Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False

Doesn't really understand new work on biology (especially epigenetics) and neuroscience that demolishes both the materialist/determinist/reductionist program he hates, and his own skepticism about the efficacy of evolution. He's right, though, that some precursor of intentionality, or consciousness, or at least interiority, goes all the way back to the beginnings of the universe.

Scientists are often justifiably proud of their work and how far human understanding has reached. They also can be so focused on what they know (so far) that they neglect some aspects of what they do not know. Science does not deal well with things that are not measurable in the lab. Sometimes they go so far as to claim that things that cannot be measured do not exist. This is a denial of reality as we know it. This book explains the self-contradictory flaws in existing scientific dogma. It sets out a general map for what will need to be explained in order to form a more complete theory of everything.

It was a rather fun read. I enjoyed it very much and have recommended it to several people.

My four stars are for the eloquence of this small book, truly a box of exquisite rich chocolate truffles. Each sentence is a piece to be sniffed, licked, nibbled, and swallowed slowly. Few were not re-read 2-3 times. It is the product of a great mind and unique thinker and a wonderful addition to the literature on the subject of consciousness. I just disagree with it.

I’m just a simple surgeon, a dilettante in philosophy, physics, and evolutionary biology. I read such books on my iPad so I can constantly reference Google for “ Neo-Darwinism,” “Teleology,” “monism,” etc. to review my understanding.

My companion book for this one is Penrose-Shadows of the Mind, a Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness. Both authors present the idea that there is something unique, non-reducible, and as yet not knowable-“mysterious,” about consciousness. Why? What is the double layered “mysterious mystery” of consciousness? The author fails to nail it down over and above the mystery of hydrogen and oxygen combining to produce water, which will eventually interact with the environment to produce a snowflake, each arguably unique. Other than the added layers of complexity, is the production of consciousness by our meat computer more mysterious? The electromagnetic field is measurable, even by our senses in a limited spectrum, yet its essence is a mystery. “Life” is an accepted concept as having no mysterious, extra-ordinary force or vitalism to “make it so,” yet it certainly is a mystery. Why is the mystery of consciousness more mysterious? I’m with Dennett on this.

Positing some teleology of the universe, hidden patterns, or holographic ideas about a universe unfolding is not a new idea. It is an idea expanded on by other authors with much more detail and interesting theories. Others have certainly done more concerning the incompleteness of evolutionary theories.

A terrific book. Nagel courageously critiques the standard neo-Darwinian mechanism of natural selection. Of course, natural selection is a powerful tool to understand evolution, but as the old saying goes, "That which explains everything explains nothing," and the multitudinous "just so" stories proffered by strict adherents to natural selection do just that. I can't say Nagel's attempt to rationalize a scientifically respectable version of teleology is successful, but his ideas deserve a fair hearing.

There's no doubt Nagel is a talented thinker, who thinks outside the box. He admits in the book that his comments are largely negative, meaning he has no answers, only criticisms, which is fine with me.
I admire his willingness to admit he favors neither reductive materialism nor theism - at least he's a straight-shooter, and not at all manipulated by prevailing scientific dogma.
Having said that, this book explores nothing of value. His premise is that maybe, just maybe, mind and conscience have been a part of the fabric of reality from the beginning, as much as logic, math, and physics - without the need for a creator. Its a proposition, but Nagel can't develop the idea any more than he can disprove God.
There are some ideas that might sound intriguing, but are vacuous, such as Christopher Hitchen's marveling over the event horizon. He could never experience it, see it, travel there, enjoy it, touch it, etc., but he sure loved thinking about it!
In the same way, Nagel likes to think maybe mind itself developed over time, and that given more time, we might be able to explain how that happened. It's a thought, but that's it - just a thought. It changes nothing we are dealing with now, or have dealt with in the past.
In fact, considering Nagel's proposition only makes things worse, not better. All in all, its a fair alternative to the current attitude in reductionistic scientism.

Well reasoned and intriguing treatise. The author almost gets to the crux of the issue of consciousness, but doesn't seem to quite realize how close he is to an actual resolution to the conundrums he so brilliantly outlines. He outlines the arguments right up to the point of resolution, then stops. He's like Moses on Nebo looking over into the promised land, unable to cross over into it. Or he is a Max Planck of the philosophy of mind, making the correct and brilliant observations, but stopping short of proposing a quantum solution. That was left to Einstein. There is one (a quantum solution) in this case also, that remains to be enunciated. This author isn't quite equipped to complete the journey.

this philosopher did a good job of destroying the religion of Darwinism. His case for consciousness and cognition is very strong, not to mention how evolution started in the first place. Both are items that Richard Dawkins just assumes in The Blind Watchmaker.

Nagel's mission is to raise questions about the prevailing neo-Darwinian explanation of every aspect of life as the only and definitive possible description of how the world and humans came to be the way we are. He outlines a different shoreline between physical reductionism and consciousness in this short book, albeit even the author acknowledges the shortcoming of our current perspective on reason and values in the world. Mind & Cosmos is worthwhile starting point for overcoming the physical bias in contemporary thought.

The author nicely enumerates things that Science cannot explain with existing knowledge. Scientists tend to rationalize the early history of the universe and the first life on earth by proclamation: Science will surely find the answers eventually. These gaps in our knowledge tend to be filled with little justification by theists, and so scientists tend to provide sometimes quasi-scientific explanations to counter theistic incursion. But facing our ignorance is surely a necessary step toward enlightenment, and that the author does well.

The book is heavy reading for anyone not familiar with current jargon in Philosophy -- A good dictionary is a must for the lay reader. I was amazed at the number of "isms" that can be found in the English language, each, one might suppose, representing a unique view of reality. But things get confusing when the author uses a term such as antirealism: The dictionary suggests idealism as a point of view opposed to realism, but then what is antirealism? There are also instances of an "ism" adjoined with an adjective: So what does the author mean by psychophysical monism? A glossary of terms would be a helpful addition to this book.

The book focuses on human consciousness, cognition or reason, and values. The author questions the believability of probabilistic Darwinian Theory as an explanation of these processes; the author seems to describe Darwinian Theory with a pejorative use of the word reductionism. As I understand it, the author would prefer consciousness to be an inherent part of reality that somehow manifests itself in sentient beings, but is not directly detectable as a property of fundamental particles of matter. These possibilities are very interesting, but neglect an important element of any modern-day explanation of reality: Namely, the explanation must be falsifiable. This method or something like it would be essential in determining the correct description of reality, that is, it must lend itself to scientific study. Surely, Professor Nagle isn't suggesting that we fall back on Aristotelian logic, and so a lack of reference to the scientific method is a bit of an oversight.

Materialism reduces the world to one substance: matter. Dualism adds a second substance: mind. For readers who enjoy natural explanations but regard both dualism and materialist reductionism as substance abuse, Nagel expands possibily.

There is one light. Depending on viewpoint, some see it as Christian and others see it as Buddhist and others see it as waves and others see it as particles. Can all be correct? Does the probability waveform of logic collapse as it approaches the speed of time? Nagel deftly avoids any such speculations about light or the Infinite in this book. Instead he contents himself with neutral monism, arguing for the merits of the same natural substance providing the properties of both mind and matter. And, Nagel adds, that substance comes with--but not necessarily from--a purpose. Nagel posits a nature that is self-contained but nevertheless teleological.

In THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS, Thomas Kuhn, wrote of Darwin's paradigm: "For many men the abolition of that teleological kind of evolution was the most significant and least palatable of Darwin's suggestions." That nature selects, Nagel allows. But he is proposing nothing less than a paradigm change to give that selection the horsepower required to climb the otherwise too-steep grade of human consciousness, cognition and value.

Rutherford conveniently divided science into physics and stamp collecting. The truth of physics rests on the ability of its equations to control the world. The truth of stamp collecting more often rests on consensus. Refreshingly, Nagel ignores the scientific consensus that confuses teleology with superstition. A philosopher, he has no need to imagine that consensus can substitute for Truth. Unlike the thinking of other contenders for the soul of evolution, however, Nagel's ideas are profound: they free the way for a naturalistic explanation of a universe with purpose, value, and meaning.

MIND AND COSMOS discusses the logical failures of materialist reductionism to explain consciousness, the origin of life, and the evolution of cognition, rationality and real moral value. Nagel's ideas and prose are lucid, providing a perspective that questions that materialism is the only naturalistic scientific show in town. With sound-bite clarity, Nagel describes the materialist's project as "a heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense."

Philosophy loves wisdom, not just intelligence. Intelligence is speed. Wisdom is velocity--it has both speed and direction. Nagel's little book is wisdom pure and simple. If he does not speculate about why there is something instead of nothing, he does provide a credible perspective from which to pursue an explanation of what there is. For those who love the power of scientific explanation but believe that the universe has purpose and that human reason transcends matter and that moral value is neither subjective nor arbitrary, Nagel provides an alternative naturalistic compass needle pointing in the direction of Truth rather than ideology. I hope you will love Nagel's wisdom. I did.

Great and honest read. Most of the criticisms for this book come from ideologues hiding behind the dogmatic and unquestioned assumptions about evolution as we were taught in public schools. Have an open mind and read the book.

It is tremendously significant that a figure of the stature (and establishment position) of Nagel should write a book critiquing Neo-Darwinism. Along with J. Fodor's What Darwin Got Wrong (with Piatelli-Palmateri), it shows that the mainstream science position on evolution is succumbing to the attacks of critics, like a medieval castle yielding finally to cannon shot. I think that Nagel's position, while not original, tokens the onset of a real paradigm shift. The basic issue, or starting point, as Nagel indicates virtually from page 1 is the statistical problems with randomness claims, a la Fred Hoyle of the 1978 ( along time ago in a galaxy identical to our own). This addresses the subtitle: the book's mainline is about the related issue of 'mind' in the context of brain, and then again in the context of reductionist scientism. And the evolution of 'mind' is a problem Neo-Darwinism simply cannot resolve.
The issue of Intelligent Design haunts the account, but design issues are not absolutely critical to a critique of Darwinism. And this is implicit in Nagel's discussions of naturalism. One problem is that naturalism, since we can't define it, can't be the standard, finally, to judge theories of evolution. Evolution is probably naturalistic in a way that current naturalism doesn't understand.
The issue of evolution, for man at least, has been too long constrained by genetic assumptions. But a suspicion lurks that real evolution is beyond genetics, and has a teleological character that operates in a way current theories can't handle.
The nature of 'evolution' is probably visible from the traces left in world history:
Descent of Man Revisited World History: The Hidden Clue to Human Evolution

I just finished this little yet profound book. It takes some thought and a careful read but is worth the effort. If Nagel were a scientist he would be "excommunicated". In his concluding remarks he states clearly "I have argued patiently against the prevailing form of naturalism, a reductive materialism that purports to capture life and mind through its neo-Darwinian extension." "..., I find this view antecedently unbelievable---a heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense." pg.128

Richard Dawkins please take note!

Informative but one sided discussion of the subject lacking an ultimate resolving idea to under pin his thesis,at least to my thinking.A big weakness is the complete absence of an exposition of quantum mechanics without which modern physics and technology could not exist.

We certainly live in interesting times. In our era most people are intellectually committed to physicalism [Atomic Theory of Matter, Cell Theory of Life, Germ Theory of Disease, Gene Theory of Inheritance, Evolution by Natural Selection] and at the same time most people reject reductionism notwithstanding their commitment to physicalism.

If you enjoy philosophy you'll probably enjoy this book. I believe that Nagel does a great job of framing the current state of the mind/body debate while always being mindful of the fact that neither reductionism nor antireductionism has satisfactory answers to its problems. I quite enjoyed reading the book though I was left unsatisfied by any *actual* proof that Nagel was able to provide in his arguments for antireductionism. I did appreciate that he frankly admits that his antireductionist arguments are only speculative and I believe he was fair in supporting his thoughts throughout the book. In my opinion the conclusion of the book is just brilliant and the final sentence actually made me laugh out loud: "The human will to believe is inexhaustible". I walked away feeling that Nagel supports a natural teleological view of the universe similar to the philosophy of Einstein (Spinoza's God).

If you are interested in the obstacles faced by antireductionism then you may also want to read "Darwinian Reductionism: Or, How to Stop Worrying and Love Molecular Biology" by Alexander Rosenberg. In my opinion Rosenberg does a better job of articulating the challenges of antireductionist arguments, none of which, it seems to me, Nagel is able to overcome.

3 stars because it is thought provoking and ultimately important to the "science vs faith"debate. Not 5 stars because it is dense and presumes the reader is already steeped in the philosophical depths of reductionist thinking. Would prefer if it was more accessible.

The problems in "Secular Philosophy" are yet more prominent here. If Nagel defined "naturalism" as simply description of facts about the universe, many problems would be avoided. Also, the apparent similarity to Alvin Plantinga's work would be seen as more superficial than real.

One of the very few serious philosophers who is willing to follow the logic wherever it takes him even if it leads him into territories which are too dangerous for the timid souls who judge truth by its popularity. Socrates would be proud to know that such still exist.

Let's see . . . Science can't explain everything and probably is incapable of doing so. What's new? So Nagel covers the negative side of it from all angles . . . affirms that we have right to expect some sort of approach to explanation of human thought and feeling . . . don't see what avenues he considers . . . maybe I forgot.

He is willing to show the inadequacies of Darwinian materialism, but reaches grotesque conclusions because of his unwillingness to acknowledge God. His position requires much more faith than Christians are called upon to have.

For a book that wishes to argue that the presence of conscious, rational beings anywhere in the universe suggests some immanence of 'mind' as a foundational aspect of it, I can't help but feel that this book operates in the very mechanical, unconscious, "Darwinian" way toward its readers that the author rejects in the larger context. As far as I can see, almost no attempt is made by the author to engage his readers. The book reads like a person musing to himself.

All throughout the book, paragraphs frequently open with suggestions of what the author is going to tell us, but doesn't, or references to things he has already told us, but hasn't. From just a few pages near the end I can provide several examples of this.

" All this is prelude to a larger question" (this comes seven pages, and two subchapters, into a chapter on 'Value' - did we really have to read all that earlier stuff to get to this 'larger question'?)

"This requires me to revisit something I said in the previous chapter"

"...but let me set that aside for the moment, because I want to concentrate on a specific problem...."

"Setting this issue aside,..."

All of this leads to the comically brilliant opening to the subchapter 6 on Value. Now, I am all for dry humor, but I confess that having delved most of the way into the book already, when I read this I wasn't even sure if the author WAS deliberately being humorous:

"I have not suggested an answer to the constitutive question from the standpoint of realism, only indicated the conditions such an answer would have to meet. Let me now try to say something equally inconclusive about the historical question."

There are some books, which may be a bit frustrating but nevertheless rewarding, where you read a paragraph three times because you feel after the first reading that something important is being said but you just don't quite have a handle on it.
With this book, on the other hand, you read three paragraphs, FEEL like you have just read the same paragraph thrice, DO feel that you have missed something that the author feels is important - but you don't care.

I don't know who the readers are for this book, don't think the author himself has thought through that point, and can't recommend it. I award it two stars because the premise itself is interesting and deserving of consideration. The subject is open and evolving, but it needs to be addressed in far more explicative terms than this book provides.

Can the mind be reduced to mere physio-chemical properties? Are experiences, thoughts, and feelings simply the product of chemical reactions in our brain? Atheist philosopher, Thomas Nagel, rejects such a view of the mind. In his book, Nagel points out that belief in the material reductionist view of the mind is almost certainly false.

Nagel says that if the Darwinian view of the world cannot explain the appearance of a conscious mind, then Darwinian evolution is incomplete or false. He argues that a totally new theory of biology is needed to explain consciousness. He insists that the conscious mind is something more than the complex interaction of chemicals.

What it feels like to be *you* - to experience love, pain, joy, sadness - cannot be reduced to a material substance. Complexity alone cannot solve the puzzle. No matter how complex the material substance, materialism cannot produce conscious experience, says Nagel.

Nagel maintains that conscious experience is in a different category than chemistry and physics. He is humble in his approach, yet confident that the current theory of evolutionary biology cannot explain consciousness.

## A Revision in Biology is Needed

Nagel maintains that since our current conception of biology cannot explain consciousness, a future theory of biology must take consciousness into account. In fact, a complete theory of biology will have to wrestle with consciousness as a fundamental element of nature. Consciousness may turn out to be a fundamental force of the universe - similar to space, time, and mass.

Nagel points out that scientists often cannot conceive of what future theories might look like. Scientists have a habit of thinking that the current conception of the world is true, only to accept new concepts as they arise and give us a better understanding of the world.

## Materialism as Religious Dogma

It is currently popular to accept the view that reduces the mind to chemical-physical properties. All proper thinking scientists hold such dogma. A view that Nagel says in a few generations time, will be laughable.

Nagel's view of science reminds me of that of F.A. Hayek who said of the science economics: "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."

Scientists have imagined that they can construct a materialist worldview that incorporates consciousness, but Nagel says this is hubris. Consciousness minds - thoughts, feelings - are more than chemical-physical properties.

Nagel says:
>One of the legitimate tasks of philosophy is to investigate the limits of even the best developed and most successful forms of contemporary scientific knowledge. It may be frustrating to acknowledge, but we are simply at the point in the history of human thought at which we find ourselves, and our successors will make discoveries and develop forms of understanding of which we have not dreamt. Humans are addicted to the hope for a final reckoning, but intellectual humility requires that we resist the temptation to assume that tools of the kind we now have are in principle sufficient to understand the universe as a whole.

## Consciousness Without God

Nagel is an atheist and does not leave room for God to explain consciousness. But, he says that he came to his views about consciousness by taking serious the arguments against materialism set forth by theist such as Alvin Plantiga.

## Conclusion

I find Nagel's reasoning intuitively appealing and down to earth. We all have the ability to introspect - to feel, to think, and to recognize that we have free will. It is only when someone learns a little philosophy that they try to eliminate free-will and adopt a material-reductionist view consciousness.

Nagel's view will probably appeal to those of who find the puzzle of consciousness inherently mysterious. While the material-reductionist view of consciousness has an aesthetic simplicity, it does not seem to take into account the datum we collect from introspection.

Science explains that snow flake patterns are unique, so the likelihood of any individual snowflake occurring during the history of the planet is essentially zero. Hence blizzards & avalanches suggest the universe has an overarching purpose.

For more than 100,000 generations, Nagel's ancestors bred in an environment where understanding the purposes of those around you was essential to survival. Not surprising he thinks purposeless is unnatural.

If complexity can emerge from combinations of simple components, and interact iteratively with its surroundings, then some complexities may persist, & others die out. Nothing succeeds like success. More complex systems interact in more complex ways, so complexity will sometimes increase. What will arise may depend on tiny details, & hence is unpredictable. But it shouldn't be surprising that something happens, or that, looking back, many of the specific results will have depended on rare events. If you think explosive diversity in emergent properties of increasingly complex systems is an inherent property of the universe, I'm with you. Calling it "purpose" debases the language.

To be fair, Nagel calls it "teleology", which is not that bad & maybe even worth calling our attention to.

Nagel's argument goes something like this: Consciousness, reason, and value exist. However, the concepts and methods of natural science (as currently conceived) cannot account for their existence. Therefore, we need a new and more inclusive "teleological" science that can explain these phenomena (plus everything else in the universe). Refreshingly, Nagel rejects the dogma that anything not explicable by physics cannot "really" exist, but his proposed new science is a bare proposal only, completely unfleshed out. This doesn't bother Nagel because he believes that our ignorance is vast and that current scientific theories are sure to be superseded eventually. "Mind and Cosmos" is thought-provoking and the writing is quite clear, but the argument is intricate. The book probably needs to be read twice to be fully appreciated.

Peter Hichens recently concluded a review of A.C. Grayling's recent book The God Argument: The Case Against Religion and for Humanismwith an interesting question. He said that the interesting question about God was not so much whether he exists or not, but why both sides of the argument want their answer to be right. Are protagonists on both sides of the debate more worried about being right, or being wrong?

This book is interesting because it comes from an Atheist philosopher, who is challenging some of the most sacred and cherished beliefs of atheism. Specifically he challenges whether the reduction of all life and knowledge to smaller and smaller parts provides an adequate explanation of the world as it is, or as it is experienced in our consciousness. His conclusion is that it is not an adequate or complete explanation of how things are. He does not think this is just because of gaps in current knowledge that will eventually be filled. He thinks the idea of reducing everything to physics and chemistry is neither sensible nor justifiable, or even a rational hope.

Nagel is really pointing out a flaw in the paradigm of materialism. I think he achieves what he is trying to show, and in this he is echoing the work of many others who have challenged the attempt to reduce all life and experience to physics and chemistry.

In saying this Nagel is going against the current atheistic materialist consensus advocated strongly by many of the disciples of Dawkins. They will dislike this book and think it is wrong -as they deny the existence of anything that is not material as nonsense, no existence and utterly immaterial. They say they will alter their minds if "new evidence emerges to support extra-ordinary claims"; but they have such tight rules of evidence that there's no type of evidence they could admit as credible.

Nagel has written a well argued critique of materialism and reductionism and it is well worth reading. It joins a growing list of significant books such as Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity and Philosophical Foundations of Neurosciencethat challenge the idea that we are nothing but physical and chemical reactions. I think he achieves the demonstration of the incompleteness of materialism well. I am less sure his suggested alternatives are fully successful.

Agree or disagree with him (passionately or vehemently), one must grant that Nagel is a very deep thinker. Granted, many reviewers don't grant this point at all, on the purported grounds that Nagel's ideas (here and elsewhere) are in the 'creationist' mold. I understand the concern behind this sort of criticism, and I see, on the other hand, how modern-day creationist design theorists might appropriate Nagel to their own ends. But Nagel, it seems to me, is equally unsympathetic to the extremes of both evolutionary and design theoretic claims. And though the questions he raises are those of a philosopher, not those of a scientist, they are no less striking, important, and -- as yet -- intractable for that fact. I'm in no position to judge the merits of Nagel's speculations (though appreciate that he himself ventures them in a speculative spirit), but I see no evidence, with him, that the questions they're addressed to have been decided (as responsible scientists or irresponsible metaphysicians might claim). As such, they remain -- as they should -- open for consideration, reasoned inquiry, and continuing investigation. Once again, Nagel has me thinking...

The author casts doubts on the reigning materialist Neo-Darwinian conception of nature and on psychophysical reductionism, especially on human consciousness, reason and values. He poses the unusual but crucial question "how to understand nature as a system capable of generating mind" instead of the usual efforts to understand mind as a product of nature (p. 72). Rejecting the intelligent design hypothesis, the author tentatively suggests a secular teleological view of the cosmos in the direction of emergence of life, and later human consciousness and reason.
This is exciting iconoclasm of widely accepted views on which modern sciences are based. Thus, the arguments refute the hopes of cognitive sciences to explain consciousness as a reflection of material processes of the brain. As admitted by the author, the presented alternative hypotheses are speculations, but they stimulate fresh rethinking of what is all too easily widely accepted.
I have problems with some arguments, such as reliance on "common sense" (e.g., pp. 5, 7), on what is "plainly undeniable" (p, 29), and the "evident truths of ethics" (p. 31); neglect of the importance of religions as grounding of values; regarding most of "reasoning" as conscious, with downgrading of tacit and depth processes; rejecting very low probability possibilities as "too accidental to count as a genuine explanation (p.94); and complete neglect of the possibility that the proposed teleology of "the universe gradually waking up" (p.117) may include a tendency built into humanity to create a super-human species while terminating its own existence.
Only at the end does the author mentions that "It is perfectly possible that the truth is beyond our reach, in virtue of our intrinsic cognitive limitations" (p.128). Indeed, I think that it is very likely that only a meta-mind may be able to understand the human mind and its evolution. This fits the opinion of the author in other writings that humans cannot achieve a "view from nowhere." Such fundamental problematic should have been discussed at length at the beginning of the book.
These and other problems in no way diminish the importance of this book, which is recommended to all who want to consider unconventional perspectives of the place of humanity in the cosmos, while taking a critical look on purely physical-causal views of the universe.

Professor Yehezkel Dror
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Expected moré. Too repetitive and going around in circle. Could have explained his position in a fraction of the book. His language at times was nebulous and thus difficult to follow. Struggled to really understand his position. Author tried to explain the conflict between Darwinism and philosophy in very esoteric terms and thus did not hold my attention. Struggled to finish book. Not a Dawkins essay.

Incoherent and largely unintelligible but mercifully short thought piece asserting that "Mind" (a concept Nagel never defines) cannot be explained by scientific theory. Nagel then leaps into a Deepak Chopra-esque abyss of assertions that "Mind" and consciousness are necessary conditions for the creation and existence of the Universe. The author's straw man is Darwinian natural selection through random mutation a la Dawkins and Dennett (i.e., "reductionist materialism") all easy victims to attack especially when you don't explain what they are. Nagel is dying to find a purpose in
the Universe and seizes on "Mind" and consciousness as the cosmic goal.The author digs himself in deeper by asserting values as a source of objective truth instead of the source of subjective judgments. His efforts to treat intelligent design as a legitimate argument are used to support his
faith in a universe with a purpose to create consciousness. This is nothing more than poorly disguised and weakly argued theism. Nagel spends his little book beating up straw men and grasping at straws. Pass.

Although Nagel identifies as an atheist, his argument is a new variant on the "intelligent design" movement of the late 90s. His basic argument is that existing scientific paradigms cannot explain consciousness. In a reversal of the conventional scientific wisdom, Nagel insists that it is mind that is the fundamental teleological force behind nature, not vice versa. Nevertheless, Nagel rejects theistic intelligent design as a viable explanation for the mind-oriented nature of the universe. So, what is Nagel's non-theistic, non-Darwinian explanation for the development of minds?

He offers none. Not only does Nagel punt the solution to future generations of scientists, but his discussion of the problem is almost completely derivative of standard, 10+-years'-old intelligent design arguments. Indeed, Nagel's discussion of the problem of consciousness consists almost entirely of mere assertions of personal incredulity, citations of intelligent design advocates, and the recitation of perceived unbridgeable explanatory gaps in existing evolutionary theory.

Not only are Nagel's so-called arguments better characterized as a collection of chatty ruminations about the explanatory shortcomings of Darwinism, but his core claim that consciousness is the ultimate defeater of Neo-Darwininism is wholly unpersuasive.As a theist, I will readily concur with Nagel that the following is a truly astonishing cumulative chain of events: emergence of consciousness --> emergence of cortex --> emergence of reproduction --> emergence of life --> emergence of a life-permitting universe from a singularity --> who the hell knows? However, unlike, Nagel, I do not not think consciousness is the most remarkable event in the chain. Rather, the big bang itself and then the emergence of self-reproducing life are the most mind-blowing from a purely naturalistic perspective. If we accept these prerequisite events as given, once we get to the point where there are beings with brains that are gradually evolving to accrue more more tissue and folds, then the emergence of consciousness starts to seem less remarkable. Instead, it strikes me as being reasonably continuous with pre-conscious life forms and their process of adaptation. Although staggeringly impressive and far from fully understood, the possibility and basic building blocks of human consciousness seem to be present in lower life forms--these include sensory processing, memory formation, goal-directed behavior, evaluative response, and some basic awareness of self. What's the fuss about?

Nagel's book starts with the premise that science needs to be re-oriented around consciousness (mind) as the fundamental principle underlying nature, but he has nothing to offer beyond vague intelligent design "arguments" (incredulous observations about the limits of contemporary science as he sees them). The whole enterprise smells suspiciously self-serving and myopic: Should we be surprised that a man who has spent his career using his mind to reflect on the philosophy of mind has come to the conclusion that the fundamental driver and substrate of nature is mind. Call it the qualiacentric theory of the universe. It's like the economist who sees everything in terms of decisions about scarce resources or the neo-Marxist who sees everything in relation to hidden power politics of dominance and oppression: When all you have is a hammer, it appears that the universe hinges on nails.

Thomas Nagel (born 1937) is an American philosopher, currently University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, where he has taught since 1980. He has written many other books, such as Mortal Questions,Equality and Partiality,The Possibility of Altruism,The Last Word,What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy,The View From Nowhere, etc.

He wrote in the Introduction to this 2012 book, “The aim of this book is to argue that the mind-body problem is not just a local problem, having to do with the relation between mind, brain, and behavior in living animal organisms, but that it invades our understanding of the entire cosmos and its history. The physical sciences and evolutionary biology cannot be kept insulated from it, and I believe that a true appreciation of the difficulty of the problem must eventually change our conception of the place of the physical sciences in describing the natural order… My target is a comprehensive speculative world picture that is reached by extrapolation from some of the discoveries of biology, chemistry, and physics---a particular naturalistic Weltanschaaung that postulates a hierarchical relation among the subjects of those sciences, and the completeness in principle of an explanation of everything in the universe through their unification…

“The starting point for the argument is the failure of psychophysical reductionism, a position in the philosophy of mind that is largely motivated by the hope of showing how the physical sciences could in principle provide a theory of everything … I believe the weight of evidence favors some form of neutral monism over the traditional alternatives of materialism, idealism, and dualism… for a long time I have found the materialist account of how we and our fellow organisms came to exist hard to believe, including the standard version of how the evolutionary process works. The more details we learn about the chemical basis of life and the intricacy of the genetic code, the more unbelievable the standard historical account becomes… it seems to me that … the current orthodoxy about the cosmic order is the product of governing assumptions that are unsupported, and that it flies in the face of common sense.” (Pg. 3-5)

He states, “There are two questions. First, given what is known about the chemical basis of biology and genetics, what is the likelihood that self-reproducing life forms should have come into existence spontaneously on the early earth, solely through the operation of the laws of physics and chemistry? The second question is about the sources of variation in the evolutionary process that was set in motion once life began: In the available geological time since the first life forms appeared on earth, what is the likelihood that, as a result of physical accident, a sequence of viable genetic mutations should have occurred that was sufficient to permit natural selection to produce the organisms that actually exist?” (Pg. 6)

He adds, “My skepticism is not based on religious belief, or on a belief in any definite alternative. It is just a belief that the available scientific evidence, in spite of the consensus of scientific opinion, does not in this matter rationally require us to subordinate the incredulity of common sense. This is especially true with regard to the origin of life… If contemporary research in molecular biology leaves open the possibility of legitimate doubts about a fully mechanistic account of the origin and evolution of life, dependent only on the laws of chemistry and physics, this can combine with the failure of psychophysical reductionism to suggest that principles of a different kind are also at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic.” (Pg. 7)

He continues, “I confess to an ungrounded assumption of my own, in not finding it possible to regard the design alternative as a real option… my speculations about an alternative to physics as a theory of everything do no invoke a transcendental being but tend toward complications to the immanent character of the natural order… I disagree with the defenders of intelligent design in their assumption, one which they share with their opponents, that the only naturalistic alternative is a reductionist theory based on physical laws of the type with which we are familiar. Nevertheless, I believe the defenders of intelligent design deserve our gratitude for challenging a scientific world view that owes some of the passion displayed by its adherents precisely to the fact that it is thought to liberate us from religion.” (Pg. 12) But later on, he acknowledges that he is an atheist. (Pg. 95)

Later, he adds, “I do not find theism any more credible than materialism as a comprehensive world view. My interest is in the territory between them. I believe that these two radically opposed conceptions of ultimate intelligibility cannot exhaust the possibilities… But would an alternative secular conception be possible that acknowledged mind and all that it implies, not as the expression of divine intention but as a fundamental principle of nature along with physical law? Could it take the form of a unified conception of the natural order, even as it tries to accommodate a richer set of materials than the austere elements of mathematical physics?” (Pg. 22) He states, “To my mind, apart from the difficulty of believing in God, the disadvantage of theism as an answer to the desire for comprehensive understanding is not that it offers no explanations but that it does not do so in the form of a comprehensive account of the natural order. Theism pushes the quest for the intelligibility outside the world… Another response to this situation is to think that there may be a completely different type of systematic account of nature, one that makes these neither brute facts that are beyond explanation not the products of divine intervention. That, at any rate, is my ungrounded intellectual preference.” (Pg. 26)

His basic thesis is: “If one doubts the reducibility of the mental to the physical, and likewise of all those other things… such as value and meaning, then there is some reason to doubt that a reductive materialism can apply even in biology, and therefore reason to doubt that materialism can give an adequate account even of the physical world… it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that those aspects of our physical constitution that bring with them that mental cannot be fully explained by physical science either. If evolutionary biology is a physical theory… then it cannot account for the appearance of consciousness and of other phenomena that are not physically reducible. So if mind is a product of biological evolution … then biology cannot be a purely physical science. The possibility opens up of a pervasive conception of the natural order very different from materialism---one that makes mind central, rather than a side effect of physical law.” (Pg. 14-15)

He adds, “My guiding conviction is that mind is not just an afterthought or an accident or an add-on, but a basic aspect of nature.” (Pg. 16) Later, he says, “what is the alternative? That is really my question. The implausibility of the reductive program that is needed to defend the completeness of this kind of naturalism provides a reason for trying to think of alternatives… Something more is needed to explain how there can be conscious, thinking creatures whose bodies and brains are composed of those elements.” (Pg. 20)

He argues, “an evolutionary self-understanding would almost certainly require us to give up moral realism---the natural conviction that our moral judgments are true or false independent of our beliefs. Evolutionary naturalism implies that we shouldn’t take any of our convictions seriously, including the scientific world picture on which evolutionary naturalism itself depends.” (Pg. 28)

He summarizes, “I have argued that the physical sciences will not enable us to understand the irreducibly subjective centers of consciousness that are such a conspicuous part of the world.” (Pg. 42) And, “The problem, then, is this: What kind of explanation of the development of these organisms, even one that includes evolutionary theory, could account for the appearance of organisms that are not only physically adapted to the environment but also conscious objects? In brief, I believe that it cannot be a purely physical explanation… The claim I want to defend is that, since the conscious character of these organisms is one of their most important features, the explanation of the coming into existence of such creatures must include an explanation of the appearance of consciousness… An account of their biological evolution must explain the appearance of conscious organisms as such.” (Pg. 44-45)

He suggests, “A naturalistic expansion of evolutionary theory to account for consciousness would not refer to the intentions of a designer. But if it aspires to explain the appearance of consciousness as such, it would have to offer some account of why the appearance of conscious organisms, and not merely behaviorally complex organisms, was likely.” (Pg. 48) Later, he adds, “if we are trying to imagine a secular theory… there seem to be only two alternatives: either this development itself depends entirely on efficient causation, operating in its later stages through the mechanisms of biological evolution, or there are natural teleological laws governing the development of organization over time, in addition to laws of the familiar kind governing the behavior of the elements.” (Pg. 66)

Later, he adds, “[if] intentionality, thought, and action resist psychophysical reduction and can exist only in the lives of beings that are also capable of consciousness, then they too form part of what a larger explanation of the mental must account for.” (Pg. 68) He asserts, “Just as consciousness cannot be explained as a mere extension or complication of physical evolution, so reason cannot be explained as a mere extension or complication of consciousness. To explain our rationality will require something in addition to what is needed to explain our consciousness and its evidently adaptive forms, something at a different level.” (Pg. 81)

He states, “Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself… This, then, is what a theory of everything has to explain: not only the emergence from a lifeless universe of reproducing organisms and their development by evolution to greater and greater functional complexity; not only the consciousness of some of these organisms and its central role in their lives; but also the development of consciousness into an instrument of transcendence that can grasp objective reality and objective value.” (Pg. 85) Later, he adds, “An adequate conception of the cosmos must contain the resources to account for how it could have given rise to beings capable of thinking successfully about what is good and bad, right and wrong, and discovering moral and evaluative truths that do not depend on their own beliefs.” (Pg. 106)

He proposes, “I am drawn to a fourth alternative, natural teleology… as an account of the existence of the biological possibilities on which natural selection can operate. I believe that teleology is a naturalistic alternative that is distinct from all three of the other candidate explanations: chance, creationism, and directionless physical law… Teleology means that in addition to physical law of the familiar kind, there are other laws of nature that are ‘biased toward the marvelous.’” (Pg. 91-92)

He acknowledges in his conclusion, “It is perfectly possible that the truth is beyond our reach, in virtue of our intrinsic cognitive limitations, and not merely beyond our grasp in humanity’s present stage of intellectual development. But I believe …. that it makes sense to go on seeking a systematic understanding of how we and other living things fit into the world… I would be willing to bet that that present right-thinking consensus will come to seem laughable in a generation or two---though of course it may be replaced by a new consensus that is just as invalid. The human will to believe is inexhaustible.” (Pg. 128)

This is one of the most thought-provoking critiques of evolutionary theory I have read; the purely “philosophical” (rather than “scientific”) nature of Nagel’s arguments will likely not persuade many with a “scientific” frame of reference, but he presents an atheistic alternative to Creationism, Intelligent Design, and similar theories. (He only briefly mentions Stuart Kaufmann’s books [e.g., At Home in the Universe]---on pg. 9---but I think those who enjoy this book may also like Kaufmann. They may also like philosopher Jerry Fodor’s What Darwin Got Wrong.)

**edited version 1.0**

Couple years before I read Mind and Cosmos, my friend invited me to his university (NYU) to attend Nagel's lecture in the course Philosophy of Mind. Ironically, Nagel was giving a lecture about the Chalmers' argument from the Hard Problem of Consciousness, which in hindsight felt like it foreshadows of what will happen in the near future. My friend once remarked to Nagel, "If it turns out that consciousness is, in some sense, fundamentally different from mere physical matter, then the whole scientific worldview of the cosmos will change". To my friend's surprise, Nagel responds with full hearted agreement. At the time neither I nor my friend have really read what Nagel had written before, so we did not take Nagel's response as any significant indication of he thought deep inside until I read Nagel's book Mind and Cosmos.

Aside from Nagel's elegant writing style, his thesis is very bold and radical when one considers that it is written in the backdrop of the intellectual climate of academic philosophy and modern science that is predominantly naturalistic. Furthermore, the scientific climate of evolutionary biologists seems to lean towards a kind of reductionism. Nagel's overall thesis is a bit complex, but it can be understood in twofold (Nagel did not make this distinction): the negative thesis and the positive thesis. The former consists in a critique of the materialist and reductionist interpretation of the theory of evolution, while the latter consists in arguing for an alternative naturalistic world-view that allows teleology to have its place in the natural world.

With the negative thesis, Nagel wants to argue that the materialist and reductionist interpretation of the Neo-Darwinian theory of evolution is (almost) false because of the irreducibility of consciousness, the capacity of reason (i.e. cognition) to access objective reality (as well as the problem of intentionality), and the obviousness of value realism. It is important to emphasize that Nagel does not reject evolution, however he does reject the idea that the process of evolution should be understood purely in the light of materialism. What he argues is that If consciousness is irreducible, then according to Nagel the physical evolutionary process of natural selection, which happens at the genetic level, is insufficient to explain how consciousness is possible. Secondly, Nagel argues that the materialist understanding of evolutionary theory cannot explain why our cognitive faculties have access to objective reality. This is where it appears that Nagel is in agreement with Alvin Plantinga that the naturalistic evolution as understood by many scientists and philosophers implies that our cognitive abilities would be too unreliable to yield an objective understanding of the world (including the theory of evolution itself). Lastly, Nagel believes that, assuming that the materialist understanding of evolutionary theory is true, moral (or value) realism is incompatible with the Darwinian attempt to explain faculties of moral judgment by natural selection

With the positive thesis, Nagel tries to present an alternative view of naturalism. Surprisingly, Nagel insists that the teleological conception of Nature should be brought back with some modifications. Obviously, Nagel is not arguing for the elaborate classical scholastic or Aristotelian conception of teleology (although he seems to agree with some of its basics), instead the kind of teleology Nagel has in mind is the propensity or predisposition of the intelligible natural order to give rise to consciousness, reason, and value in the natural cosmos. This includes the idea of a psychophysical law which does not reduce consciousness to matter, but rather establishes the relation between mind and matter that is fundamental to the cosmos. This kind of predisposition of the natural and intelligible order of Nature precludes the idea that the capacity of life for consciousness, reason, and value is simply the byproducts of "chance" or "accident", since it makes it very likely that the natural world will yield life with consciousness, reason, and value. This is why Nagel said earlier in his introduction that the current scientific consensus on the origin of life seems implausible to him in so far as it goes against his common sense, it seems very unusual to accept the idea that life is simply the byproduct of some accident.

Nagel undoubtedly presents some very interesting philosophical problems with interesting implications, mainly that if the philosophical problems are not confined to philosophy but extends towards sciences, then the scientific worldview is incomplete. However, the critiques Nagel lays out are not without problems. For one thing, Nagel's arguments partially depend on his appeal to common sense intuition. What does this mean? I suspect what this probably means is that Nagel finds it hard to believe that our existence which displays the power of reason, consciousness, and values are merely "accidents" in the cosmic history, in other words our existence may not have been probable but it did happen. However, I don't think Nagel will gain any sympathy from his critics by appealing to commonsense given that throughout the history of science such appeals turns out to be wrong. Nagel's arguments in cognition are every bit problematic as that of Plantinga's. Both argue that evolution on the basis of natural selection seems unlikely to produce species with very reliable cognition, given that abilities are selected on the basis of fitness rather than truth value. If cognitions are naturally selected on the basis of fitness, then there is no reason a priori to think that we should expect to have a very reliable cognitive abilities; it might be reliable for survival purposes, but not really reliable for truth purposes. Nagel thinks that natural selection cannot explain why our cognition has the astounding power to access reality objectively, since natural selection can only explain why our cognition has the power to help us to survive. There are at least two problems with this: First, it is possible for human beings to use their natural abilities for purposes that were not "intended" by natural selection. The human hand is not naturally selected to paint or invent ingenious technology, but it is used for purposes not intended by natural selection. Likewise, the human cognition was initially selected for the purpose of survival, but it is possible that we use it for non-survival purposes such as science. Second, it seems that Nagel is unaware that evolutionary psychology has made significant progress in explaining human cognition, but this time it has explained why human cognition is significantly, but not fundamentally, unreliable when it comes to knowing the truth. The fact that our cognition is bombarded with abundant examples of cognitive biases from psychological essentialist bias (including attribution-situation bias) to confirmation bias apparently confirms that our cognition was naturally selected to be cognitively biased in order to survive. Such cognitive biases are highly unreliable in knowing the truth, but they have survival value. However, the cognitive biases do not render our cognition fundamentally incapable or impotent in knowing the truth. Even if we have cognitive biases, we still can know the truth but we have the tendency to select which part of the truth is relevant to our survival.

Nagel's argument against contemporary evolution in the section of values is probably one of the arguments I find to be problematic. Nagel uses Street's arguments to show that there is the Darwinian dilemma: if natural selection can explain the faculties of our moral judgment in terms of fitness, then there is no room for moral facts to explain our moral judgments. If our moral judgments are driven by fitness, then there does not seem to be any room for considering moral facts in themselves. In this sense, Nagel thinks evolutionary morality implies that moral realism is false. However, I do not think the argument is successful. Suppose that natural selection does explain why we have the faculties of moral judgment in terms of fitness, it does not follow from this that moral facts do not exist. What Nagel assumes is that moral facts play not explanatory role in our faculties of moral judgment if natural section does it all, but this is using Ockham's razor to deny the existence of moral facts. The problem here is that Ockham's razor does not deny things, but simply suggests that we should not "multiply entities beyond necessities", which means we should not postulate more entities than we need to explain the phenomena. This is the similar criticism that Walter Sinnott-Armstrong made in Moral Skepticism.

However, I cannot say very much about his value realism other than the fact that despite being aware of the problems of value realism he does not consider some of the arguments from the harshest critics such as J.L. Mackie. Nagel does not show that he is aware of some of the deep problems with moral realism, namely that it is difficult to conceive how they fit into the natural world. This is partly because Nagel rejects the materialistic understanding of the natural world, but even if one does reject the materialistic understanding of the natural world it is still difficult to see how moral facts can exist in the natural world since postulating moral facts can come close to postulating platonic forms. I also cannot say very much about his arguments in the section of consciousness since I pretty much agree with him that consciousness is the hard problem in philosophy, one of the strongest objection against materialism whether it is present is evolutionary selection or not.

While I am sympathetic with the philosophical problems Nagel poses to the materialistic understanding of evolution, I find myself strongly disagreeing with his positive thesis of the natural world. I can understand Nagel's problem with materialistic interpretation of evolution when it comes to consciousness, reason, and perhaps value. However, I cannot see how Nagel's alternative picture of the cosmos is any more plausible than the philosophical problems he pointed out to the materialism. This is in part because Nagel's alternative teleological picture of the cosmos is blatantly anthropocentric. While Nagel says that his teleological picture of the cosmos does not exclude animals, insects, and eukaryotes, it is obvious that within the teleological picture of the cosmos the species that is the converging epitome of consciousness, reason, and value would be homo sapiens (as far as we know, since there could be other intelligent species out there). What Nagel's teleological worldview implies is that if we were to go all the way back to the big bang, we should expect that around 14 billions of years from now the cosmos will yield homo sapiens as the end. In other words, the cosmos is meant to produce conscious intelligent life with values. I find this teleological picture of the cosmos to be highly implausible (though not physically impossible), given that teleology has been done away with ever since Scientific Revolution. Furthermore, Nagel's teleology would make this book seems to be more or less like the watered down secular or naturalistic version of Teilhard de Chardin's Phenomenon of Man, especially since Nagel's Omega Point would be living beings capable of consciousness, reason, and values. Nonetheless, analyzing the resemblance between them does not go further, but it serves to illustrate why I find Nagel's teleology to be potentially anthropocentric. One cannot help but notice that Nagel does not provide further positive arguments for his teleological alternative to naturalism when it seems that he should since there is a huge burden of proof on Nagel's position. However, I concede that the comments I made so far are not knock-down arguments against Nagel's alternative view, but rather I think the review I have written is meant to express concerns about Nagel's alternative view (among other things).

Overall, I find Nagel's positive thesis to be unsatisfying. I think his critiques are worth considering (despite my criticisms), especially given that Nagel shows that the problem of consciousness and intentionality extends to modern scientific theories of the world. Whether or not you agree with Nagel in the light of what you read in this review, I think people should try to read it for themselves to decide whether or not they agree with Nagel's arguments and conclusions. I understand why this book is controversial, but I don't think there is an excuse for uncharitable reading of Nagel's Mind and Cosmos.

***Some Reconsideration: Critical Postscript****
***re-edited version of the review***
There are some reconsiderations I must honestly make after a few months:

(1) I think Nagel overexaggerates the prominence of reductionism in science, especially in evolutionary biology. Theoretical reductionism is in fact quite rare in the sciences (i.e. reducing chemistry to quantum mechanics), whereas unification is often the goal that scientists aim for.
(2) Nagel's criticism on Neo-Darwinism is somewhat of a strawman, most evolutionary biologists are not Neo-Darwinists because they do not accept adaptationism. In other words, most evolutionary biologists do not think that *every* (or most) biological features are byproducts of natural selection, since there are other possible mechanisms such as genetic drift, kin selection, etc.
(3) Nagel seems to conflate evolutionary biology with evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychologists try to extend the law of natural selection, and other principles from evolutionary biology, to our overall psychology in order to explain our behavior (i.e. reproductive strategies or social hierarchy) in terms of adaptation. Evolutionary psychologists tend to be (but are not always) adaptationists about the mind, but not all evolutionary biologists accept this because one issue with evolutionary psychology is "just-so stories", in other words speculating explanations in terms of stories that are not easily testable since the brain is too soft to fossilize (nonetheless, evolutionary psychology has made significant progress by other means). In other words, our current theory of evolution does not necessarily imply strong-adaptationism of the mind, this is not confirmed yet. Nonetheless Nagel seems to believe that this is exactly what evolutionary biology amounts to.
(4) Nagel complains that the theory of evolution is incomplete because it cannot explain the nature of our mind. However, here's the problem: Every evolutionary biologists *already* know that the theory of evolution is incomplete to begin with because it has *not yet* explained our mind, that is why evolutionary psychology is still a frontier science in working progress, evolutionary psychologists are still trying to explain how the mind works. Read Pinker's How The Mind Works. Evolutionary biologists are still making more hypothesis to test the theory, so far it has been successful but they still have more progress to make. There are so many things it still has to explain, nonetheless it is a very successful theory. Nagel's critique, then, seems highly uncharitable and trivial. However, to be fair to Nagel, he is pointing out how the explanatory gap extends to evolutionary biology, but to me this is no different from saying the explanatory gap extends to neuroscience and psychology, yet we don't complain that neuroscience and psychology are deficient and incomplete because they are still frontier science.
(5) Nagel appeals to intuition many times, I think this is a hindrance to his position than an asset. I normally would not say this because I think intuitions are important resources (if not evidence) for thought-experiments and developing positions when empirical evidence are not available in philosophical problems. However, if Nagel is going to criticize the theory of evolution as well as the consensus of the community of evolutionary biologists, he has to do far more than just appeal to his intuition and base his entire argument on it. Otherwise, I'm not sure why scientists and philosophers with scientific leanings should take his criticisms seriously.
(6) Nagel gives a little too much credence to Plantinga's critique on the naturalistic version of evolution, he isn't aware that evolution explains our horrible epistemic rationality bombarded with cognitive biases. Ironically, Plantinga's critique is more or less a confirmation of naturalistic evolution than theistic evolution (or perhaps it's indeterminate between both). I think his reasons for being sympathetic to Plantinga's critique on naturalistic evolution are misguided.
(7) Overall, I think Nagel's critique on evolutionary biology is unwarranted and I think his sympathy with intelligent design shows how much he doesn't understand the nuances evolutionary biology.
(8) Nagel's teleology is much more modern than the aristotelian version, but nonetheless it is contrary to what we know so far about the world. He could have done much more to support his teleological vision, because if he is criticizing a worldview based on the best sciences yet present an alternative that is not based on our current sciences then his alternative is highly unconvincing and impoverished. The burden of proof is on Nagel to justify his alternative, it is unfair to say that he should not simply because he doesn't intend to do so.

I still respect Nagel, I still think his book Mind and Cosmos can be interesting to read, but overall I think what essentially made his book very problematic and disappointing is his unwarranted criticisms against the theory of evolution. In my opinion, he should at least have postponed publication, read more about evolutionary psychology/biology, and rewrite his book. I do not want to contemplate the worst case counterfactual scenario...

Intriguing thesis from a philosopher who has already rightfully achieved such an eminence that he is allowed to publish a book doing what most people do all the time but have no hope of gaining any eminence for at all: argue that there is something wrong with the existing theory without offering any alternative. But Nagel really is great—careful, thorough, sensitive, etc.—so this one really is worth a read.

This is what I wrote down to be Nagel's thesis when I was taking notes (from pages 4 and 32):

I.

1) The speculative worldview that a) there is a hierarchical relationship between physics, chemistry, and biology, and b) a complete explanation of the universe can be attained through their unification, is false.

2) The starting point for the argument is the failure of psychophysical reductionism, i.e., the failure of reducing mind to matter.

3) The likelihood that a) self-reproducing molecules should come into existence and b) sufficient genetic mutations should have occurred in the given time has not been established as probable.

4) Therefore, growth of order may be teleological (changing toward some goal, in some sense of “purposefully”) rather than mechanistic (mindless, with no goal).

II.

1) The failure of both theism and naturalism leads to the hope for an expanded but still naturalistic understanding. This expanded understanding would still be unified, and would have to include teleological elements (goal-oriented rather than mechanistic).

2) This understanding would explain how the appearance of life and consciousness etc. are not accidental side effects of the laws of nature but unsurprising if not inevitable consequences of the order that governs the natural world.

The part I find intriguing is that teleological explanation may be fundamental to the universe (that things may be in some sense purposefully changing toward some goal), and the part I find unconvincing and possibly belying a lack of understanding by Nagel is the failure of evolution as a complete explanation (I think everything Dawkins has ever written about evolution is perfectly plausible and complete as an explanation of the existence of life—see note 2 p. 5 for Nagel’s dissent). These two beliefs of mine may be contradictory, but I haven’t yet thought about it enough to feel it essential to my well-being that I harmonize them.

I've never been satisfied with the options provided by religion or science when it comes to providing an explanation of all and everything. Religion always seemed too convenient, but science (in practice if not in principle) seemed to leave so much out. That's what made Nagel's book so refreshing for me. With the clarity of a world-class philosopher, he lays out the reasons science doesn't (and can't) give a full explanation of all the facts in the universe, but he retains the importance of reason, and doesn't fall back on some "God in the gaps" to explain everything that is so far unexplainable. He lays out a trajectory for future thinking about the universe, and a way to see the world as it is, given what we currently know.

Nagel's argument is clear and concise (one hundred twenty-something pages), each section building on the last, and by the end, his point is clear, and for me at least, it's difficult to see the alternatives as anything but self-contradictory fantasies. Nagel begins by arguing against materialism and reductionism, which has been done successfully by others without too much difficulty. But he then builds on this in layers, showing the absurdity of materialistic thinking when it comes to the origin of life, consciousness, reason, and value. Each presents a new problem, and the current orthodoxies can't answer them. Our ability to recognize truth, and to control our actions based on reasons and values, have staggering implications for our understanding of the universe as a whole. The alternative he presents to accommodate these implications isn't fully thought out (as he puts it, a real psychophysical understanding will probably require new concepts, a revolution on par with relativity), just plausible. It's impossible to say it's true, at this point, but It makes sense. It's mind blowing in its simplicity.

Mind and Cosmos (****1/2) can be a dense 120 pages. But if you follow the arguments, their clarity and simplicity comes through. And if you haven't already read authors like David Ray Griffin, Rupert Sheldrake, Alan Wallace, and Edward and Emily Kelly, it just might spark a revolution in your mind.

Upon seeing the subtitle of Thomas Nagel's "Mind and Cosmos," one may think that the slender volume contains a first round knockout punch to both materialism and Darwinism. Whether one stumbles across the book in one of those rapidly diminishing bookstore philosophy sections, possibly now obscured by puzzles or toys, or through meandering infinite online catalogs, the words "Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False" will probably inspire a closer look. Though no knock out punch bursts from the book's text and it delivers far less than its subtitle may suggest, it nonetheless presents an intriguing and interesting examination into potential, though still rather nebulous, alternatives to the currently prevailing scientific worldview.

Few people probably doubt that humans living even a hundred or so years from now, assuming that no breakdown in society occurs, will possess tools and conceptions that may make our current worldviews seem incomplete, obsolete or puerile. Computers didn't exist a century ago and nonetheless some people at the time made grand claims about humanity having already discovered everything and that only some "fiddling with the knobs" on the dashboard of reality remained. Nagel begins his argument along these lines by claiming that twenty first century humans possess no greater grasp on the whole of reality than our forebears and that we have no more right to cry "game over" or to declare a "final reckoning" than any preceding generation: "It may be frustrating to acknowledge, but we are simply at the point in the history of human thought at which we find ourselves...." As such, "Mind and Cosmos" attempts to grasp beyond today's mainstream thinking, which, at this point in time, results in some outright grasping in the dark. His goal seems to involve widening the scope of current thought or at least challenging its boundaries, allegedly seen as inviolable by some. To catalyze this, he sometimes portrays scientific materialist naturalism as a present-day ideological prejudice without, at the same time, dismissing it. He is not anti-science. Though some may dismiss him altogether when he admits deriving some inspiration from certain religious proponents of intelligent design. Regardless, Nagel in no way supports intelligent design and explicitly declares himself an atheist. But he continues unabated and at one point even suggests that the fervency with which the prevailing scientific orthodoxy upholds materialism results from the depiction of materialism as the antithesis of religion. This heavily suggests that some materialists espouse materialism simply out of the fear of falling into "religious thinking." Worded differently, perhaps Nagel claims that a fear or revulsion towards anything remotely religious causes materialists, possibly subconsciously, to limit their worldview to avoid committing materialist heresy?. Maybe. All of this, along with Nagel's skepticism that life arose from a "physical accident" or a chance combination of the right chemicals at the right time, makes for controversial reading right from the start. But more is to come.

Nagel identifies consciousness as physical science's most ominous barrier to a complete picture of the world. He seems to have doubts that a successful physical reduction of mind will occur. Some of the gaps presented include the exclusion of first person subjective elements from the intellectual history of mind and the identity mistake of equating "mental event = corresponding physical event" to "H2O = water." These problems of reduction and the unquestionable subjective aspects of our lives leads Nagel to question the completeness of materialism. Perhaps, he states, the subject-object distinction "pervades the world" or the mind-body problem "is not just a local problem." This leads to the introduction of "neutral monism," as opposed to dualism, or the idea that perhaps the core basis of reality consists of one element comprising both the physical and the mental and that we're currently focused, perhaps myopically, only on the physical. So, if physical reductionism is false, and in many places Nagel places special emphasis on this "if," then physical science presents an incomplete description of the cosmos. This would then have implications for all physical sciences, including physics and biology. They, in essence, would all become incomplete theories requiring revamping in order to accommodate a new monistic paradigm. This would usher in "postmaterialist theory."

An assumption underlies many of these preliminary claims, namely, that "intelligibility assumes that the universe is explainable." This assumes answers to the "why," and now just the "how," questions exist. Two questions emerge: why do specific organisms have the consciousness they have and why did conscious organisms arise on earth? Nagel then delineates what type of explanations will derive from these questions. They will have a "an ahistorical constitutive account" and "a historical account of arising from beginnings." Then some possibilities are explored, such as reductive, or explaining conscious in terms of its elementary particles, which may constitute panpsychism, or the concept that "all physical elements of the world are also mental." The latter monistic turn denies that conscious organisms develop from some "special stuff," such as the mysterious Cartesian "mind."

The historical dimension can take three forms. Causal, Intentional or teleological. Causal means that explanation comes from the universe's elementary particles. Intentional basically means theism. Teleological here implies a self-organization not explained by physical laws. These could combine with the options above, so a total of six options exist in this framework. Nagel largely dismisses options that include intentional or the reductive, or at least doesn't find them promising. Ultimately, Nagel favors the teleological, but only in an atheistic, "non-purposive" form. This seems to mean that nature aims for some outcome, which includes conscious beings. But he also admits that much of this remains obscure.

In the final chapters apply similar theorizing to the concepts of cognition and value, both of which rely on consciousness and so much of what Nagel says about consciousness also applies to cognition and value by extension. Realism and anti-realism appear here. Nagel largely finds current biological evolutionary explanations for cognition unconvincing. Not to mention that he doesn't see how the physical world alone could accommodate reason, dismissing computer metaphors as too simplistic. Here Nagel again entertains teleology, although he basically says that it doesn't have any more serious difficulties than the alternatives. Among those problems, he sees creationism as the biological analogue of dualism and, in an interesting footnote, the positing of "possible worlds" as "a cop-out" that doesn't attempt to explain anything. Teleology looms large in the final chapter concerning value. Here he entertains moral realism, agreeing that it's incompatible with Darwinism and that the natural order may need further expanding to accommodate value. Though he's careful to argue that he doesn't mean ontological moral realism that introduces new metaphysical entities. Here an emergent solution seems to prevail, and if it does then "practical reason may be one of our cognitive faculties." Other provocative and controversial ideas pervade this section such as the idea that a historical explanation parallels the "universe gradually waking up" and that value seems to coincide with the history of life and makes teleology more probable as the cosmos may have a "predisposition for life, consciousness and value." He also admits that almost none of this will be taken seriously today, so he's well aware of the controversial ground he stands on. Though he maintains that value arising from mere chance remains an unconvincing idea.

A very brief conclusion says that all philosophy can do is point out and evaluate alternatives and expand the boundaries of "what is not unthinkable." Nagel also finds his ideas too unimaginative, but still finds materialism more of an ideological position, though he risks misunderstanding or obscurity by contrasting it with "common sense." So the strong words of the book's subtitle stand, at least in Nagel's view, and a very murky picture of what could come next lingers in a somewhat anti-climactic and nebulous way. The least controversial claim remains the idea that something will very likely overturn our currently prevailing worldview sometime in the future. Though the book also demonstrates just how difficult alternatives are to comprehend at this time.

Despite its tentative and inconclusive feeling throughout, which makes sense for speculative philosophy, this deceptively short book nonetheless manages to maintain an intriguing momentum from start to finish. The arguments won't convince everyone, and some of them seem to stand on very shaky ground, but the ability to even step one direction in the dark without falling into complete incomprehension while simultaneously suggesting at least feasible alternatives to overwhelmingly prevailing attitudes makes the book an enriching, fascinating and impressive read. Whether any of its claims come to fruition, including the strong doubts about psycho-physical reduction or the bold claims of its subtitle, of course remains to be seen.

For far too long, metaphysical naturalism has been allowed to dominate academic circles of thought and teaching in philosophy and science. ...But that's just it... What is the point of such thought and teaching in a worldview that offers no place for conscious thought, and therefore meaningful dialogue? Nagel allows such to remain unchallenged no longer. This is a brilliant work; and one that is quite honest, as Nagel admits to being an atheist. It is encouraging to see that, while he still hopes to find an explanation apart from theism, he is nonetheless willing to admit that the hardcore naturalistic worldview to which most atheists cling is simply and obviously problematic. Anyone interested in philosophy, science, or religion, and especially the alleged conflicts between, should own this book!

The author makes strong points about the inability of materialistic Darwinism to understand consciousness, reason and value in our lives. However these ideas are not new. Bergson and especially Whitehead explained the problem and gave his best solution about 100 years ago. While Nagel sheds some light on Whitehead's philosophy I prefer Whitehead's theistic interpretation rather than atheistic framework which leaves all our reasoning and values as useless teleology. Ultimately reason alone can not fully answer our human condition and I searched the book on the Kindle for the word Love and it only came up one time. I gave the book a 4 star rating because I believe the author is honest and tries hard to present his beliefs. I suggest you read Whitehead if you haven't already and read 'Religion in the Making' first then 'Process and Reality'.

Why is the teleological impulse/force difficult to interrogate with electrodes positioned outside the temporal lobe? Stimulation of the brain, either by an artificially delivered lectrical current or by naturally occurring epileptic discharge when applied to (or occurring) in certain regions *outside* the temporal lobe fail to effect this evidence for consciousness to the same degree, if at all. Hmmm. More of a preview perhaps, but still a gesture to a review of the books central premise.

This writer looks at theism and other religious reflections in order to gain a grasp of the connection between the mind and the physical universe. This issue must beckon the “God” concept. While he reasons that God’s essential nature would lead to probabilistic laws, it would also bestow a free will on the beings that inhabit the Earth. As disparate as are the topics the author discusses, he maintains that materialism and theism are end points whose study lies between them. His is a very deep and energetic realization of all the aspects of the universe that we can either see (in the sense of touch) or feel (in the sense of knowing.)

The author’s concept of the aim he proposes in his introduction is a little vague. He touches on the connection among mind, body and the cosmos in a way that dispels any favorite theory or belief. In his attempt to explain why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false, I don’t feel convinced.

Professor Thomas Nagel of New York University is no stranger to designing arguments around vague titles. Even though one can be easily confused while absorbed in his intense themes, a certain amount of curiosity surfaces, driving the reader on to discover what depths Nagel is willing to take. I am convinced that many of these ideas are worth exploring.

Quote: “My target is a comprehensive, speculative world picture that is reached by extrapolation from some of the discoveries of biology, chemistry, and physics—a particular naturalistic weltanschaung that postulates a hierarchical relation among the subjects of those sciences, and the completeness in principle of an explanation of everything in the Universe through their unification.”

This like many philosophy books is deep and takes repeated re readings of sentences and paragraphs to reveal its argument. Me, I am a poor science type so it is tedious. I doubt I could really read even an Reader's Digest condensed version. I would say that, for the uniniated, reading this book is like running an marathon knee deep in mud.

Sorry all you liberal arts majors out there, but that how I see it.

This is a very interesting book, but Nagel has an approach which is so far removed from the prevailing materialism that I supposed at first that a Sokal Hoax might be in the offing. But the Sokal Hoax was based on an article, not a book. Ok, let me get on with a brief comment on the book. With every effort to avoid too much technical language Nagel is suggesting inpart that materialism is an inadequate model or explanation of reality because it offers no meaningful explanation of consciousness. Consciousness in a materialist universe is an accidental phenomenon with no particular end or meaningful source or cause. There is the further problem that consciousness, if it is nothing more than an accident, is not really understood in the materialist view.
The book is short, well written, and fairly easy to read, but the topic is difficult at some points.

Enjoy!

It is difficult to contend with the first premise of this work i.e. Our current scientific understanding of the world does not provide a satisfactory explanation of the whole of reality. There are aspects of our experience, first of all our subjective consciousness that simply cannot be reduced to physical descriptions of the world. But this unsatisfactoriness has behind it a deeper dissatisfaction in which Professor Nagel suggests that we too cannot by physical means alone explain the origin of life, or that overall development which has led to the emergence of a species of higher intelligence.
What he wants to argue then that apart from some kind of material process there may be directive goals in the whole process of cosmic development. These goals for him are not as many would have them including myself the work of Divine Consciousness but rather outside of any kind of religious framework.

A beautiful and brief book filled with the kind of concessions that can only come from intellectual humility. As an atheist, Nagel finds it unlikely that materialism and evolution can account for consciousness, cognition (or reason), and value (or morality). He doesn't rush to fill the vacuum, only admits that Darwinism is a square peg in the round hole of plausible explanation. For all practical purposes, it sounds like an atheist wrestling with the options. The negative reviews are not based on the contents of the book, but on fear of its consequences.

This book was clearly intended by Thomas Nagel to be provocative, and it works. He has received a lot of passionate criticism for it. I think it is a daring and imaginative book. Whether it is right or not is a different question.

Here's how I understand Nagel's main argument.

I think the basic insight goes back to Nagel's "What Is It Like to be a Bat" paper. The point is that there IS something that it is like to be a bat, a subjective experience. That's not so different from saying that each one of us lives our life in the first person, that we each have a subjective experience of the world. And that subjective experience, magnified in the case of the bat because bats possess a distinctively different primary sensory mode (radar) than we do, is inaccessible to objective accounts of the world.

Here, Nagel reformulates that point. The objectivist account of the world, that of the physical sciences, is incomplete -- it cannot account for conscious lives (something like first person experiences of the world).

It's not incomplete in the way that physics is internally incomplete. It's not just that it is lacking further experiments, observations, or data -- it's incomplete in principle. No objectivist account of reality will ever account for conscious lives. This is a step that Nagel doesn't state explicitly, but that I believe has to be part of his argument. Otherwise, the objectivist account might only be temporarily or conditionally incomplete, not incomplete in principle.

The subjectivist, idealist, or theist account of the world is also incomplete. I'm not quite so sure why Nagel believes that this account is necessarily incomplete, other than that it lacks sufficient provision for why things happen as they do, something that objectivist accounts are quite good at, at least as they concern events in the physical world.

If we are to have a complete account of reality, then it must be neither objectivist nor subjectivist.

What's interesting though is that what is incomplete in the objectivist account might be thought to be supplied by the subjectivist account -- i.e., intention or purpose. Reasons, intentions, or purposes supply a way in which things proceed in subjective experience that is analogous to causes in the objective world. Then let's try a third account, one that promises to combine the role of intention or purpose in the subjectivist account with the role of mechanisms in the objectivist account. That gives you some sort of teleological science.

So far, this version of Nagel's argument doesn't depend on what I have to agree with some other reviewers are odd or maybe simplistic claims regarding the adequacy of neo-Darwinian accounts of evolution to explain how creatures like us got here.

But, for Nagel, part (at least) of the motivation for incorporating purpose into our account of nature is in fact that the explanatory arsenal of the physical sciences doesn't give an adequate account of how conscious creatures came to be. He believes that neo-Darwinian accounts fail to provide that account, but that purpose, in the guise of genetic variation bias, solves that problem.

The idea isn't unprecedented. There are some interpretations of Nietzsche that go that way. Or, there are the anthropic cosmological principle theorists from about 20 years ago, who argued that the fit between the physical constants and amenability to life and the evolution of creatures like us indicated that the universe is actually designed for (or somehow favors) the development of an awareness of itself.

But, if my sketch of what I take to be Nagel's stronger argument is correct, that the real problem with the theory of biological evolution is that it just isn't the kind of theory (physicalist, objectivist) that can, in principle, produce an account of the kind of thing that consciousness is (subjective, first person experiential), then I think Nagel's attempt to produce a "third" alternative faces a very difficult challenge.

Adding "natural teleology" doesn't look like it's going to help, any more than adding anything else objectivist and physicalist is going to help. In fact, Nagel's remarks on what would count as a "reductivist" account of consciousness seems to say as much, that consciousness would have to be constituted of the kinds of things, unlike physicalist atoms, that can constitute the kind of thing that consciousness is.

The gulf between the objective and subjective, or the physical and the mental, is just too wide to cross once you've opened it.

Some objectivist accounts of consciousness ignore a distinction that I think is critical here -- a distinction between the ability of an organism to have a conscious life from the content of that conscious life itself, i.e., the first person experience of life. The former seems more amenable to scientific explanation, via some sort of organic complexity, than the latter -- the latter calls into play the kinds of difficulties in reducing our mental lives to physical lives that Nagel seems to be calling upon in the "Bat" paper. Saying that the complex structures of my brain gives me the ability to dream or do the other things that mark our conscious lives is one thing; saying that the content of those dreams can either be reduced to or identified (in what used to be called "type-type" as opposed to "token-token" correlations) with happenings in those complex structures is another.

Again, though, Nagel's proposal to incorporate teleology into our account of evolutionary biology seems to help only with the account of how we might have come to have the ability to have a conscious life, not with the explanation of the content of those conscious lives. Doing so provides a kind of acceleration of the course of evolution toward creatures with conscious ability, where Nagel seems to think that there hasn't been sufficient time for such evolution to take place on the neo-Darwinian account.

All of this to the side, the part of Nagel's argument that might bother me the most is the claim that we actually need a single, complete account of reality. He calls himself a "neutral monist", so I suppose the reasoning is that if there is a single way the world is, we should have a single way of accounting for it. But why? The one doesn't seem to follow from the other, unless you suppose also that we have sure access to the single way the world is, rather than, say, repeated attempts that capture aspects of that single way, but never the whole.

Nagel's point here is that thought and consciousness cannot be explained in a convincing way by the neo-Darwinist perspective. Nagel admits that scientist and philosophers are against him; most believe that we'll eventually find the physical/biological/chemical/Darwinian basis that completely explains human (and animal) thought.

This book will get deep into issues of determinism and free will. This gets hard on the reader, as Nagel explores every logical pathway on the philosophical tree. It's thorough and impressive, but not that easy to read.

Nagel also does not believe the theist explanations. He suggests that we may be working for quite a while, perhaps centuries, before we explain thought and consciousness. I found that to be a very refreshing, honest perspective.

This book, written by a philosopher (or at least a professor of philosophy), brings together a number of philosophical problems which have preoccupied me for a number of years. And it does it without sliding off into the jargon of modern philosophers. So, right off the bat, it's a terrific book.

The central question here is "mind." As Terrence Deacon put it, so memorably, in his book The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain, this lifeless universe has somehow become a place of "nascent hearts and minds." How rocks could have "evolved" into people who love one another and converse intelligently (e.g. right here and now) is a mystery which has preoccupied thinkers from the beginning of human life on earth.

The author rules out God (or theism) from the beginning, with the statement that such a God "would not be part of the natural order." He surely has his philosophical reasons for such a statement, but he just as surely must realize that every religious person from Moses to Pope Benedict agrees that God (if he is there) is most surely not "part of the natural order." Ahem. He is the Divine Creator of the Natural Order, which includes us.

Nevertheless, this is a thoughtful book written by a thoughtful person, discussing issues which we may never comprehend. I recommend it highly.

In this short and quite amazing work, Mr. Nagel raises some good points and question about the current status of materialist philosophy, showing how it is fundamentally lacking in providing a thorough explanation for the existence of the mind and conscious experience, the so-called mind-body problem. Since modern science can't account for mind and consciousness and since the mind-body problem controls our entire understanding of the cosmos and its history (the mind-body problem was revised and has been used as a foundation for modern science), he sees it as flawed and tries to dispel some of the myths of materialism, in the end proposing some alternatives, teleological rather than mechanistic.

The mind-body problem is not just a local problem within the human person. Rather, the answers to this question are analogous to the entire cosmos. Nagel asks, “Can a Darwinian naturalist account explain the phenomenon of mind, consciousness, reason and value?” Can we integrate the concept of “Mind” within a modern outlook (Nagel 8)?

He states the problem: whatever explains the existence of organisms must also explain the existence of mind (14). Most of the book is a survey of how Neo-Darwinian Naturalism fails to explain “why” and the like. Throughout he echoes challenges by Plantinga and others: “If two faculties in us are both natural, why should we privilege our belief-forming mechanism to correct other cognitive faculties” (28). He doesn’t say it here (though he does later), this is the problem of value. How does a purely natural account posed in the problem above explain value-judgments?

His section on consciousness was a bit weaker. He argues that naturalism can’t account for mental phenomena that is evident from the first person inner point-of-view of the conscious subject (38). I agree but I don’t think Nagel gives the strongest argument. For a better treatment consult Moreland and Swinburne, especially the latter’s Evolution of the Soul.

Criticisms

*Nagel says substance dualism leaves biology with many unanswerable questions (49n12). So what if it does? If Nagel holds to this criticism, then it’s hard to see exactly how his position differs from naturalism at the end of the day.
* As critics have noted, Nagel rejects naturalism but he also rejects theism of any form (and with it, mind-body dualism). As such, he hasn’t given us anything resembling a coherent alternative. It’s like he is a naturalist gadfly. By still insisting on a biological/physical account of everything, he hasn’t really moved beyond naturalism--certainly he hasn’t moved beyond it given that he also rejects theism.

Conclusion

Nagel has advanced important criticisms of naturalism. One hopes that the Regime will take these criticisms seriously and remove naturalism from its vaunted pedestal where it is politically immune to any criticism. With that said, Nagel offers nothing in terms of an alternative.