Thomas Nagel (1937– ) 是知名的美國哲學家，他在心理哲學、政治哲學、和倫理學等領域發表了許多著作，包括 ”What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” (1974/2024)、Moral Questions (1979)、和 Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False (2012) 等。
這門課選讀 The View from Nowhere (1986)。根據 Nagel，人類擁有一種獨特的能力，可以用一種超越自身的經驗或利益的方式來審視世界，從一個「不屬於任何特定地方的」視角來思考。同時，我們每個人又都是處於特定地點的特定的個人，擁有自己對世界的「個人的」看法。這種外部的與內部的觀點之分歧，或者客觀的與主觀點的觀點之差距，正是一系列哲學問題的來源，包括心物問題 (the mind-body problem)、人格同一 (personal identity)、知識與懷疑論 (knowledge and skepticism)、思想與實在 (thought and reality)、自由意志 (free will)、人生的意義 (the meaning of life)、以及死亡 (death) 等。Nagel 認為，過度的物化、客體化 (objectification) 在心理哲學及其它領域導致了各種難以令人信服的化約論 (reductionism)，那麼，在智力、道德、與實踐層面上，我們應該如何調和這兩種立場？它們之間的調和似乎最終並不總是可能的。

Thomas Nagel (1937– ) is a well-known American philosopher who has published many works in the fields of psychological philosophy, political philosophy, and ethics, including "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" (1974/2024), Moral Questions (1979), and Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False (2012).
This course reads The View from Nowhere (1986). According to Nagel, humans have a unique ability to view the world in a way that transcends their own experiences or interests, thinking from a perspective that “does not belong to any particular place.” At the same time, each of us is a specific individual in a specific place, with his own "personal" view of the world. This divergence between external and internal perspectives, or between objective and subjective perspectives, is the source of a host of philosophical problems, including the mind-body problem, personal identity, knowledge and skepticism, thought and reality, free will, the meaning of life, and death. Nagel believes that excessive reification and objectification have led to various unconvincing reductionisms in philosophy of mind and other fields. So, how should we reconcile these two positions at the intellectual, moral, and practical levels? Reconciliation between them does not always seem possible in the end.

Nagel, T. (1986). The View from Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press.

Nagel, T. (1986). The View from Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press.