The Last Word

Ostensibly, Nagel's work is an assault on extreme relativism/subjectivism. On another level, it complements Nozick's "Nature of Rationality" (while rightly attacking Nozick's misuse of evolutionary principles). If extreme relativism/subjectivism were the sole objective, Nagel could have defeated it with a single statement: "All truth/logic/science/ethics is relative/subjective," is self-refuting (which Nagel cites).But the rationalist Nagel really has a stronger objective. He rightly wants to insist that constructivist/subjectivist/relativist (he uses "perceptivist") claims against reason, logic, science, and ethics are embedded in the very criteria they want to deny, and worse, their efforts to use external criteria "to get outside" to challenge these claims is (1) impossible (because they use the very tools they criticize), or (2) untenable, because they use irreducible principles in one category to assault irreducible principles in another, or Ryle's "category mistake (misuse)," (3) implausible, because they substitute less plausible hypotheses to assault rationally and empirically more plausible hypotheses, or (4) two or more of the preceding three. Except for ethics, his observations are valid.The chapter on ethics is more elusive and certainly inconclusive. He begins with ethics as a species of practical reason, itself a feature of decision-theory, which is distinctly non-instrumental (a controversial claim, he concedes), that requires "reasons" (i.e., justifications). Except for the "non-instrumental" claim, there is nothing controversial thus far. Everything that follows, however, seems lost. He begins denying Hume's "pleasure/pain" motivation of ethics, raises the empathy factor (Hume, Smith), admits emotions (typically non-rational) are often involved (Hume, Smith), as are other "background" information (Mill, Bentham), that "impartiality" is one of its features (all but virtue theory), as is the "universifiability" of the action (deontological, consequentialist), then gives a concrete consequentialist example, followed by a concrete deontological example, of "reason," then concedes he isn't sure where all this leads. I assume this exercise was meant to instantiate that agents act for "reason(s)," but the "reasons" are intended to satisfy individual integrity for having acted.The final chapter is a series of ruminations, something about naturalism not becoming a religion, Nozick's (mis)use of Darwinism as an escape hatch, and a reminder that the natural world and our use of it also necessarily includes us in it (a dominant theme throughout).Nagel reinforces Nozick's point about rationality being inherently circular, but according to Nagel that is simply necessary and unavoidable (not an objection). The principal idea is the individual's inability to escape his embeddedness, much less his ability to approach his perspectives "outside" them is both impossible and undesirable, and why these facts repudiate extreme subjectivism/relativism. Most philosophy students already know this. Most in postmodernism and the humanities don't, and they will most benefit from this book.

Thomas Nagel’s The Last Word is a defense of reason and objectivity against the claims of subjectivism, so-called perspectivalism and relativism. The postmodernists have made subjectivism and relativism key tools in their attempt to combat the force of the enlightenment. The notion that reason is simply a hegemonic tool used by some to dominate others opens the door to a great number of possibilities and a good deal of mischief. It valorizes ‘feelings’ and reinforces attitudes, arguments and beliefs that are not supportable by reason and logic. It eschews the empirical method, devalues science and furthers the efforts of politicizing the academy. It reassures the young who have many feelings and wish to express them without logical challenge. In today’s academy (at least in the humanities and soft social sciences) it is in the ascendant and any attempt to counter its claims will draw significant fire, as anyone who looks at the responses which Nagel has received will quickly see. Philosophers are very clever and nearly every position taken will find itself vulnerable to criticism of some sort. Still, Nagel’s argument is persuasive.Basically, he argues that we cannot get beyond reason if we seek to challenge it. We must face it on its own terms and within its own boundaries. Hence, anyone seeking to argue against the primacy or viability of reason cannot get ‘outside’ of it to launch his or her claims. Reason’s boundaries (and logic’s, and mathematics’) are inescapable and the insistence of its presence constitutes the objectivity against which the subjectivist seeks to war.Nagel makes the case in 7 chapters in a relatively brief book. He addresses questions of language, logic, science, ethics and evolutionary naturalism. He repeats the core argument on multiple occasions and some might find the chapters repetitive. Since he writes at a relatively high level of abstraction with very few concrete examples, I found the repetition helpful.This is an important book on an important subject.

This has to be one of the best books I've read on the debate between realism vs relativism.Nagel who is also a rationalist takes the side of realism and argues on the relevant topics such as science, language, ethics and logic. In fact the chapter on logic was my favorite, he devotes a good amount of time towards Rene'Descartes with criticisms and aspects that he is in agreement with. In the end Thomas Nagel actually holds to the 'cogito' and rightly so. Of course you'll see the names of other prominent philosophers from the past and present pop up such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Saul Kripke, Immanuel Kant and Hilary Putnam.One of his finest quotes in the book shows why cases of objectivism in certain circumstances are basically inescapable."The general aim for such reasoning is the to make sense of the world in which we find ourselves and of how it appears to us and others. We proceed by generating, comparing, and ranking possible versions, and it is these comparisons that are the substance of the process. But we begin from the idea that there is some way the world is, and this, I believe, is an idea to which there is no intellible alternative and which cannot be subordinated to or derived from anything else. My aim is to argue that even a subjectivist cannot escape from or rise above this idea".Indeed it appears that objectivism seems to have 'The Last word" on matters.This book is more towards an intermediate reader of philosophy, though I can see a beginner grasping the 'gist' of this book as well.I highly recommend this

Great book, pretty short but dense. Clearly written, concerning very profound matters.

The first half of the book has very complex ideas. I needed a lot of patience to finish. I only read it because it was recommended by Sam Harris!

The lesson here is not to expect too much from a book this short which plans to defend realist/rationalist positions in language, logic, science and ethics.Or maybe just don't expect much from Nagel. By page 15, we already have the tired line that logical positivism is defeated by the application of its verification principle to itself. I am always saddened that so many analytic philosophers have such a low opinion of their forebears. The likes of Carnap could digest a diagonal argument before breakfast and knew in detail the very necessary technical machinery needed to circumvent them. Yet somehow he was such an incompetent buffoon that he missed the world's most trivial argument from self-refutation?More sad is the chapter on ethics, which decides to concern itself entirely with moral subjectivism, the weakest of the non-realist metaethical stances that is usually only mentioned by way of insult.To fill in for a paucity of real counterarguments, Nagel has to argue repeatedly from incredulity, and invite us to laugh at Richard Rorty quotes. He then lets an unreflective use of choice words like "hierarchy", "dominate", "foundations" and "domains of thought" to do his work for him. These aren't words I have much interest in using (perhaps I've read too much Rorty).Nagel builds a picture of a mystical hierarchy, but has little interest in spelling out details, admitting that such details are always up for revision anyway -- only the rigid topology stands; is that is? It's not clear to me why I shouldn't question that part too.Another reviewer noted that our beliefs about logic have been reviewed and changed quite aggressively, not least with Brouwer's intuitionism, so that I do now find myself wanting to investigate old favourites such as the rule "modus ponens", an example Nagel uses repeatedly. And I might point out that his cute argument for how the mind must transcend the finite is challenged fairly hotly by modern day finitists, who take their cue from David Hilbert, whose own mathematical credentials are not up for debate. The foundations of mathematics have been turned on their head and churned over the centuries, and placing any bets only 100 years after the last crisis seems foolhardy.Ultimately, I find that these rationalist accounts are often, at best, gilding the lily, or, at worst, needlessly constraining our imagination.

great everything as ordered