The Comparison of 'Physicalism' and 'What is It Like to be a Bat?' of Thomas Nagel in the Context of the Search for Giving an Objective Account of Consciousness

Date

2017-06-01

Author

Tümkaya, Serdal

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"What is it Like to be a Bat" (1974) and "The View from Nowhere" (1986) of Thomas Nagel are two extremely cited pieces of analytic philosophy in the last century. The arguments presented in those works have been frequently cited as either problems of giving an objective-scientific account of consciousness or an outright denial of the possibility of a physicalist characterization of it. After summarizing all of them, I turn to show why they are mistaken. By this, I hope I will be able to show that all these mistakes are originated from either blatantly ignoring his objective phenomenology project or misunderstanding it. The reasons that I use to explain these misperceptions would also suggest that Nagel's objective phenomenology project is some sort of constructing a theoretical and conceptual ground to have an objective account of the subjective aspect of experience.

Subject Keywords

Thomas nagel, Physicalism, Objectivism, Reductionism, Being a bat

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/56167

Journal

BEYTULHIKME-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

Collections

Department of Philosophy, Article

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Citation Formats

S. Tümkaya, “The Comparison of ‘Physicalism’ and ‘What is It Like to be a Bat?’ of Thomas Nagel in the Context of the Search for Giving an Objective Account of Consciousness,” BEYTULHIKME-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, pp. 23–41, 2017, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/56167.