Thomas Nagel (born July 4, 1937, in Belgrade, Serbia) is University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University and member of the Board of Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. He received a Bachelor degree from Cornell University in 1958, a BPhil from Oxford University in 1960, and a doctorate from Harvard University in 1963 where he studied with John Rawls. Nagel taught briefly at the University of California at Berkeley and from 1967 to 1980 at Princeton University before moving to New York University. At NYU he now holds the rank of University Professor. July 4 is the 185th day of the year (186th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 180 days remaining. ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Belgrade (Serbian: Beograd, Београд ) is the capital of the Republic of Serbia, as well as the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. ... Serbia and Montenegro  â€“ Serbia      â€“ Vojvodina      â€“ Kosovo (UN admin. ... The meaning of the word professor (Latin: one who claims publicly to be an expert) varies. ... Philosopher in Meditation (detail), by Rembrandt. ... This article or section is missing references or citation of sources. ... New York University (NYU) is a major research university in New York City. ... 1913 advertisement for the 11th edition, with the slogan When in doubt — look it up in the Encyclopædia Britannica The Encyclopædia Britannica (properly spelled with æ, the ae-ligature) was first published in 1768–1771 as The Britannica was an important early English-language general encyclopedia and is still... A bachelors degree is usually an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course that generally lasts three or four years. ... This is about the university. ... 1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Bachelor of Philosophy (B.Phil. ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1960 calendar). ... Harvard University campus (old map) Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1963 calendar). ... John Rawls (February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American philosopher, a professor of political philosophy at Harvard University and author of A Theory of Justice (1971), Political Liberalism, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, and The Law of Peoples. ...

Much of his work has been organized around the tension between objective and subjective perspectives: on reasons for action, on agency, on experience, and on reality as a whole. He is known within the field of philosophy of mind as an advocate of the idea that consciousness and subjective experience cannot be reduced to brain activity. Nagel, along with Bernard Williams, has also contributed much to the early development of the problem of moral luck, detailing its various aspects, and analyzing its impact on ethics and moral evaluation. For many years, Nagel has conducted a seminar noted for a dazzling array of guest speakers with his colleague Ronald Dworkin. A Phrenological mapping of the brain. ... Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and ones environment. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Comparative brain sizes In animals, the brain, or encephalon (Greek for in the head), is the control center of the central nervous system. ... Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams (September 21, 1929 – June 10, 2003) was an English moral philosopher, noted by The Times as the most brilliant and most important British moral philosopher of his time. ... Moral luck is the phenomenon whereby a moral agent is assigned moral blame or moral praise for an action or its consequences even when it is clear that the agent in question did not have full control over either the action or its consequences. ... A seminar is a form of academic teaching, at a university or offered by a commercial or professional organization, in small groups where students are requested to actively participate during meetings. ... Ronald Dworkin (born 1931) is an American philosopher, especially noted for his contributions to jurisprudence including legal philosophy, political philosophy, and moral philosophy. ...

Most recently, Professor Nagel has been elected to the American Philosophical Society founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743, joining the oldest scholarly society in the nation whose members include George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein. The American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743 by founding father Benjamin Franklin, continues to operate to this day. ...

'To be a Bat'

One of his most famous articles is "What is it like to be a bat?" The article's title question, though often attributed to Nagel, was originally posed by Timothy L.S. Sprigge. This article was originally published in 1974 in The Philosophical Review but has since been reprinted in several books that are concerned with consciousness and the mind, such as The Mind's I, edited by Daniel Dennett and Douglas Hofstadter and Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, edited by Ned Block, as well as Nagel's own book Mortal Questions. Suborders Megachiroptera Microchiroptera See text for families. ... Timothy L.S. Sprigge (1932- ) is a British idealist philosopher who has spent most of his career at the University of Edinburgh. ... 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1974 calendar). ... The Philosophical Review is a quarterly journal edited by the faculty of the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University and published by Duke University Press. ... Look up book in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and ones environment. ... Mind refers to the collective aspects of human intellect and consciousness that originate in the brain and which are manifest in some combination of thought, perception, emotion, will, memory, and imagination. ... The Minds I: Fantasies and reflections on self and soul (ISBN 0-553-34584-2) is a 1981 book composed and arranged by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett. ... Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28, 1942) is a prominent American philosopher. ... Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945) is an American academic. ... Philosophy of psychology typically refers to a set of issues at the theoretical foundations of modern psychology. ...

Nagel first argued that the subjective experience of consciousness can never be attained through the objective methods of reductionistic science. Conscious experience has a subjective character to it, and science, which seeks an objective, general description of nature, cannot capture the subjective character of consciousness. Second, Nagel concluded that because of the subjective character of experience, "we cannot even pose the mind-body problem" in a sensible way and "it seems unlikely that a physical theory of mind can be contemplated." While many philosophers of mind and cognitive neuroscientists accept the fundamental distinction between the subjective and the objective, they often have not accepted Nagel's conclusions. For example, philosophers such as Michael Tye have proposed reductive theories of subjective consciousness. On the other hand, some philosophers, most notably Daniel Dennett, deemed the subjective a cognitive illusion. Template:Wiktionarypar objective Objective may be: Objective lens, an optical element in a camera or microscope. ... Reductionism in philosophy describes a number of related, contentious theories that hold, very roughly, that the nature of complex things can always be reduced to (be explained by) simpler or more fundamental things. ... The scope of this article is limited to the empirical sciences. ... That all subjective phenomena are associated with a single point of view is called the subjective character of experience. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28, 1942) is a prominent American philosopher. ...

See also

• Animal cognition
• The Mind of an Ape

Animal cognition is the title given to a modern approach to the mental capacities of animals. ... In the field of animal cognition, the premise of David Premacks and Ann James Premacks 1983 book, The Mind of an Ape ISBN 0-393-01581-5 is that It is possible to teach language to an ape. ...

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Thomas Nagel

• Thomas Nagel's faculty page at New York University
• Article: What is it like to be a bat?
• Nagel's CV (pdf)