according to rachels, for our survival in the future there must be a person identical to us in what?
Thomas Nagel (1937- ) is a prominent American philosopher, author of numerous articles and books, and currently University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University where he has taught since 1980.
In "The Absurd," (1971) Nagel asks why people sometimes feel that life is absurd. For example, they often say that life is absurd because nothing we practise now volition affair in the distant futurity. But Nagel points out that the corollary of this is that nothing in the afar futurity matters now: "In particular, it does not matter now that in a 1000000 years cipher we do now will affair."[i]
Furthermore, fifty-fifty if what nosotros practise at present does thing in a distant future, how does that prevent our present deportment from being cool? In other words, if our present actions are absurd then their mattering in the afar hereafter tin hardly give them pregnant. For the mattering in the distant future to exist important things must thing now. And if I claim definitely that what I do now will not matter in a million years so either: a) I claim to know something most the future that I don't know; or b) have merely assumed what I'one thousand trying to prove—that what I do will non thing in the time to come. Thus the existent question is whether things matter now—since no appeals to the afar future seem to help us respond that question.
Consider next the argument that our lives are absurd considering we live in a tiny speck of a vast creation, or in a small sliver of time. Nagel argues that neither of these concerns makes life absurd. This is obvious because even if we were immortal or large enough to fill the universe, this would not change the fact that our lives might be absurd. Another statement appeals to the fact that everything ends in death, and from this infers that there is no final purpose for our actions. Nagel replies that many things nosotros exercise in life find their justification in the nowadays—when I am hungry I eat!
Moreover, if the chain of justification must always pb to some other justification, we would exist defenseless in an space regress. And since justification must end somewhere if information technology is to be justified at all, it might as well stop in life. Nagel concludes that the arguments but outlined neglect, adding: "Withal I believe they attempt to express something that is difficult to land merely fundamentally right."[ii]
For Nagel, the discrepancy between the importance we place on our lives from a subjective point of view, and how gratuitous they appear objectively, is the essence of the applesauce of our lives. "… the standoff between the seriousness with which we take our lives and the perpetual possibility of regarding everything about which we are serious as arbitrary, or open to incertitude."[iii] Nonetheless, short of escaping life altogether, there is no manner to reconcile the absurdity resulting from our pretensions and the nature of reality. This analysis rests on two points: ane) the extent to which we must have our lives seriously; and two) the extent to which, from a certain indicate of view, our lives announced insignificant. The kickoff indicate rests on the bear witness of the planning, calculation, and concerns with which we invest in our lives.
Think of how an ordinary private sweats over his advent, his wellness, his sex life, his emotional honesty, his social utility, his self-knowledge, the quality of his ties with family unit, colleagues, and friends, how well he does his job, whether he understands the world and what is going on in information technology. Leading a human life is total-fourth dimension occupation to which everyone devotes decades of intense business concern.[iv]
The second signal rests on the reflections we all accept nigh whether life is worth it. Ordinarily, afterwards a catamenia of reflection, nosotros just stop thinking nearly it and go on with our lives.
To avert this applesauce we try to supply meaning to our lives through our function "in something larger than ourselves… in service to society, the state, the revolution, the progress of history, the advance of science, or religion and the glory of God."[v] Simply this larger thing must itself be meaning if our lives are to have meaning by participating in it; in other words, we can inquire the same question about the meaning of this larger purpose as we tin can of our lives—what does it mean? Then when does this quest for justification end?
Nagel says it ends when we want it to. We can end the search in the experiences of our lives or in being role of a divine plan, but wherever we end the search, nosotros end information technology arbitrarily. In one case we have begun to wonder about the indicate of it all, we can then ask of any proposed answer—what is the indicate of that? "In one case the fundamental doubt has begun, it cannot be laid to rest."[vi] There is no imaginable earth that could settle our doubts about its significant.
Nagel further argues that reflection most our lives doesn't reveal that they are insignificant compared to what is really important, merely that they are merely significant by reference to themselves. And then when nosotros step back and reflect on our lives, we contrast the pretensions we have near the meaning of them with the larger perspective in which no standards of meaning tin can exist discovered.
Nagel contrasts his position on the cool with epistemological skepticism. Skepticism transcends the limitations of thoughts by recognizing the limitations of thought. Just after nosotros have stepped back from our beliefs and their supposed justifications, nosotros don't then contrast the manner reality appears with an alternative reality. Skepticism implies that nosotros do not know what reality is. Similarly, when nosotros step dorsum from life, nosotros do non find what is really meaning. We just continue to alive taking life for granted in the same manner we take appearances for granted.
But something has inverse. Although in the one case we continue to believe the external world exists, and in the other case we keep to pursue our lives with seriousness, nosotros are now filled with irony and resignation. "Unable to carelessness the natural responses on which they depend, we accept them back, like a spouse who has run off with someone else so decided to return; but we regard them differently…"[vii] Even so, we continue to put try into our lives despite what reason tells us about the irony of taking them seriously.
Our ability to step back from our lives and view them from a cosmic perspective makes them seem all the more absurd. And so what are our options? 1) We could turn down to take this transcendental step back, but that would be to admit that there was such a perspective, the vision of which would ever be with us. Then nosotros tin can't do this consciously. 2) We could carelessness the subjective viewpoint and identify with the objective viewpoint entirely, just this requires taking oneself so seriously as an individual that we may undermine the effort to avoid the subjective. 3) We could respond to our animalistic natures merely and reach a life that would not exist meaningful, but at least less cool than the lives of those who were witting of the transcendental stance. But surely this approach would take psychological costs. "And that is the chief condition of absurdity—the dragooning of an unconvinced transcendent consciousness into the service of an imminent, limited enterprise like a human being life."[viii]
But we need non experience that the absurdity of our lives presents us with a problem to exist solved, or that we ought to reply with Camus' disobedience. Instead, Nagel regards our recognition of absurdity equally "a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics."[ix] It is possible simply because idea transcends itself. And by recognizing our true situation we no longer accept reason to resent or escape our fate. He thus counsels that we regard our lives as ironic. It is merely ironic that nosotros take our lives so seriously when nothing is serious at all; this is the incongruity betwixt what we expect and reality. Yet, in the end, information technology does not matter that nothing matters from the objective view, then we should only chuckle at the absurdity of our lives.
Summary – Life has no objective meaning and there is no reason to think we tin can give it whatever meaning at all. Still, we go on to live and should respond, not with defiance or despair, but with an ironic smiling. Life is not as important and meaningful every bit we may have once suspected, but this is not a crusade for sadness.
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[i] Thomas Nagel, "The Absurd," in The Significant of Life, ed. East.D Klemke and Steven Cahn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008,)143.
[2] Nagel, "The Absurd," 144.
[iii] Nagel, "The Absurd," 145.
[iv] Nagel, "The Absurd," 146.
[v] Nagel, "The Absurd," 147.
[half-dozen] Nagel, "The Absurd," 147.
[vii] Nagel, "The Absurd," 150.
[viii] Nagel, "The Absurd," 151.
[ix] Nagel, "The Absurd," 152.
Source: https://reasonandmeaning.com/2015/11/23/summary-of-thomas-nagels-the-absurd/
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