# Thomas Nagel ![[50 Resources/51 Attachments/51.03 Public/2026-05-04 Thomas Nagel.jpg|400]] Thomas Nagel (born 1937) is an American philosopher at New York University known for his work on [[Consciousness]], ethics, and political philosophy. His 1974 paper "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" became a landmark in [[Philosophy of Mind]], arguing that subjective experience—what it is *like* to be something—cannot be captured by objective, physical descriptions. Even complete knowledge of bat neurology wouldn't tell us what echolocation feels like from the inside. Nagel defends a form of [[Dualism]] that takes consciousness seriously as irreducible to physics. His 2012 book *Mind and Cosmos* controversially argued that neo-Darwinian materialism cannot explain consciousness, reason, or value. ## Key Contributions | Concept | Description | |---------|-------------| | **"What is it like..."** | Subjective character of experience | | **Explanatory gap** | Physics cannot capture subjectivity | | **View from nowhere** | Tension between subjective and objective | ## Quotes <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/quote AND [[Thomas Nagel]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> ## Books <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/book AND [[Thomas Nagel]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> ## References - Nagel, T. (1974). "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Nagel ## Related - [[Philosophy of Mind]] - [[Consciousness]] - [[Qualia]] - [[David Chalmers]]