The Absurd Thomas Nagel Summary

Nagel’s argument is harder to refute, owing to its lack of definitive conclusion. Nevertheless, its effectiveness remains debateable. It is interesting that he embraces the incomprehensibility of

This paper will accomplish two tasks. First, it will briefly outline the main points of Thomas Nagel’s argument in “Personal Rights and Public Space”. Secondly, it will examine and discuss the portion of his argument that I find to be the most problematic.

All three of these basic rhetorical concepts help make an effective speech but, only if they are used in the correct way.

Aristotle has an idea that there are three rhetorical appeals people can use to persuade someone else – ethos, pathos and logos. Each of them is very useful and the persuasion will be most effective when three of them are all used. Amy Tan used all in “Mother Tongue.”

Susan R. Wolf (born 1952) is a moral philosopher who works extensively on the meaning of human life and is the Edna J. Koury Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Wolf addresses the questions of the meaning of life in hope to distinguish the characteristics and reasoning that gives meaning to life. According to Susan Wolf view about the meaning in life, “I would say that meaningful life are lives of active engagement in projects of worth… two key phrases, ‘active engagement’ and ‘projects of worth’” (Wolf, 205). However, I believe that her proposal leaves out our basic motives and reasoning that’s

The goal of this style is to be able to convince the readers that your statements are better and more valid than anybody else’s. There are three categories for the means of persuasion which are; Logos, Ethos, and Pathos. Thoreau uses these means pf persuasion very well throughout his essay to convince his audience.

This essay examines Thomas Nagel’s paper, Moral Luck, and aims to dissect the assumptions and arguments presented. Moral Luck challenges the Kantian idea that morality is immune from luck by defining and supporting the concept of ‘moral luck.’ Nagel claims that moral luck occurs when “a significant aspect of what someone does depends on factors beyond his control, yet we continue to treat him in that respect as an object of moral judgment.” This essay begins by presenting Nagel’s argument and supporting claims and is followed by my analytical critique. Though Nagel highlights some provocative questions and scenarios, I will argue that one of his premises makes an assumption that is rather unsubstantiated. I then speculate how Nagel might defend his argument in response. The essay is concluded with my own interpretation of Nagel’s argument and moral luck as a fully realized phenomenon.

Society tends to live day to day without much question of their own existence. Humans are born into the world and without second thought begin to live their lives, but there comes a time when individuals begin to question the reason for their being. In Richard Taylor’s, “The Meaning of Life”, Taylor explores the thought that our existence, when viewed externally without our prejudices, is fundamentally pointless. A thorough analysis of Taylor’s ideas will be given to understand the reasoning behind his thoughts, his argument will then be defended from counter arguments that state that the meaning behind any entity’s life could have any alternative meaning.

On the topic of the existence of God, Ernest Nagel and Richard Swinburne have construct arguments that challenge one another. In Nagel’s article, “Does God Exist?” he argues that if God is all-powerful, omniscient, and benevolent; he would know when evil occurs and has the power to prevent it. Because evil occurs, God does not exist. This is the problem of evil. Challenging Nagel, the article by Swinburne, “Why God Allows Evil,” argues that God has the right to allow moral and natural evils to occur because those evils reap greater goods that make the lives of human-beings meaningful. He extends his argument to the idea that God seeks to provide human beings with goods such as freewill and responsibility of not only ourselves, but of the world and others. While Nagel utilizes the problem of evil as an objection to the existence of God, Swinburne employs it to show that God allows evil to occur to provide human beings with goods that go beyond moments of pleasure and joys of happiness.

Existentialism, a philosophical ideology conceptualized by Jean-Paul Sarte, encapsulates most thought processes where “the individual is obliged to make a choice as though he were choosing for all mankind” (Arnold, “Jean-Paul Sarte: Overview). Put simply, Sarte’s concept of existentialism is the thought process by which humans find themselves existing, and the analysis of their existence itself (Tulloch, Sartrian Existentialism). This analysis of existence found itself in many writings during the twentieth century, and acts a driving force in both Bishop’s “In the Waiting Room” and Lispector’s “The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman”.

In 1971, Thomas Nagel wrote a paper titled ‘The Absurd.’ He argues that the nous of the absurd arises from two belligerent propensities in us: the first is explained as, ‘we take our lives’, or at slightest the ventures we take on in our lives, and that we cannot circumvent. In addition, the second propensity is that we are capable, upon undermining or reflecting, the explanations for any of our ventures in life. Furthermore, from a radical point of view outside people’s interests nothing can be justified; however we are skilled enough in taking up such a perspective reflection. What more can be said is that this absurdity is an ailment we are predestined to by virtue of our reflective nature. Though in general understanding to the idea,

In the article “Absurd Self-Fulfillment,” Feinberg offers his readers a close up examination of absurdity, self-fulfillment, and tries to show that every human life may contain some degree of each. He discusses how Richard Taylor, Albert Camus, and Thomas Nagel, each portray that there is indeed absurdity in all human beings, through the use of their own special qualifications. Taylor and Camus both conclude that there is no meaning to anything we do, and that the human condition is pointless and meaningless. They believe that absurd humans do whatever makes them happy, but before realizing the absurd, one is a slave of their own future goals. However, Nagel claims that absurdity results from the irresolvable clash between the importance people attach their lives too, and their capability of viewing themselves from a detached and impersonal perspective. Feinberg eventually adopts Nagel’s explanation of absurdity. Feinberg’s concept of self-fulfillment can be understood in the sense of doing what one is genetically inclined to do, which includes both one’s generic

Thomas Nagel covers the issues of the purpose of humanity in his piece, “Free Will”. There are several topics that Nagel covers as he starts out hopeful of the idea of free will itself. Free will defined by Merriam Webster as freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention. All our lives we are taught that we do things on our own accord and that we have the right to choose the things that happen to us. He gives the example of choosing between a peach and some cake. This, actually, is not a real example of free will, but rather personal preference that has been predetermined from our upbringing, the environment we are placed in and even and even genetics. I could choose the peach because I know that my predetermined genes will eventually make me into a diabetic so I want to stay as healthy as I can. That in itself does not give me a very wide scope of choices, but more or less narrows it. As he goes on, he explains that we all want to think that we have “free will”. We want to think that we have our own choices and the ability to drive our own lives at our own expense. Yet, when it comes down to it, that is not the case at all. According to his take on it, nothing would be able to be predicted about the future if there was such a thing as free will. A simpler way to look at it is the discussion we had towards the very beginning of the course. We discussed how everything seems to come from something, so how can something come

Philosophy is all about knowledge and the comprehension of existence. It tries to answer many questions about our reality. In fact, lots of philosophers, or as some are called, Humanists, wants to understand the purpose of life and so, the human’s status. In this essay, it will be discussed how Worldviews can have many aspects and how interpretations of life might be different from a person to another. In fact, Bertrand Russel’s worldview will be explained, as well as my worldview and how those two might or might not be similar.

Hegel’s discussion and refutation of sense-certainty is the beginning of his discussion of consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit. From this discussion, he lays the groundwork from which he reaches absolute knowledge. In this essay, I will focus on Hegel’s discussion of sense-certainty. Following a brief summary of my interpretation of sense-certainty, this essay will mainly focus on paragraph 91 in which Hegel acknowledges the attributes and deficiencies of sense-certainty. Since the paragraph itself is too long to quote and analyze, I will choose a few key quotes from the paragraph to discuss in detail. Further, since this is the beginning of sense-certainty and the claims he makes regarding sense-certainty will later be refuted, the