Thomas Nagel Quotes - Page 2

• The universe has become not only conscious and aware of itself but capable in some respects of choosing its path into the future--though all three, the consciousness, the knowledge, and the choice, are dispersed over a vast crowd of beings, acting both individually and collectively.

  Thomas Nagel

  Choices, Acting, Three

  Thomas Nagel (2012). “Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False”, p.124, Oxford University Press

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• What we take ourselves to be doing when we think about what is the case or how we should act is something that cannot be reconciled with a reductive naturalism, for reasons distinct from those that entail the irreducibility of consciousness. It is not merely the subjectivity of thought but its capacity to transcend subjectivity and to discover what is objectively the case that presents a problem....Thought and reasoning are correct or incorrect in virtue of something independent of the thinker's beliefs, and even independent of the community of thinkers to which he belongs. (p. 71)

  Thomas Nagel

  Independent, Thinking, Community

  Thomas Nagel (2012). “Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False”, p.72, Oxford University Press

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• It seems to me that, as it is usually presented, the current orthodoxy about the cosmic order is the product of governing assumptions that are unsupported, and that it flies in the face of common sense.

  Thomas Nagel

  Order, Common Sense, Orthodoxy

  Thomas Nagel (2012). “Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False”, p.5, Oxford University Press

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• fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism--something it is like for the organism.

  Thomas Nagel

  Ifs And, Consciousness, States

  Thomas Nagel (2012). “Mortal Questions”, p.166, Cambridge University Press

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• Everyone is entitled to commit murder in the imagination once in a while, not to mention lesser infractions.

  Thomas Nagel

  Imagination, Murder, Commit

  Thomas Nagel (2004). “Concealment and Exposure: And Other Essays”, p.7, Oxford University Press

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• I'm not sure I understand how responsibility for our choices makes sense if they are not determined.

  Thomas Nagel

  Responsibility, Choices, Determined

  Thomas Nagel (1987). “What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy”, p.50, Oxford University Press

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• I should not really object to dying were it not followed by death.

  Thomas Nagel

  Dying, Should, Objects

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• The problem is one of opposition between subjective and objective points of view. There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality. But often what appears to a more subjective point of view cannot be accounted for in this way. So either the objective conception of the world is incomplete, or the subjective involves illusions that should be rejected.

  Thomas Nagel

  Reality, Views, Admitting

  Thomas Nagel (1991). “Mortal Questions : Canto”, p.196, Cambridge University Press

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• Una vez que hemos dado el paso atrás hacia una visión abstracta de todo nuestro sistema de creencias, pruebas y justificaciones, y hemos visto que sólo funciona, a pesar de sus pretensiones, dando el mundo en gran medida por sentado, no estamos en condiciones de contrastar todas estas apariencias con una realidad alternativa. No podemos desprendernos de nuestras respuestas ordinarias y, si pudiéramos, no tendríamos medios para concebir una realidad de ningún tipo.

  Thomas Nagel

  Taken, Mean, Reality

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• Si intentáramos confiar enteramente en la razón, y la presionáramos con fuerza, nuestra vida y nuestras creencias se derrumbarían, una forma de locura que puede llegar a producirse si se pierde de algún modo la fuerza inercial de dar por sentado el mundo y la vida. Si perdemos ese control, la razón no nos lo devolverá.

  Thomas Nagel

  Dar, Mundo, Mayo

  Thomas Nagel (2012). “Mortal Questions”, p.20, Cambridge University Press

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• There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality.

  Thomas Nagel

  Reality, Objectivity, Admitting

  Thomas Nagel (1991). “Mortal Questions : Canto”, p.196, Cambridge University Press

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• Leading a human life is a full-time occupation, to which everyone devotes decades of intense concern.

  Thomas Nagel

  Occupation, Life Is, Intense

  Thomas Nagel (2012). “Mortal Questions”, p.15, Cambridge University Press

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• I conceive ethics as a branch of psychology.

  Thomas Nagel

  Psychology, Branches, Action

  Thomas Nagel (2016). “The Possibility of Altruism”, p.3, Princeton University Press

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• Common sense doesn't have the last word in ethics or anywhere else, but it has, as J. L. Austin said about ordinary language, the first word: it should be examined before it is discarded.

  Thomas Nagel

  Common Sense, Psychology, Ordinary

  Thomas Nagel (1989). “The View From Nowhere”, p.166, Oxford University Press

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• Reason is universal because no attempted challenge to its results can avoid appealing to reason in the end-by claiming, for example, that what was presented as an argument is really a rationalization. This can undermine our confidence in the original method or practice only by giving us reasons to believe something else, so that finally we have to think about the arguments to make up our minds.

  Thomas Nagel

  Creer, Filosófico, Pensar

  Thomas Nagel (1995). “Other Minds: Critical Essays 1969-1994”, p.213, Oxford University Press

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• every 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.

  Thomas Nagel

  Views, Subjectivity, Consciousness

  Thomas Nagel (2012). “Mortal Questions”, p.167, Cambridge University Press

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• The inclusion of consequences in the conception of what we have done is an acknowledgement that we are parts of the world, but the paradoxical character of moral luck which emerges from this acknowledgement shows that we are unable to operate with such a view, for it leaves us with no one to be.

  Thomas Nagel

  Character, Views, Psychology

  Thomas Nagel (2012). “Mortal Questions”, p.38, Cambridge University Press

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• Once we see an aspect of what we or someone else does as something that happens, we lose our grip on the idea that it has been done and that we can judge the doer and not just the happening.

  Thomas Nagel

  Ideas, Judging, Psychology

  Thomas Nagel (1991). “Mortal Questions : Canto”, p.38, Cambridge University Press

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• Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable.

  Thomas Nagel

  Mind, Body, Problem

  Thomas Nagel (1991). “Mortal Questions : Canto”, p.165, Cambridge University Press

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• If a psychological Maxwell devises a general theory of mind, he may make it possible for a psychological Einstein to follow with a theory that the mental and the physical are really the same. But this could happen only at the end of a process which began with the recognition that the mental is something completely different from the physical world as we have come to know it through a certain highly successful form of detached objective understanding. Only if the uniqueness of the mental is recognized will concepts and theories be devised especially for the purpose of understanding it.

  Thomas Nagel

  Successful, Understanding, Mind

  Thomas Nagel (1989). “The View From Nowhere”, p.53, Oxford University Press

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• It isn't just that I don't believe in God, and naturally, hope there is no God. I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.

  Thomas Nagel

  Believe, Want, There Is No God

  Thomas Nagel (1997). “The Last Word”, p.130, Oxford University Press, USA

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• 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.

  Thomas Nagel

  Analysis, Problem, Consciousness

  Thomas Nagel (2012). “Mortal Questions”, p.167, Cambridge University Press

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• The external view [of agency] forces itself on us at the same time that we resist it. One way this occurs is through the gradual erosion of what we do by the subtraction of what happens.

  Thomas Nagel

  Agency, Erosion, Views

  Thomas Nagel (1991). “Mortal Questions : Canto”, p.38, Cambridge University Press

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• A theory of motivation is defective if it renders intelligible behaviour which is not intelligible.

  Thomas Nagel

  Motivation, Psychology, Behaviour

  Thomas Nagel (2016). “The Possibility of Altruism”, p.34, Princeton University Press

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• equally real at all stages of his life; specifically, the fact that a particular stage is present cannot be regarded as conferring on it any special status.

  Thomas Nagel

  Real, Psychology, Special

  Thomas Nagel (2016). “The Possibility of Altruism”, p.60, Princeton University Press

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