Review of Mind and Cosmos by Thomas Nagel
Boy, I'd hate to be stuck on the top floor of a burning building with Professor Nagel and have to rely on him for a quick and understandable description for the best route of escape. We'd die waiting for a lucid explanation.
If I remember correctly, my reading comprehension scores in school were at about the 98th percentile. I tell you that to tell you this:
This book is not a light read.
This book is not a pleasant read.
This book needed an editor to render it into readable English.
I was so glad to be done with this book. I wanted to finish it just to write that I had finished it. Otherwise, it would've been added to my Goodreads shelf "books I gave up reading".
Professor Nagel states his aim clearly on page 15: "My aim is not so much to argue against reductionism as to investigate the consequences of rejecting it--to present the problem rather than to propose a solution."
That's fine. After all, presenting the problem accurately is the first step on the road to getting to a solution.
His entire argument can be summed up as follows:
A purely materialistic explanation of the world (as described by biologic evolution) is incomplete. It is incomplete because it cannot explain the appearance of conscious beings. In fact, he writes: "Materialism is incomplete even as a theory of the physical world, since the physical world includes conscious organisms among its most striking occupants" (p. 45). He goes a step further to even claim that the physical sciences cannot provide an adequate explanation of the appearance of beings with consciousness.
Nagel is a philosopher writing a philosopher's book, so specialized terminology abounds. By page 17 he's on to the principle of sufficient reason and by page 24 radical scepticism. You get the idea. Terms he covers often and in depth include teleology, neo-Darwinian,Cartesian dualism,psychophysical reductionism, physico-chemical reductionism, mind-body problem
reductionism/antireductionism, and value realism.
Lay aside the specialized terminology and we come to Nagel's style of writing, which is often maddeningly incomplete, unnecessarily complex, and needlessly convoluted. Imagine text written by Toni Morrison and revised by Thomas Pynchon.
Here are some gems:
"Mechanisms of belief formations that have selective advantage in the everyday struggle for existence do not warrant our confidence in the construction of theoretical accounts of the world as a whole."
English translation: The ways we use to form concepts of our daily life may not be the best way to think about the great big world.
"Prudential judgments are the manifestation of a calm passion of temporally impartial self-interest that generates an equal desire or aversion for future and present benefit or harm to oneself." (p. 100)
English translation: Good judgments come from a person's long-held self-sustaining interest to want good things and to avoid bad things.
When it got to be too much, I had to put the book down. When it got to be REALLY too much, I had to count the words: the longest sentence I counted had 85 words.
Why? Why do this to your readers? You're not Faulkner; you're not Cormac McCarthy. You're not writing art; you're a philosopher trying to make yourself understood, hopefully to a broader audience. The terms and concepts with which you are dealing are complicated enough. Your writing should try to make clear, not make more obscure.
In addition, as other reviewers have noted, Professor Nagel has a penchant (at least in the first 75 pages of this short book) to write "more on this later." I'd guess he uses this at least 4 or 5 times. Does he get to those points later? I'm not sure, because I'm so lost in his word salads I'm not sure what he's intending to convey.
What I understood of his main argument...I agree with. That is, neo-Darwinism (a purely chemical account of life) cannot account for creatures that have consciousness and reason and that, through those things, ascribe value to things. But I'm puzzled by a thought Nagel provides late in the game: "...it would be callous and objectionable to cut down a great old tree just for the fun of trying out one's new chain saw" (p. 118). I don't get it. "callous" to whom? "objectionable" to whom?
we humans are purely chemical-made and chemical-bound creatures, there are no objective values.
In other words: do what you will.
Because, ultimately, who cares?
Reproductive fitness? Survival of the fittest? Take a trip to your local Walmart to see those two axioms blown out of the theoretical water.
All in all: I wanted to finish this book just to say that I finished it. I did. Not a good place to be in as a reader.
Did not like it
2/5 Amazon
1/5 Goodreads
If I remember correctly, my reading comprehension scores in school were at about the 98th percentile. I tell you that to tell you this:
This book is not a light read.
This book is not a pleasant read.
This book needed an editor to render it into readable English.
I was so glad to be done with this book. I wanted to finish it just to write that I had finished it. Otherwise, it would've been added to my Goodreads shelf "books I gave up reading".
Professor Nagel states his aim clearly on page 15: "My aim is not so much to argue against reductionism as to investigate the consequences of rejecting it--to present the problem rather than to propose a solution."
That's fine. After all, presenting the problem accurately is the first step on the road to getting to a solution.
His entire argument can be summed up as follows:
A purely materialistic explanation of the world (as described by biologic evolution) is incomplete. It is incomplete because it cannot explain the appearance of conscious beings. In fact, he writes: "Materialism is incomplete even as a theory of the physical world, since the physical world includes conscious organisms among its most striking occupants" (p. 45). He goes a step further to even claim that the physical sciences cannot provide an adequate explanation of the appearance of beings with consciousness.
Nagel is a philosopher writing a philosopher's book, so specialized terminology abounds. By page 17 he's on to the principle of sufficient reason and by page 24 radical scepticism. You get the idea. Terms he covers often and in depth include teleology, neo-Darwinian,Cartesian dualism,psychophysical reductionism, physico-chemical reductionism, mind-body problem
reductionism/antireductionism, and value realism.
Lay aside the specialized terminology and we come to Nagel's style of writing, which is often maddeningly incomplete, unnecessarily complex, and needlessly convoluted. Imagine text written by Toni Morrison and revised by Thomas Pynchon.
Here are some gems:
"Mechanisms of belief formations that have selective advantage in the everyday struggle for existence do not warrant our confidence in the construction of theoretical accounts of the world as a whole."
English translation: The ways we use to form concepts of our daily life may not be the best way to think about the great big world.
"Prudential judgments are the manifestation of a calm passion of temporally impartial self-interest that generates an equal desire or aversion for future and present benefit or harm to oneself." (p. 100)
English translation: Good judgments come from a person's long-held self-sustaining interest to want good things and to avoid bad things.
When it got to be too much, I had to put the book down. When it got to be REALLY too much, I had to count the words: the longest sentence I counted had 85 words.
Why? Why do this to your readers? You're not Faulkner; you're not Cormac McCarthy. You're not writing art; you're a philosopher trying to make yourself understood, hopefully to a broader audience. The terms and concepts with which you are dealing are complicated enough. Your writing should try to make clear, not make more obscure.
In addition, as other reviewers have noted, Professor Nagel has a penchant (at least in the first 75 pages of this short book) to write "more on this later." I'd guess he uses this at least 4 or 5 times. Does he get to those points later? I'm not sure, because I'm so lost in his word salads I'm not sure what he's intending to convey.
What I understood of his main argument...I agree with. That is, neo-Darwinism (a purely chemical account of life) cannot account for creatures that have consciousness and reason and that, through those things, ascribe value to things. But I'm puzzled by a thought Nagel provides late in the game: "...it would be callous and objectionable to cut down a great old tree just for the fun of trying out one's new chain saw" (p. 118). I don't get it. "callous" to whom? "objectionable" to whom?
we humans are purely chemical-made and chemical-bound creatures, there are no objective values.
In other words: do what you will.
Because, ultimately, who cares?
Reproductive fitness? Survival of the fittest? Take a trip to your local Walmart to see those two axioms blown out of the theoretical water.
All in all: I wanted to finish this book just to say that I finished it. I did. Not a good place to be in as a reader.
Did not like it
2/5 Amazon
1/5 Goodreads
No comments have been added yet.
