Thomas Nagel Quotes

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.

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.

A Theory Of Motivation Is Defective If It Renders Intelligible Behaviour Which Is Not Intelligible.

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.

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.

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.

Consciousness Is What Makes The Mind-body Problem Really Intractable.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There Is A Tendency To Seek An Objective Account Of Everything Before Admitting Its Reality.