Thomas Nagel believes there is a problem in philosophy. The problem stems from the opposition between
the first-person or subjective, and third-person or objective points of view. Perspective, points of view, and
position will all be used interchangeably throughout these notes.

Nagel's Intentions: Nagel is trying to do a number of things in this essay. One, he is trying to show how
we can make sense of our subjective experience, yet still consider an objective point of view as legitimate.
Two, he goes through a variety of philosophical problems showing how the meaning of our subjective
experience conflicts with the meaning of the same experience from an objective, detached stance:
the meaning of life, the problem of free will, the problem of personal identity, the mind-body problem,
the conflict between consequentialist (group based) and agent-centered (an individual) theories of right
and wrong.

General Argument

1) There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality.
2) What may appear from the subjective point of view cannot be accounted for as objective.
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Therefore, either the (1) objective conception of the world is incomplete or  (2) the subjective conception
    involves illusions that should be rejected.

For the first part of the disjunct (1), what Nagel is saying is that what comes from the subjective point of
view may not be accounted for via on objective analysis--thus the objective analysis leaves out something
and is incomplete.

Likewise, the second part of the disjunct (2), the objective point of view justifies conceptions that are
intersubjectively true (not just true for one individual), yet subjective conceptions are not necessarily
intersubjectively true, and thus, contain possible illusions which are false. What Nagel tries to do is show
how some traditional philosophical questions/problems arise from the subjective/objective distinction.

First Problem: The Meaning of Life

1. The Meaning of Life
    a) We have a specific meaning for our individual lives from the subjective point of view.
        (human pursuits from within life)
    b) We have no specific meaning for our individual lives from the objective point of view because the
        detachment places our life as one among many in human history.
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     Therefore, our lives have a great importance from one perspective, but not from the other.

2. Death
    i) Conscious existence ends at bodily death.
    ii) Death from the subjective perspective is the worst possible thing.
    iii) Death from the objective perspective is not the worst possible thing, life is only a span of time,
        and the only bad thing coming from death is lesser time with conscious existence.
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    Therefore, death is both the worst possible thing and not the worst possible thing based upon the
        perspective.

Second Problem: Free Will

The problem of free will is actually many problems. One, if actions are determined by antecedent conditions,
or those that come before, then there may be no free will. Two, even if there is no determinism or causal
antecedent conditions, free will still may not exist. Agent causation, or the idea that the person self-causes
his/her actions doesn't solve the problem either because cause is still operative and that leaves out choice
and free will.

Free Will
a) From the subjective perspective, I act from my own will or what I want to do.
b) From the objective perspective, there is no account of what "acting from my own will" is.
c) If you act from your own will (subjective perspective), you are morally responsible.
d) There is no account of "acting from my own will" from the objective perspective, thus you are not
    morally responsible.
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Free will and moral responsibility are tied to particular perspectives and problems arise when we
    fail to see this.

Nagel's point is simply that the problem of free will as normally construed is not the problem.
The problem is the conflict between the two perspectives.

Third Problem: Personal Identity

The problem of personal identity is a search for the conditions that must obtain if two experiential
episodes separated in time are to belong to the same person. Or in ordinary language, what is it that
makes the same person the same throughout time or in time sequences. What is it that makes me the
same person that grew up in Colorado and now lives in California many years later?

Personal Identity
    1. Persons persist and change throughout time and those are terms in which they must be described
        from an objective perspective.
    2. Premise 1 involves analysis in terms of memory, similarity of character or physical characteristics.
    3. All three ways of analyzing leave something out from the subjective perspective.
    4. The self exists from the subjective perspective.
    5. The self does not exist from the objective perspective.
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    C--Depending upon the perspective taken the self either exists or it doesn't.
 

Nagel's point is simply that the problem of personal identity as normally construed is not the problem.
The problem is the conflict between the two perspectives.

Fourth Problem: The Mind-Body Problem

The mind-body problem is a problem of how the physical relates to the mental. Specifically Nagel is
concerned with "...how one can include in the objective world a mental substance having subjective
properties..." and "...how a physical substance can have subjective properties." (201)

Mind-Body
    i)   Physical substance is objective.
    ii)  Mental substance is subjective.
    iii)  Theories about physical substance leave out the subjective character of mental substance.
    iv) Our mental life is inherently subjective and are not subject to the same type of analyzation
        as objective physical substance
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    C-The mind-body problem is one of competing perspectives, that is, placing the priority of explanation
        on one over the other and then not being able to reconcile them.
 

Nagel offers one more argument in this section on ethics. The general idea is that considering agent
motivation for individual interests is an example of the subjective viewpoint, and considering agent
motivation for group interests in an example of the objective viewpoint. Kantian or deontological is an
example of the first and certain forms of consequentialism are examples of the second.

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More on the Subjective/Objective Viewpoints.

Nagel states, "Although I shall speak of the subjective viewpoint and the objective viewpoint, this is just
shorthand, for there not two such viewpoints, nor even two such categories into which more particular
viewpoints can be placed. Instead, there is a polarity. At one end is the point of view of a particular individual,
having a specific constitution, situation, and relation to the rest of the world. From here the direction of
movement toward greater objectivity involves, first, abstraction from the individual's specific spatial, temporal,
and personal position in the world then from the features that distinguish him from other humans, then gradually
from the forms of perception and action characteristic of humans, and away from the narrow range of human
scale in space, time and quantity, toward a conception of the world which as far as possible is not the view
from anywhere within it. There is no end to this process, but it's aim is to regard the world as centerless, with
the viewer just one of its contents." (206)

What is important to note is the degree of detachment. You begin with yourself, then move outwards increasing
in objectivity to where you are viewing the world completely from the outside. To the extent we can give up the
limitations of our own view can be questioned, but one can clearly see how the detachment process works.
You might want to think of what Nagel is doing as trying to get to the something like a God's eye view from
which all things are seen. If you can truly abstract like that, you not only view the world as centerless, you
realize you are just another point of view of an infinite point of views.

The Notion of Intersubjectivity

Nagel states, "What is more subjective is not necessarily more private. In general it is intersubjectively
available. I assume that the subjective ideas of experience, of action, and of the self, are in some sense
public or common property." (207)

If you read the next paragraph, Nagel cashes this out in terms of Wittgenstein's views. Basically, here is
what he is doing. We see things and have concepts of them. Things appear the similar to all of us, we may
not have exactly the same perception but they are similar enough to make judgments about. Specifically, it
is not the object it self, but the appearance of the object that is similar. For example we see a red apple.
Unless someone is color blind, he/she will have relatively the same experience of sensation. Maybe it
appears a bit brighter to some, and darker to others. Nevertheless, we still all have some sort of subjective
phenomenological experience of 'red' and the concept of red is then public and intersubjective among all of
us. Notice the move here. We still account for our subjective experiences, yet that experience is intelligible
to others who have a similar concept and experience. Wittgenstein called this way of relating things together
the notion of 'family resemblance' much like you can tell all of the members of one family by their shared
characteristics in spite of having non-shared characteristics.

He brings this notion of intersubjectivity up to show you how one begins to move outwards towards the
polarity of the objective. You start with your personal subjective experience, and then you make the move
to parts of that experience being intersubjective among your fellow man. Intersubjectivity is just one step
along the way to the goal of ultimate detachment but an important one. It is a bridge of sorts from an
individualistic perspective to an individualistic perspective from an intersubjective perspective. In otherwords,
it (the intersubjective perspective) objectifies your experience in a way that your own personal perspective
does not.

The Notion of Detachment

Nagel states, "Since a kind of intersubjective agreement characterizes even what is most subjective, the
transition to a more objective viewpoint is not accomplished merely through intersubjective agreement.
Nor does it proceed by an imaginative scope that provides access to many subjective points of view other
than one's own. Its essential character, in all the examples cited, is externality or detachment. The
attempt is made to view the world not from a place within it, or from the vantage point of a special type
of life and awareness, but from nowhere in particular and no form of life in particular at all. The object
is to discount for the features of our pre-reflective outlook that make things appear to us as they do,
and thereby reach an understanding of how things really are." (208)

In this paragraph, Nagel makes an extremely important distinction. The sentence beginning with "Nor...."
is Nagel making his break with Kant. Although Nagel is Kantian of sorts, the idea of placing yourself inter-
subjectively into another's point of view is Kant's. Kant believed that this intersubjectivity was based upon
something far deeper, or transcendental. Intersubjectivity is a basic constituent of Kantian reality and is
fundamental to any type of experience. This notion of 'fundamental' is about as objective as you can get.
Nagel doesn't think so. He thinks you need to continue to detach, yet he fails to recognize that any point
of view is subjectively assumable even the most detached. The last sentence is a key to understanding
what he is doing in this paper. Things may appear to us one way and things may really be a different way.
The subjective perspective gives you the first and the objective gives you the second. Think of the bent
stick in the water example. It appears one way, yet we know it is another.

The Conflict

Nagel says, "Problems arise because the same individual is the occupant of both viewpoints. In trying to
understand and discount for the distorting influences of his specific nature he must rely on certain aspects
of his nature which he deems less prone to such influence. He examines himself and his interactions with
the world, using a specially selected part of himself for that purpose. That part may be subsequently
scrutinized in turn,and there may be no end to the process." (208)

He continues, "The pursuit of objectivity therefore involves a transcendence of the self in two ways:
a transcendence of particularity and a transcendence of one's type. It must be distinguished from a
different kind of transcendence by which one enters imaginatively into other subjective points of view,
and tries to see how things appear from other specific standpoints. Objective transcendence aims at
a representation of what is external to each specific point of view: what is there or what is of value in itself,
rather than for anyone." (209)

It should be straightforward what Nagel is doing by now. He thinks there is polarity between these two
viewpoints. On one end is individualistic subjective experience and on the other is objective self-
transcendence. These perspectives are radically opposed to each other. What they imply is that
there are two worlds of experience. Yet we live in a single world and accommodating both perspectives
results in the conflicts previously mentioned.

Another relevant quote, "We must admit that the move towards objectivity reveals what things are like in
themselves as opposed to how they appear; not just how they appear to one, relatively austere point of
views as opposed to others. Therefore when the objective gaze is turned on human beings and other
experiencing creatures, who are undeniably parts of the world, it can reveal only what they are like in
themselves. And if the way things are for these subjects is not part of the way of things are in themselves,
an objective account will omit something. So reality is not just objective reality, and the pursuit of
objectivity is not an equally effective method of reaching the truth about everything." (213)

Translated out the Kantian jargon of thing in themselves, Nagel is saying that the objective perspective
can only reveal so much if the subjective perspective cannot be accounted for from within the objective
perspective. The last sentence is telling. Nagel admits that taking an objective perspective will not
reveal the truth about everything. That leaves room open for non-objective knowledge that is subject
dependent. The tension is here once again, two types of knowledge based upon the perspective taken.

The Resolution

Nagel states, "While I am arguing for a form of romanticism, I am not an extremist. The task of accepting
the polarity without allowing either of its terms to swallow the other should be a creative one. It is the aim
of the eventual unification that I think is misplaced, both in our thoughts about how to live and in our
conception of what there is. The coexistence of conflicting points of view, varying in detachment from
the contingent self, is not just a practically necessary illusion but an irreducible fact of life." (213)

There are a few ways you can read this paragraph. I think Nagel is taking a pragmatic line here. We have
these two perspectives and we need to recognize when one is doing too much work. We then have to
correct this for the sake of intelligibility. This in some sense is made public and used a rule of behavior.
We use things like experience to aid in these corrections. Another read is his romanticism as a creative
process. The general idea is the same as the pragmatic read, but where it differs is that it is more
individualistic. The individual creates his/her take on what needs to be done with the perspectives.
I think this conflicts with his earlier take on Wittgenstein and public concepts. Others are going to have
the same experience of conflict based upon the public concepts in question. This is intersubjective and
not individualistic like the creative process. Ultimately Nagel needs to justify why the creative process
for the individual should take precedence or priority over the pragmatic process based upon the same
concepts.

Summary: What you should take from this essay is the distinction between the two perspectives. Notice
how the philosophical problems are set up by the distinction. Nagel argues that these two perspectives
are an irreducible fact of life, that is they cannot be reduced to each other. By recognizing this lack of
reduction, we then take a pragmatic line and use experience to keep our perspectives in the proper scope
of explanation and intelligibility. Thus, we know in some cases thing aren't really how the appear to us,
and in other cases they are. Without the two different perspectives we couldn't make that claim.