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What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy
by Thomas Nagel
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (1987-10-15)
ISBN: 0195052927
EAN: 9780195052923
Dewey Decimal #: 100
Binding/Media: Hardcover - 112 pages
SKU: 4G-62090206002
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comments: This copy is in excellent condition. No visible markings, highlights, underlining, tears to text. Tight spine. Clean Hard Cover and Dust Jacket. Dust Jacket has tiny scratches to back with light/minimum, shelf/edge wear. Very interesting copy, worth having at an affordable price. (4G-62)
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Should the hard questions of philosophy matter to ordinary people? In this down-to-earth, nonhistorical guide, Thomas Nagel, the distinguished author of Mortal Questions and The View From Nowhere, brings philosophical problems to life, revealing in vivid, accessible prose why they have continued to fascinate and baffle thinkers across the centuries. Arguing that the best way to learn about philosophy is to tackle its problems head-on, Nagel turns to some of the most important questions we can ask about ourselves. Do we really have free will? Why should we be moral? What is the relation between our minds and our brains? Is there life after death? How should we feel about death? In a universe so vast, billions of light years across, can anything we do with our lives really matter? And does it matter if it doesn't matter? These are perennial questions we ask about the human condition, and Nagel probes them, and others like them, thoughtfully, clearly, and with humor. He states his own opinions freely but with refreshing modesty, always leaving it open to readers to entertain other solutions, encouraging them to think for themselves. Nagel is eminently qualified to introduce the uninitiated to the world of philosophical inquiry. Singled out by the Chicago Literary Review as "one of the sharpest analytic philosophers in America today," he has been praised in the New York Times Book Review for writing "sensitively and elegantly" and in the Times Literary Supplement for his ability, rare among philosophers, to combine "profundity with clarity and simplicity of expression." Never rarefied, What Does It All Mean? opens our eyes to a side of the world we rarely consider, demonstrating that philosophy is no empty study but an indispensable key to understanding our lives. It challenges us to think hard and clearly, to ask questions, to try out ideas and raise possible objections to them--in short, to become philosophers ourselves.
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Customer Reviews
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Short but penetrating
Rating  (5)
Date: 2010-06-27
At about 100 pages in a somewhat large font, this book is indeed very short; you can read it in a day or two, if you have some time. I've read and thought about philosophy a lot over the years, so I didn't actually need to read another introduction to the subject, but I've recently read some of Thomas Nagel's essays and I was impressed, so I thought I'd give this book a try.
Overall, I'm not disappointed. Nagel displays the rigorous hairsplitting characteristic of analytic philosophy, but he applies this rigor to big and important questions, rather than intellectual trivia which is of only academic interest. As a result, he's a penetrating and balanced philosopher, so he manages to cover a lot of ground in this book. He wrestles earnestly with the questions, and thus shows us what philosophy looks like when it's done well. He writes unpretentiously, but these questions are difficult, so you have to focus and engage actively with the material. In fact, rather than claiming to answer the questions, he shows that the questions lead to further questions, with firm conclusions being seemingly or actually impossible. He does state his opinions (and I agree with nearly all of them), but he does this only as an aside, thus emphasizing that readers need to evaluate the arguments and potential conclusions for themselves.
The only drawback is that, because the book is so short, many readers will be left wanting a lot more, and readers already well versed in philosophy might not get much from the book. But for an audience which is new to philosophy, the book packs in plenty of content, and such readers may be shocked to discover how philosophical enquiry can contradict and undermine 'common sense'. From that perspective, I'm almost tempted *not* to recommend this book!
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Philosophy 100: what does it all mean?
Rating (5)
Date: 2010-02-22
Like many other people I started asking myself philosophical questions when I was a teenager. Is death the end, what is existence, can we know anything, what is the meaning of life, if any?
Especially starting with ancient Greece there have been many philosophers in history trying to find answers to these kinds of fundamental problems and many books have been written. According to Nagel the same philosophical questions keep popping up in humans minds because philosophical raw material comes directly from the world and our relation to it, not from writings of the past.
Nagel in this book gives a basic introduction to philosophy. He concentrates on the most fundamental questions. I must say that Nagel does a really good job in introducing philosophy through questioning and I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested philosophy.
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Good little intro to philosophy for the uninitiated
Rating  (4)
Date: 2009-10-20
This is a very nice little review. It compares favourably to Bertie Russell's 'Problems of Philosophy' in the sense that it is simpler, clearer, and thus much easier for the complete novice to read and understand. On the other hand, this is precisely why it will be unsatisfactory for other readers. It mostly utilises the traditional philosophical device of doubt, and encourages the reader to ponder possible solutions to the fundamental conundrums that arise.
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A simple introduction to what can be a complex subject!
Rating (4)
Date: 2009-10-08
I found the book a great way to be introduced to the subject of philosophy. As the title suggests, what does it all mean? At its most basic level you can obtain a true understanding of the social science called philosophy. It is in very simple language and it provides some practical understanding of how to view the subject. It somehow causes you to think that this is all there is. But when you actually start to read true philosophical works, you tend to realize how the great philosophers had some deeper meaning with their works which in fact become more fascinating and mind boggling. If you read "what does it all mean", you can feel you have acquired some basic understanding of philosophy.
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Well-written; very introductory; almost too slim
Rating  (3)
Date: 2008-12-08
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is the most elementary of introductions to philosophy. Nagel isn't kidding when he writes that it is for "people who don't know the first thing about the subject." But the book is clearly written, with no fluff, and the topics are well-chosen. The two chapters on solipsism (2) and determinism (4) are perhaps the strongest; the two chapters on morality (7) and justice (8) are the weakest. Strangely, there is no conclusion, index, or even list of suggested books for further reading; the book simply stops after the chapter on the meaning of life (10). A major omission is a chapter on epistemology. And an improvement would have been a chapter on logic, if only to show the differences between, for example, arguments and propositions or validity and truth.
Being so slim, the book is not much of a textbook. If used in college at all, it is something a beginning student should read in a few hours before the semester begins to whet his appetite for more. But at least the book is written by a solid, well-respected philosopher in the Anglo-American tradition and therefore is probably a much better introduction to philosophy than many books that are pushed onto students these days.
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