The Last Word

by Thomas Nagel

If there is such a thing as reason, it has to be universal. Reason must reflect objective principles whose validity is independent of our point of view--principles that anyone with enough intelligence ought to be able to recognize as correct. But this generality of reason is what relativists and subjectivists deny in ever-increasing numbers. And such subjectivism is not just an inconsequential intellectual flourish or badge of theoretical chic. It is exploited to deflect argument and to belittle the pretensions of the arguments of others. The continuing spread of this relativistic way of thinking threatens to make public discourse increasingly difficult and to exacerbate the deep divisions of our society. In The Last Word , Thomas Nagel, one of the most influential philosophers writing in English, presents a sustained defense of reason against the attacks of subjectivism, delivering systematic rebuttals of relativistic claims with respect to language, logic, science, and ethics.
He shows that the last word in disputes about the objective validity of any form of thought must lie in some unqualified thoughts about how things are--thoughts that we cannot regard from outside as mere psychological dispositions.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Science, Metaphysics

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Thomas Nagel is an American philosopher, currently University Professor and Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, where he has taught since 1980. His main areas of philosophical interest are philosophy of mind, political philosophy and ethics. He is well-known for his critique of reductionist accounts of the mind in his essay "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?" (1974), and for his contributions to deontological and liberal moral and political theory in The Possibility of Altruism (1970) and subsequent writings.

Thomas Nagel was born to a Jewish family in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia). He received a BA from Cornell University in 1958, a BPhil from Oxford University in 1960, and a PhD from Harvard University in 1963 under the supervision of John Rawls. Before settling in New York, Nagel taught briefly at the University of California, Berkeley (from 1963 to 1966) and at Princeton University (from 1966 to 1980), where he trained many well-known philosophers including Susan Wolf, Shelly Kagan, and Samuel Scheffler, who is now his colleague at NYU. In 2006, he was made a member of the American Philosophical Society.

Nagel is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2008, he was awarded a Rolf Schock Prize for his work in philosophy, the Balzan prize, and the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from Oxford University.

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short but brain-hurting little book on reason, and the fallacies of non-rational / subjective attempts at building epistemologies and ethical systems. I won’t bore anyone with the details, and this isn’t a spoiler because he throws out his view right at the start of the book, but Nagel’s basic idea is that any attempt to overthrow rationality, say for example for a cultural relativism for how come to think the way we think, is doomed because to engage in the exercise we are still in the basis of rationality that we are trying to disprove, thus rationality wins. By Nagel’s account all attempts to get around this in pragmatic or positivist ways have failed because they still need to rely on reason to basis their own explanations, and thus reason is kind of irreducible. The kind of fascinating stuff that only a philosophy person would find interesting, and everyone else would ask, so?

I've written in more detail some problems that I had with the last chapter here:

http://appendixa.wordpress.com/2009/1...

[Alexi Parizeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was shocking how relevant this book turned out to be, at least for my own interests. Sorry this is going to be a useless review, because I'm utterly blinded by the profundity this has for my own work.

[First Reading: April 12-13 2015]

[Edwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is it possible to have an objective framework from which to view the outside world or are we perpetually doomed to view it through the narrow lens of local customs and historical contingents. Nagel, widely regarded as a modern giant in the field of Philosophy takes on this task of equal proportions in this compact yet deceivingly dense book. He applies a Rational approach to disciplines such as Logic, Science, Mathematics, Language and Ethics to show why Subjectivism is self refuting and false.
The work is clear in its message, but I'd argue that some of the points rely too heavily on Wittengsteinian Philosophy. They're not beyond the grasp of a motivated yet uninitiated reader (of which I count myself) but it does serve as a barrier from really understanding a lot of the concepts being laid out, though I am grateful for some paradoxes he has introduced me too (The Kripkenstein: The Rule following Paradox)
What initially got me interested in reading this work was the prevailing state of discord among seemingly all classes of people. Surely there is universal truth that binds people together and one would hope that it is Reason. Nagel doesn't discount that idea, but he does suggest that Reason is not something which can be understood without utilizing Reason itself which in itself is another paradox. It would be really difficult to convince a Subjectivist or Relativists on such shaky ground. It's not very different from when a believer tells you that Faith is a self affirming Truth.
Finally, I'm not sure how much Nagel advances the debate on Objectivity v Subjectivity as I'll be the first to admit that I'm not very well-read on the subject matter but The Last Word is full of really insightful and well thought out arguments and though a little frustrating at times, I'd say an overall enjoyable read. Nagel is honest in his writing and is even willing to point out irreconcilable standpoints that act as a burden on his main point. He respects the reader enough to allow them to come to their own conclusion.

[Rui Coelho · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read. It was amusing to watch Nagel contradicting himself, question-begging and making a fool of himself in general in order to advocate for his unreasonable and outdated belief that reason and logic are the sole foudations for a valid discourse.

[Kiliyan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If only we could stop with the nonsense that is relativism in the social sciences. For the most part, Nagel accurately describes just how nonsensical the entire movement is, which reduces the human being to nothing more than an arbitrary bundle of contingencies. I did not care for his writing style, even though the content is really well thought out. But his sentence structure is at times convoluted and at times just harder to understand than need be. He also pretty much supposed you have read and understood a lot of classic philosophy to be able to follow the arguments entirely.

[Jacob]

The good thing about Thomas Nagel is that he puts himself out there. Frankly, I think his "defense of reason" walks and talks like Blackburn--all the better for Blackburn, I say! Still an engaging read. Pair it with Blackburn's Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning and decide for yourself.

[Mitch Flitcroft · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about where epistemic justification comes to an end. It defends the universality of reason against subjectivist critiques by showing that the critiques are either self-defeating (as is the case in logic) or less plausible than their alternative (as is the case in science and ethics). There was a brief discussion of Godel’s incompleteness theorems, but I would have loved more. I’d recommend this book if you’re interested in philosophy, particularly epistemology.

[Error Theorist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, this was a rather well done refutation of most vulgar relativistic conceptions of knowledge and justification. His arguments in favor of ethical realism seem to be rather well constructed, even if I completely disagree. In short, this is definitely worth reading if you want a refutation of the more naive forms of relativism floating around the intellectual zeitgeist.

[Kean Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nagel defends the rationalist concept of reason and leads a polemic against subjectivist conventions, exposing them as inherent fallacies

[Josiah Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible book, while I find that I have a few disagreements here and there, this book does a great job refuting subjectivism. I would describe this book as small but dense, honest, developed, and careful. Nagel, like everything else as I have read of his, has delivered a brilliant and insightful work.

[Andrei Khrapavitski · Rating 5 out of 5]

My weekend read was "Last Word," a book by philosopher Thomas Nagel. Considering how prevalent postmodern subjectivist, relativistic, pragmatist and/or naturalistic beliefs are these days, I highly recommend to pick this book and read Nagel's arguments carefully. Together with Derek Parfit, Peter Singer and a number of other authors, Nagel masterfully attacks these views. Maybe not a knockdown argument, considering we always view the world from within our own perspective, but it helps, if you want to understand his arguments, to look at yourself and all your reasons from an impersonal perspective, or as Sidgwick calls it, point of view of the Universe. Nagel himself offers a different name for such view: view from nowhere, which is the title of one of his books, by the way.

Reading his book, I recalled a nice example where evolutionary programming fails unless a certain species can reason.
Remember that moths fly towards light. Well, they also fly right into a light bulb and die from its heat. They do so one after another. It's possible that moths have an escape-route mechanism related to light. They evolved to follow that path. But they cannot reason that light bulbs are to be avoided.

Viewing from a viewpoint of a human, we can clearly see that. Likewise, whatever matters to us (religion, national or personal identity, etc.) is subject to reasoning (ours or an outside observer). You don't have to be an Einstein to clearly see that we can be wrong about many things. Many subjective things that matter to us are irrational and if we reason hard enough about these things, they are to be avoided, just like light bulbs should be avoided by moths. The question is can we individually and collectively avoid the light bulb?

[Ryan]

1 of Sam's top 3 philosophy books for everyone to read.

I’m a big fan of Thomas Nagel’s earlier work… He is a very fine writer — a very clear writer — and just as a style of communication … he’s worth going to school on." Sam Harris
Champions rationality)

[Ela · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good headache! Am writing a paper on the Ethics chapter now; comparing some of his writing with Wittgenstein. I can´t believe how much their views have in common...

[Michael Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nagel’s defense of reason against subjectivism and relativism is thought provoking, somewhat repetitive, and dense.

[Karl Joosep Pihel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Huvitav lugeda "ookeanitagust" filosoofiat ning kauget ka sellest, millega praegu tegelen. Kasvõi sellepoolest, et kui täpselt Deleuze diagnoosib ja kirjeldab esindusmõtlemist, mida Nagel siin esitab. Otseste vaenlaste lugemine.

Esimeste peatükkide argumendile on tõesti raske vaielda: igasugune üleüldine subjektivistlik programm ja skeptitsism kukub läbi, sest toetub oma argumentides sellele, mida üritab ümber lükata - st argumendile, võrdlusele, veenmisele ja elementaarsetele loogilistele seostele. Vähemalt - see kukub läbi kui hakkab üritama sind veenda siis ilmselt. Aga tõeline valgustatud pürroonlik skeptik ehk ei üritakski seda teha.

See tees, mis Nageli enese sõnul on aga "õhuke" (lk 87) ühtlasi venib välja kui ta hakkab kaaluma spetsiifilisemaid ja sattumuslikumaid mõttevorme - liiga peene koena ka rebeneb. Üleüldse jääb tal väikesest nendingust enamalt märkimata, et kui ka see "õhuke mõtte-pinnas", mida ta saab kaitsta üsna edukalt on veenev, siis ehk kõik see, mis on meile huvitav, on juba midagi muud - argumendi eeldused ja pinnas, kontseptid, raamid jm.

Kõnekad on teatud apooriad viimastes peatükkides: Nagel peab tunnistama, et empiirilistes teadustes ei piisa ainult matemaatikast/loogikast. On ka teatud intuitsioon, et asjad "on" ja et me otsime üldist "korda" või loodusseaduseid. "Korrast" saab reguleeriv Idee Kanti tähenduses. Ta peab tunnistama, et see Idee on tsirkulaarne: vaatlused sõltuvad sellest ja kinnitavad seda. Vastane juhtum, et kord on justnimelt mõistuse piirang ja ei vasta millelegi tegelikkuses, on aga lihtsalt "arutu" - me peame aksepteerima korra olemasolu, sest puudub alternatiiv (98-99).


Sarnane moment kordub viimases peatükis kui ta kaalub tõsiasja, et teadus (mida ta ei saa muidugi küsimuse alla seda oma realismi seisukohast) on jõudnud järeldusele, et meie mõistusel on sattumuslik bioloogiline kujunemislugu - see tõsiasi seab mõistuse epistemoloogilise väe küsimuse alla kuivõrd see on kujunenud eeldatavasti juhuslike mutatsioonide ja loodusliku valiku teel, mis ise ei selekteeri tingimata Tõetaju. Nähtavasti saab organism keskkonnaga kohaneda ju ka ilma matemaatika ja loogikata. Nageli jaoks on vaja seega lisaprintsiipi, mis annaks ratsionaalsusele aluse - seega eeldab ta, et vaim on üks üldisema universumi ratsionaalsuse/seaduspärasuse ilmnemisnähteid. Kas seda demonstreerib argument? Ei, siin on vaja lausa lihtsalt usku, mis selle lahendamatu konflikti mõistuse ja sattumuslikkuse vahel ületaks (146). Tüüpilise STEMlordina kaalub Nagel tõsiselt ainult bioloogilist sattumuslikkust. Tegelikult analoogsed argumendid psühholoogilisest, antropoloogilisest, ühiskondlikust sattumuslikkusest on tema jaoks täiesti ebaveenvad ning neid ta tõsiselt ei käsitlegi. Need argumendid on seotud teatud tüüpilise PoMo relativisti figuuriga, kes nähtavasti on kogu kirjatöö poleemiliseks objektiks kuigi ta figureerib tekstis ainult kaudse õlgmehikese varjuna - kõik argumendid, mida Nagel eksplitsiitselt käsitleb tulevad analüütilisest filosoofiast.


Ausa filosoofina nendib Nagel huvitaval kombel, et sellest hoolimata, et ta on ateist, hakkab see eelmainitud usk mängima sarnast rolli nagu Jumala figuur: maailma garanteerijana. Ratsionalism ja religioon lähenevad - hüpotees looduskorrast ja sellega harmoniseeruvast vaimust ei eristu vormiliselt teoloogilisest vaatest ning me peaks "religioonivaenu tõrkest" lahti saama (139). See religioonivaenulikkus on Nageli hinnangul ka kultuuri ja filosoofiat domineeriva skeptitsismi/relativismi põhjuseks. Tõepoolest looduse harmoonia on Nageli sõnastuses ülev ja ilus - mitte kauge Jumala figuurist ka emotiiv-esteetiliselt. See resoneerub kenasti Deleuze'i ja Guattari'ga, kes ütlevad, et korra postuleerimine on "Jumala otsus", Jumal on alati "äratundmise" moment.

Siia taustaks Deleuze'i esindusmõtlemise postulaadid Erinevusest ja kordusest:
1) mõtlemise "hea tahte/loomuse" eeldus, st postulaat selle olemuslikust seosest tõega (nähtavasti usu küsimus parema alternatiivi puudumisel),
2) tervemõistuse postulaat - mõistus saab ise end postuleerida universaalsena (kogu raamatu tees),
3) äratundmise postulaat - mida esindab siin hüpoteesi ja Korra Idee tsirkulaarsus.
4) esinduse postulaat - meie mõisted peegeldavad identseid nähtuseid (see on probleem, mida Nagel üldse ei puudutanud ning oli minu jaoks eriti tüütu: kui ka loogilised seosed näivad antud, siis MIDA me seostame ja MILLE eksistentsi võtame antusena?),
5) eksituse postulaat - eksitus tuleb ainult mõtlemisse väljast, sattumusest, ning pole mõtlemise enese osa (vastuargument evolutsioonist),
6) loogilise osutuse postulaat - mõttevald seondub ainult osutusega väljapoole, mis jääb mõttest sõltumatuks. See vaikiv eeldus võimaldab Nagelil lihtsa käeviipena perspektivismi kui võimaliku alternatiivse vaate suitsuks hajutada.
7) lahenduste postulaat - me saame tõe, mis kaotab probleemid - probleeme tegelikult ei eksisteerigi universumi harmoonilise ülesehituse seisukohast
8) eesmärgi või tulemuse postulaat - õppimise allutamine teadmisele ja kultuuri allutamine meetodile. Viimane on implitsiitne kogu raamatu poolehoius teadusliku realismi suhtes ning vaenlase figuuris humanitaarteaduste näol. Kultuur esineb eelkõige subjektivistliku eksitusena baastasandi ratsionaalsuse suhtes.

Kõik klapib. Mis on siin pildis siis puudu? Süübimata kõikidesse "PoMo" kriitikatesse, mida siin veel teha võiks nendin, et tegelikult piirdub teos reaalteaduste (matemaatika, loogika) apoloogia ilma selle motiivi otsese ülestunnistuseta. Hea apoloogia, hästi kirjutatud, aga enamat see ei saagi taotleda. Mis roll jääks siin üldse filosoofiale kui ta selle apoloogia on täiesti veenvalt teostanud? Igal juhul ei saa filosoofia tegeleda millegi spekulatiivsega - äratundmisemudel tingib, et temast jääb "heasüdamlik olend, kes ikka rahustab kogu kehtivat võimu, et ei tekita omalt poolt kellelegi mingit tülinat, leiab taas üles Riigi, Kiriku ja oma aja väärtused" (Deleuze). Mis oleks spekulatsioonid filosoofias? Nageli enese sõnutsi "Luululised süsteemid, mis tekitavad neile vastavaid nähtumusi." (98). [Mõistuse] Viimane sõna on juba olnud - filosoofia jääb seda lihtsalt igavesti kordama.

[Xavier]

Only read it to page 53. I will come back to this when I'm more reasonable. Reason will have the last word.
So far, it seems like an extremely refined attack on anti-rationalistic tendencies like post-modernism.
I'm on page 53. This is just a little mobile reminder to myself to finish this book. There's no real good, but there is a rational reason why I'm writing this review. It was the only way to bookmark on the go.
This review couldn't possibly contain spoilers. Other than I was looking toyhe first and second and other words. Or the one and only supercontainer that will include reason its broadest, a-rationalistic sense. Nagel was also warning against analytic philosophy and the recent philosophy. So I cannot imagine how well reasoned the rest of his reasoning is. Though, there is no doubt there's a more reasonable way of phrasing things.

[Jakub Ferencik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although, I disagree with Nagel's central thesis that rationality must be at the heart of epistemic questions, I admire Nagel's "The Last Word." It was well-written and well-argued. At times, he was repetitive but he efficiently covered the grounds that one should when briefly discussing this topic. I am walking away from this book very happy that I picked it up and decided to read it.

[Mason Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nagel tears apart the relativists and is brutally honest while doing it. I do tend to think that his very common sense view though should push him towards theism. It seems clear to me that all his positions make much more sense in the context of a creator God, than the opposite.

[Auntie Pam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Un saggio davvero difficile per me che non amo la filosofia, e non c'entra nulla che l'ho letto in spagnolo. No, è proprio un rapporto di amore ed odio quello che ho con questi temi: o mi piacciono molto o li trovo banali e uan perdita di tempo. Questo per me è stata una perdita di tempo. Secondo il mio modesto parere Nagel è una persona egocentrica, uno che anche se vuol fare finta di dare il beneficio del dubbio, in cuor suo lui non ammetterà mai che può sbagliare. Perchè dire che ogni forma di pensiero soggettivista è falsa? Perchè per lui tutto quello che è soggettivo è assurdo? Mi domando perchè per Nagel sia tanto difficile ammettere con serenità che 2+2=4 e finirla lì, ma no, lui invece insiste col dire che c'è sempre qualcosa in più per cui dibattere e l'ultima parola non sarà mai l'ultima.
Mi sembra come quei bambini (e mi sono limitata a dire bambini che potrei dire uomini e il discorso non finirebbe più) che vogliono per forza avere l'ultima parola, anche se l'ultima parola non li convince mai abbastanza. Insomma, io e Nagel siamo come due amanti: ogni tanto si amano e ogni tanto si tengono il muso!

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gegen den Relativismus. Edel. 7/10