Thomas Nagel
University Professor, New York University
As if to signal that he does not take up small questions,
Thomas Nagel titled his 1987 introduction to philosophy What Does It All Mean?
That kind of ambition is typical of one of the most vibrant philosophers writing
today, whose range includes political philosophy, ethics, epistemology, and
philosophy of mind. In a field whose practitioners struggle to link their
work to the lives of ordinary people, Nagel tackles real-world problems as
varied as justice, politics, and taxes, writing about them in accessible
prose. He still finds time to contribute to the discussion of issues favored
by professional philosophers, such as the nature of consciousness and what
it's like to be a bat.
Nagel studied at Cornell University, the University of
Oxford, and took his Ph.D. at Harvard. Today he is Professor of Philosophy
and Law and University Professor at New York University. His books include
The Possibility of Altruism, The View from Nowhere, Equality and Partiality,
Other Minds, and Concealment and Exposure. He writes frequently for The
New York Review of Books and many other journals and magazines. In a
recent review, Marek Pyka of Cracow University of Technology praised
Nagel as one of the most interesting American philosophers of recent
decades and added, "He has managed to accomplish a rare thing: to write
on the deepest philosophical problems in a simple way."
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