Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False

108 Pages·2012·0.52 MB·English

by  Thomas Nagel

MIND AND COSMOS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Possibility of Altruism
Mortal Questions
The View from Nowhere
What Does It All Mean?
Equality and Partiality
Other Minds
The Last Word
The Myth of Ownership (with Liam Murphy)
Concealment and Exposure
Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament
MIND AND COSMOS
Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian
Conception
of Nature Is Almost Certainly False
Thomas Nagel
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nagel, Thomas, 1937–
Mind and cosmos : why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception
of nature is almost certainly false / Thomas Nagel.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-19-991975-8 (alk. paper)
1. Cosmology 2. Cosmogony. 3. Beginning. 4. Creation. 5. Science—
Philosophy.
6. Darwin, Charles, 1809–1882. I. Title.
BD511.N34 2012
113—dc23 2011051647
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To Anne
CONTENTS
Preface
1. Introduction
2. Antireductionism and the Natural Order
3. Consciousness
4. Cognition
5. Value
6. Conclusion
Index
PREFACE
The two people who, in very different ways, have had the most influence on the
thoughts expressed in this book are Sharon Street and Roger White. I was also
much instructed and stimulated by the discussions of a research group on
science and religion organized at the New York Institute of Philosophy with the
support of a Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award, and I am
grateful to the Mellon Foundation for making it possible. The group, which met
from 2006 through 2009, brought together faculty and graduate students of the
philosophy department at New York University with regular and occasional
participants from other universities and other fields. Street and White were
members of that group, and I would also like to thank in particular Paul
Boghossian, Laura Franklin-Hall, Philip Kitcher, Matthew Kotzen, H. Allen Orr,
Alvin Plantinga, Elliott Sober, and Michael Strevens. Sober also read the
manuscript of the book for Oxford University Press, and offered useful
suggestions. I presented some of the material at the Colloquium in Legal,
Political, and Social Philosophy that Ronald Dworkin and I have conducted for
many years, and I am grateful to him and to the other participants for their help.
In view of the unorthodoxy of the result, I hope these thanks will not give
offense.
During the writing of the book I received research support from the Filomen
D’Agostino and Max E. Greenberg Faculty Research Fund of New York
University School of Law.
New York, October, 2011
MIND AND COSMOS