In his recent book, Thomas Nagel argues that our ideas about the entities that constitute the
world, and our notions of the evolution of biological entities, are inadequate. Nagel regards …

If there is a received orthodoxy in contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science, it
is that all features of the mind, including meaning, action, and consciousness, can and …

WHEN a drowning man is brought back to life, or a surgical patient recovers from the effects
of the chloroform, that inner illumination returns in virtue of which he does not merely exist …

The problem of consciousness seems to arise from experience itself. As we shall consider in
more detail below, we are strongly disposed to contrast conscious experience with the …

Origin of Species–must also be directly or indirectly related to survival–now, or at some time
in the past. Whether or not this is true, the ubiquity of “neuroevolutionary” accounts of …

Nobody can deny that complex features of consciousness, such as reflexivity (the
awareness that there is awareness of something), or self-consciousness (the awareness of …

The discussion of the evolutionary origins of consciousness has largely been concentrated
to the human mind, and it is only in recent years that a comparative ethological view has …

The problems with this book begin with the provocative subtitle, bleeding into the
introductory chapter and its polemical sequel. Nagel just assumes from the start that modern …

The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central
mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value …

The proper study of Mankind is animal evolution. If one looks back on the evolutionary time-
scale one finds all kinds of animals surviving in our midst which have very simple nervous …