Mortal Questions

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Published by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP Bentley House, 200 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB 32 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022, USA 296 Beaconsfield Parade, Middle Park, Melbourne 3206, Australia

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Cambridge University Press 1979 First published 1979

Printed in the United States of America. Typeset by The Pitman Press, Bath. Printed and Bound by Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton, New York.

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Nagel, Thomas. Mortal questions. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Life-Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Ethics-Addresses, essays, lectures. Title. BD431.N32

170

78--58797

ISBN 0 521 22360 1 hard covers ISBN 0 521 29460 6 paperback

I.

PREFACE

Philosophy covers an immense range of topics, but part of its concern has always been with mortal life: how to understand it and how to live it. These essays are about life: about its end, its meaning, its value, and about the metaphysics of consciousness. Some of the topics have not received much attention from analytic philosophers, because it is hard to be clear and precise about them, and hard to separate from a mixture of facts and feelings those questions abstract enough for philosophical treat­ ment. Such problems must be attacked by a philosophical

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method that_aims a p�rsonal.as welras theoreticaf understand­ ing, and _seeks to combine the. two by incorporating theoretical results into the framework of self-knowledge. This involves risk.

Large, relevant questions too easily evoke large, wet

answers. Every theoretical field faces a contest between extravagance

and repression, imagination and rigor, expansiveness and preci­ sion. Fleeing from the excesses of the one, it is easy to fall into the excesses of the other. Attachment to the grand style can

produce an impatience with demands for rigor and may lead to a,;

tokrance for the uni ntelligible. Since the defects of a tradition. tend to reflect its virtues, the problem in ar:lalytic philos