Thomas Nagel quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Thomas Nagel

Thomas Nagel Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Thomas Nagel on Wise Famous Quotes.

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

A person may be greedy, envious, cowardly, cold, ungenerous, unkind, vain, or conceited, but behave perfectly by a monumental act of the will.

I do not find theism any more credible than materialism as a comprehensive world view. My interest is in the territory between them.

The most radical conclusion to draw from this would be that your mind is the only thing that exists.

Leading a human life is a full-time occupation, to which everyone devotes decades of intense concern.

Perhaps the belief in God is the belief that the universe is intelligible, but not to us.

Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up.

The human will to believe is inexhaustible

To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how to decide what to believe.

Without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting. With consciousness it seems hopeless.

If life is not real, life is not earnest, and the grave is its goal, perhaps it's ridiculous t otake ourselves so seriously.

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

I'm not sure I understand how responsibility for our choices makes sense if they are not determined.

There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality.

Even if life as a whole is meaningless, perhaps that's nothing to worry about. Perhaps we can recognise it and just go on as before.

The place at which the contrast between forms of intelligibility is most vividly presented is in the understanding of ourselves.

Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable.

Both theism and evolutionary naturalism are attempts to understand ourselves from the outside

Everyone is entitled to commit murder in the imagination once in a while, not to mention lesser infractions.

The question is there, whther we answer it or not.

Absurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics.

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

I conceive ethics as a branch of psychology.

If you want the truth rather than merely something to say, you will have a good deal less to say.

What is it like to be a bat? What is it like for a bat to be a bat?

Life may be not only meaningless but absurd.