Quotes by Thomas Nagel

Thomas Nagel

A theory of motivation is defective if it renders intelligible behaviour which is not intelligible.

Behaviour

Motivation

Psychology

Altruism itself depends on a recognition of the reality of other persons, and on the equivalent capacity to regard oneself as merely one individual among many.

Empathy

Reality

Recognition

every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that an objective, physical theory will abandon that point of view.

Consciousness

Subjectivity

Views

fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism–something it is like for the organism.

Consciousness

Ifs And

States

I conceive ethics as a branch of psychology.

Action

Branches

Psychology

I should not really object to dying were it not followed by death.

Dying

Objects

Should

I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, I hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.

Atheist

God

Religious

If a psychological Maxwell devises a general theory of mind, he may make it possible for a psychological Einstein to follow with a theory that the mental and the physical are really the same. But this could happen only at the end of a process which began with the recognition that the mental is something completely different from the physical world as we have come to know it through a certain highly successful form of detached objective understanding. Only if the uniqueness of the mental is recognized will concepts and theories be devised especially for the purpose of understanding it.

Mind

Successful

Understanding

If I thought that everything I did was determined by my circumstancse and my psychological condition, I woudl feel trapped.

Determined

Feels

Psychological

If sub specie aeternitatis [from eternity’s point of view] there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair.

Believe

Inspirational

Life

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Absurd

Action

Admitting

Agency

Animal

Atheist

Bats

Behaviour

Believe

Branches

Childhood

Conscious

Consciousness

Deals

Determined

Dying

Empathy

Erosion

Expansion

Feels

Funny

Giving

God

Growing Up

Ifs

Ifs And

Inspirational

Intense

Interesting

Life

Life Is

Looks

Maelstrom

Materialism

May

Mean

Meaningless Life

Mind

Motivation

Objects

Occupation

Passion

Philosophical

Philosophy

Psychological

Psychology

Reality

Recognition

Religious

Science

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Quotes by Thomas Nagel

Thomas Nagel

A theory of motivation is defective if it renders intelligible behaviour which is not intelligible.

Altruism itself depends on a recognition of the reality of other persons, and on the equivalent capacity to regard oneself as merely one individual among many.

every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that an objective, physical theory will abandon that point of view.

fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism–something it is like for the organism.

I conceive ethics as a branch of psychology.

I should not really object to dying were it not followed by death.

If I thought that everything I did was determined by my circumstancse and my psychological condition, I woudl feel trapped.

If sub specie aeternitatis [from eternity’s point of view] there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair.

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