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(as of Feb 12, 2025 04:40:35 UTC – Details)
The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology.
Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such.
Nagel’s skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic.
In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.
ASIN : 0199919755
Publisher : Oxford University Press; First Edition (September 26, 2012)
Language : English
Hardcover : 144 pages
ISBN-10 : 9780199919758
ISBN-13 : 978-0199919758
Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
Dimensions : 5.6 x 0.7 x 8.4 inches
Customers say
Customers find the book provides good value for money and is an important resource on the subject. They find it enlightening and interesting, with good points. The book is described as short and accessible. Opinions differ on the thought-provoking aspect, with some finding the thesis fascinating and necessary, while others feel it lacks explanation for the mind and is overly complex. There are also mixed reviews on the readability, with some finding the writing clear and rational, while others find it confusing or difficult to understand.
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