The ''subjective character of experience'' is a term in psychology and the philosophy of mind denoting that all subjective phenomena are associated with a single point of view (" ego"). The term was coined and illuminated by Thomas Nagel in his famous paper " What Is it Like to Be a Bat?"Nagel, Thomas (1974) What is It Like to Be a Bat? ''The Philosophical Review'' LXXXIII, 4 (October): 435–50. Nagel argues that, because bats are apparently conscious mammals with a way of perceiving their environment entirely different from that of human beings, it is impossible to speak of "what is it like to ''be'' a bat ''for'' the bat" or, while the example of the bat is particularly illustrative, any conscious species, as each organism has a unique point of view from which no other organism can gather experience. To Nagel, the subjective character of experience implies the cognitive closure of the human mind to some facts, specifically the mental states that physical states create. Subj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panpsychism
In the philosophy of mind, panpsychism () is the view that the mind or a mindlike aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality. It is also described as a theory that "the mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists throughout the universe." It is one of the oldest philosophical theories, and has been ascribed to philosophers including Thales, Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz, William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, and Galen Strawson. In the 19th century, panpsychism was the default philosophy of mind in Western thought, but it saw a decline in the mid-20th century with the rise of logical positivism. Recent interest in the hard problem of consciousness and developments in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and quantum physics have revived interest in panpsychism in the 21st century. Overview Etymology The term ''panpsychism'' comes from the Greek ''pan'' ( πᾶν: "all, everything, whole") and ''psyche'' ( ψυχή: "soul, mind").Clarke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mind And Cosmos
''Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False'' is a 2012 book by the philosopher Thomas Nagel. Summary Nagel argues that the natural and social sciences are unable to account for the existence of mind and consciousness and that the methodologies employed must be revised. He writes that mind is a basic aspect of nature and that any philosophy of nature that cannot account for it is fundamentally misguided. He argues that the standard naturalistic view flies in the face of common sense. Nagel's position is that principles of an entirely different kind may account for the emergence of life, and in particular conscious life, and that those principles may be teleological, rather than materialist or mechanistic. He stresses that his argument is not a religious one (he is an atheist) and that it is not based on the theory of intelligent design (ID), though he also writes that ID proponents such as Michael Behe, Stephen C. Meyer, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The View From Nowhere
''The View from Nowhere'' is a book by philosopher Thomas Nagel. Published by Oxford University Press in 1986, it contrasts passive and active points of view in how humanity interacts with the world, relying either on a subjective perspective that reflects a point of view or an objective perspective that takes a more detached perspective. Nagel describes the objective perspective as the "view from nowhere", one where the only valuable ideas are ones derived independently. Reception Historian Peter Gay praised ''The View from Nowhere''. Philosopher Thomas Metzinger Thomas Metzinger (born 12 March 1958) is a German philosopher and professor of theoretical philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. , he is an Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, a co-founder of thGe ... praised and criticized the book's central concept as "beautiful" but untenable. References 1986 non-fiction books Oxford University Press books Philosophy books ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Susan Wolf
Susan Rose Wolf (born 1952) is an American moral philosopher and philosopher of action who is currently the Edna J. Koury Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She taught previously at Johns Hopkins University (1986–2002), the University of Maryland (1981–1986) and Harvard University (1978–1981). Education and career Wolf earned a BA from Yale University in philosophy and mathematics in 1974, followed in 1978, by a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University. Her thesis advisor was Thomas Nagel. After completing her PhD, Wolf began her career teaching at Harvard University. In 1981 she moved to a position at the University of Maryland. From 1986 to 2002 she taught at Johns Hopkins University, where she became Chair of the Philosophy Department. She moved to her current role as Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2002. Her husband, Douglas MacLean, is also a philosopher teaching ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Scheffler
Samuel Ira Scheffler (born 1951) is a moral and political philosopher, who is University Professor of Philosophy and Law in the Department of Philosophy and the School of Law at New York University. Education and career Before moving to NYU in 2008, Scheffler taught for 31 years at the University of California, Berkeley. Scheffler received his PhD from Princeton University, where he was a student of the distinguished philosopher Thomas Nagel. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2004. He is the son of the Harvard philosopher Israel Scheffler. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Philosophical work His most recent book, ''Death and the Afterlife,'' based on his Tanner Lectures at University of California, Berkeley has generated considerable attention for its argument that much that we value in life depends on the assumption that life will continue long after our death. As the Princeton philosopher Mark Joh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shelly Kagan
Shelly Kagan () (born 1956) is Clark Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, where he has taught since 1995. He is best known for his writings about moral philosophy and normative ethics. In 2007, Kagan's course about death was offered for free online, and was very popular. This led to him publishing a book on the subject in 2012. Kagan was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016. Education and career A native of Skokie, Illinois, Kagan received his B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1976 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1982. He taught at the University of Pittsburgh from 1981 until 1986, and at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1986 until 1995, before taking a position at Yale."Shelly Kagan named Clark Professor of Philosophy" , ''Yale Bulletin and Calendar' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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