What Does it All Mean

108 Pages·2016·3.49 MB·English

by  Thomas Nagel

What Does It All Mean?

THOMAS NAGEL
What Does It All
Mean.?
A Very Short Introduction
to Philosophy
New York Oxford '·,t•'l ....... -fj. ':¥
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OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1987
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Oxford University Press
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Copyright © 1987 by Thomas Nagel
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nagel, Thomas.
What does it all mean?
I. Philosophy-Introductions. I. Title.
BD2l.N24 1987 100 87-14!l16
ISBN 0-19-505292-7
ISBN 0-19-505216-1 (pbk.)
35798642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
ltstituto
de lnvast:gac.o .~s filosoficae
BIBLil.il". UA
"11. lltttMDO GARCIA MA Y NEZ"
CltiDAD UNIVERSITA RIA
MEXJCO 10, 0. F
Contents
I. Introduction 3
2. How Do We Know Anything? 8
3. Other Minds 19
4. The Mind-Body Problem 27
5. The Meaning of Words 38
6. Free Will 47
7. Right and Wrong 59
8. Justice 76
9. Death 87
I 0. The Meaning of Life 95

What Does It All Mean?

1
Introduction
This book is a brief introduction to philosophy
for people who don't know the first thing about
the subject. People ordinarily study philosophy
only when they go to college, and I suppose that
most readers will be of college age or older. But
that has nothing to do with the nature of the
subject, and I would be very glad if the book
were also of interest to intelligent high school
students with a taste for abstract ideas and the
oretical arguments-should any of them read it.
Our analytical capacities are often highly de
veloped before we have learned a great deal
about the world, and around the age of fourteen
many people start to think about philosophical
problems on their own-about what really ex
ists, whether we can know anything, whether
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