The View from Nowhere

A book about one problem that Nagel finds in every area of philosophy: how to combine the perspective of a particular person inside the world with an objective view of that same world, including the person, from no particular point of view. We gain objectivity by stepping back from our own standpoint, but something is always left out. In the philosophy of mind, the objective physical picture omits what experience is like for its subject, so Nagel argues for a dual-aspect view rather than physicalism. In epistemology the same stepping back produces scepticism, and he defends realism: the world may extend beyond what we can ever conceive. On freedom, the external view of ourselves as events in nature threatens the sense of autonomy we have when acting. In ethics he distinguishes agent-relative reasons, which hold for a particular person, from agent-neutral reasons, which hold for anyone, and asks how much impartiality morality can demand. The final chapter turns to birth, death and the meaning of life.

It gives a single, clear framework for many of philosophy's hardest problems and shows why some of them may never be fully solved.