Thomas Nagel

Abstract

Thomas Nagel’s contribution to philosophy over the past forty years has been enormously influential. In this book, the first sustained examination of Nagel’s ideas, Alan Thomas provides readers with a detailed exploration of the central dichotomy around which Nagel organizes his philosophy: the concern over how to reconcile the “subjective” and “objective” views of the world. Thomas begins by clarifying and defending Nagel’s basic metaphysical contrast between subjective and objective ways of thinking about the world. He shows how a proper understanding of radically perspectival views of the world allows one to defend some of Nagel’s most important claims about the mind: his influential work in the philosophy of mind is traced from his early paper on physicalism to his recent defence of a form of dual aspect theory. Thomas then turns the argument to ethics, where Nagel’s influence is pre-eminent, and the development of his views is traced from his contrast between subject and objective reasons in his early work to his later hybrid ethical theory. The volume concludes with an examination of Nagel’s political philosophy, particularly his recent controversial work on global justice.