31 ideas
| 3240 | There is more insight in fundamental perplexity about problems than in their supposed solutions [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Certain forms of perplexity (say about freedom, knowledge and the meaning of life) seem to me to embody more insight than any of the supposed solutions to those problems. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Obviously false solutions won't embody much insight. This sounds good, but I suspect that the insight is in the recognition of the facts which give rise to the perplexity. I can't think of anything in favour of perplexity for its own sake. |
| 3242 | Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture can't skip it [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Can he really mean that a mature culture doesn't need philosophy? |
| 3241 | It seems mad, but the aim of philosophy is to climb outside of our own minds [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: We are trying to climb outside of our own minds, an effort that some would regard as insane and that I regard as philosophically fundamental. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: It is not only philosophers who do this. It is an essential feature of the mind, and is inherent in the concept of truth. |
| 3248 | Realism invites scepticism because it claims to be objective [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The search for objective knowledge, because of its commitment to realism, cannot refute scepticism and must proceed under its shadow, and scepticism is only a problem because of the realist claims of objectivity. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.1) |
| 20989 | Views are objective if they don't rely on a person's character, social position or species [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: A view or form of thought is more objective than another if it relies less on the specifics of the individual's makeup and position in the world, or on the character of the particular type of creature he is. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Notice that this defines comparative objectivity, rather than an absolute. I take it that something must be entirely objective to qualify as a 'fact', and so anything about which there is a consensus that it is a fact can be taken as wholly objective. |
| 22354 | Things cause perceptions, properties have other effects, hence we reach a 'view from nowhere' [Nagel, by Reiss/Sprenger] |
| Full Idea: First we realise that perceptions are caused by things, second we realise that properties have other effects (as well as causing perceptions), and third we conceive of a thing's true nature without perspectives. That is the 'view from nowhere'. | |
| From: report of Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], p.14) by Reiss,J/Spreger,J - Scientific Objectivity 2.1 | |
| A reaction: [My summary of their summary] This is obviously an optimistic view. I''m not sure how he can justify three precise stages, given than animals probably jump straight to the third stage, and engage with the nature's of things. |
| 3249 | Modern science depends on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The distinction between primary and secondary qualities is the precondition for the development of modern physics and chemistry. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.3) |
| 22429 | We achieve objectivity by dropping secondary qualities, to focus on structural primary qualities [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: At the end [of the three stages of objectivity] the secondary qualities drop out of our picture of the external world, and the underlyiing primary qualities such as shape, size, weight, and motion are thought of structurally. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], II) | |
| A reaction: This is the orthodox view for realists about the external world, and I largely agree. The only problem I see is that secondary qualities contain information, such as the colour of rotting fruit - but then colour is not an essential feature of rot. |
| 3247 | Epistemology is centrally about what we should believe, not the definition of knowledge [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The central problem of epistemology is what to believe and how to justify one's beliefs, not the impersonal problem of whether my beliefs can be said to be knowledge. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.1) | |
| A reaction: Wrong. The question of whether what one has is 'knowledge' is not impersonal at all - it is having the social status of a knower or expert. |
| 3252 | Scepticism is based on ideas which scepticism makes impossible [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The sceptic reaches scepticism through thoughts that scepticism makes unthinkable. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.6) |
| 3251 | Observed regularities are only predictable if we assume hidden necessity [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Observed regularities provide reason to believe that they will be repeated only to the extent that they provide evidence of hidden necessary connections, which hold timelessly. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.5) |
| 3244 | Personal identity cannot be fully known a priori [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The full conditions of personal identity cannot be extracted from the concept of a person at all: they cannot be arrived at a priori. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], III.2) | |
| A reaction: However, if you turn to experience to get the hang of what a person is, it is virtually impossible to disentangle the essentials from the accidental features of being a person. How essential are memories or reasoning or hopes or understandings or plans? |
| 3245 | The question of whether a future experience will be mine presupposes personal identity [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The identity of the self must have some sort of objectivity, otherwise the subjective question whether a future experience will be mine or not will be contentless. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], III.3) | |
| A reaction: This sounds a bit circular and question-begging. If there is no objective self, then the question of whether a future experience will be mine would be a misconceived question. I sympathise with Nagel's attempt to show how personal identity is a priori. |
| 3246 | I can't even conceive of my brain being split in two [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: It is hard to think of myself as being identical with my brain. If my brain is to be split, with one half miserable and the other half euphoric, my expectations can take no form, as my idea of myself doesn't allow for divisibility. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], III.4) | |
| A reaction: Nagel is trying to imply that there is some sort of conceptual impossibility here, but it may just be very difficult. I can think about my lovely lunch while doing my miserable job. Does Nagel want to hang on to a unified thing which doesn't exist? |
| 4125 | Hare says I acquire an agglomeration of preferences by role-reversal, leading to utilitarianism [Hare, by Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: In Hare's theory I apply a "role-reversal test", and then acquire an actual agglomeration of preferences that apply to the hypothetical situation. The result is utilitarianism. | |
| From: report of Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: It hits that traditional stumbling block, of why I should care about the preferences of others. Pure reason and empathy are the options (Kant or Hume). I may, however, lack both. |
| 4126 | If we have to want the preferences of the many, we have to abandon our own deeply-held views [Williams,B on Hare] |
| Full Idea: Hare's version of utilitarianism requires an agent to abandon any deeply held principle or conviction if a large enough aggregate of contrary preferences, of whatever kind, favours a contrary action. | |
| From: comment on Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: This nicely attacks any impersonal moral theory, whether it is based on reason or preferences. But where did my personal ideals come from? |
| 4127 | If morality is to be built on identification with the preferences of others, I must agree with their errors [Williams,B on Hare] |
| Full Idea: If there is to be total identification with others, then if another's preferences are mistaken, the preferences I imagine myself into are equally mistaken, and if 'identification' is the point, they should remain mistaken. | |
| From: comment on Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Yes. The core of morality must be judgement. Robots can implement universal utilitarian rules, but they could end up promoting persecutions of minorities. |
| 22483 | A judgement is presciptive if we expect it to be acted on [Hare] |
| Full Idea: We say something prescriptive if and only if, for some act A, some situation S and some person R, if P were to assent (orally) to what we say, and not, in S, do A, he logically must be assenting insincerely. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981], p.21), quoted by Philippa Foot - Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake? p.190 | |
| A reaction: Foot offers this as Hare's most explicit definition. The use of algebra strikes me as ludicrous. In logic letters have the virtue of not shifting their meaning during an argument, but that is not required here. |
| 3257 | Total objectivity can't see value, but it sees many people with values [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: A purely objective view has no way of knowing whether anything has any value, but actually its data include the appearance of value to individuals with particular perspectives, including oneself. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.2) | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that a very objective assessment of someone's health is an obvious revelation of value, irrespective of anyone's particular perspective. |
| 3265 | We don't worry about the time before we were born the way we worry about death [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: We do not regard the period before we were born in the same way that we regard the prospect of death. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], XI.3) | |
| A reaction: This is a challenge to Epicurus, who said death is no worse than pre-birth. This idea may be true of the situation immediately post-death, but a thousand years from now it is hard to distinguish them. |
| 3263 | If our own life lacks meaning, devotion to others won't give it meaning [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If no one's life has any meaning in itself, how can it acquire meaning through devotion to the meaningless lives of others? | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], XI.2) | |
| A reaction: This is one of the paradoxes of compassion. The other is that the virtue requires other people to be in need of help, which can't be a desirable situation. |
| 3256 | Pain doesn't have a further property of badness; it gives a reason for its avoidance [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The objective badness of pain is not some mysterious further property that all pains have, but just the fact that there is reason for anyone capable of viewing the world objectively to want it to stop. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.2) | |
| A reaction: Presumably all pains (e.g. of grief and of toothache) have something in common, to qualify as pains. It must be more than being disliked, because we can dislike a food. |
| 4360 | By far the easiest way of seeming upright is to be upright [Hare] |
| Full Idea: By far the easiest way of seeming upright is to be upright. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: Yes. This is the route which takes us from enlightened self-interest to a vision of true morality. Virtue is found to be its own reward, thought that is not how we became virtuous to begin with. |
| 3261 | Something may be 'rational' either because it is required or because it is acceptable [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: "Rational" may mean rationally required or rationally acceptable | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], X.4) |
| 3258 | If cockroaches can't think about their actions, they have no duties [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If cockroaches cannot think about what they should do, there is nothing they should do. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.3) |
| 3254 | If we can decide how to live after stepping outside of ourselves, we have the basis of a moral theory [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If we can make judgements about how we should live even after stepping outside of ourselves, they will provide the material for moral theory. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.1) |
| 3264 | We should see others' viewpoints, but not lose touch with our own values [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: One should occupy a position far enough outside your own life to reduce the importance of the difference between yourself and other people, yet not so far outside that all human values vanish in a nihilistic blackout (i.e.aim for a form of humility). | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], XI.2) |
| 3255 | We find new motives by discovering reasons for action different from our preexisting motives [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: There are reasons for action, and we must discover them instead of deriving them from our preexisting motives - and in that way we can acquire new motives superior to the old. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.1) |
| 3262 | Utilitarianism is too demanding [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Utilitarianism is too demanding. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], X.5) |
| 13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
| Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
| From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
| A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
| From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
| A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |