It is one thing to question particular conclusions in the natural sciences it is quite another to argue against a priori assumptions about their content. More than anything else, it was Nagel’s challenge to and rejection of those philosophical principles that underpin so much of modern and contemporary reflection on nature that seemed to many to be especially troublesome. Critics of the explanatory reach (or what they think is an over-reach) of evolutionary biology were pleased to find an ally-or one who they thought was an ally-in an eminent philosopher who, despite his own atheism, was willing to reject a reigning materialist and reductionist account of nature and human nature. There have been few books in recent years that have created as much discussion, in the academic world at least, as Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False.
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