Column: The Leading Edge
A Doubting Thomas
by Phillip E. Johnson
When I first heard of the title and subtitle of Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False, I knew I had to read the book, and probably comment upon it in Touchstone. The subtitle succinctly states the thesis I have been advancing ever since 1987, when I first took up writing about Darwinism while on a sabbatical leave in London from my day job as a professor of law at the University of California in Berkeley.
Thomas Nagel is an eminent American philosopher, currently university professor of philosophy and law at New York University. He is well-known for his critiques of reductionist accounts of the mind, particularly in his 1974 essay, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"
He begins Mind and Cosmos by stating that the mind-body problem is not just a single issue, but that it invades (pervades) our understanding of the entire cosmos and its history. He says that a true appreciation of its difficulty must eventually change our conception of the place of the physical sciences in describing the natural order.
Exploring Alternatives to Materialism
Early in his book, Nagel explains that the conflict between scientific naturalism and anti-reductionism is a staple of recent philosophy.
On the one side there is the hope that everything can be accounted for at the most basic level by the physical sciences, extended to include biology. On the other side there are doubts about whether the reality of such features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, purpose, thought, and value can be accommodated in a universe consisting at the most basic level only of physical facts—facts, however sophisticated, of the kind revealed by the physical sciences.
He asserts that purely mental entities, including value and meaning, cannot be reduced to physical (or material) causes. He goes on to say that if the existence of mind cannot be explained by a physical cause, then neither can biology be purely physical. The book explores the question of what might be the alternative to materialism.
Nagel's "guiding conviction is that mind is not just an afterthought or an accident or an add-on, but a basic aspect of nature." He refers to the importance of the intelligibility of the world, which allows science to operate. And it requires thinking creatures to appreciate the intelligibility.
While Nagel rejects reductionist materialism, he also cannot accept theism, in which a "comprehensive mental source" rules all. He describes our desire for comprehensive self-understanding and says it cannot be resolved either by reductionist evolutionary thinking or by theism. He reviews the history of thought in this area, logical problems with current explanations, and alternatives such as emergence and theism.
Acknowledging Intelligent Design
Phillip E. Johnson is Professor of Law (emeritus) at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of Darwin on Trial, The Wedge of Truth, The Right Questions (InterVarsity Press), and other books challenging the naturalistic assumptions that dominate modern culture. He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.
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