What Is It Like to Be a Bat?

Thomas Nagel · The Philosophical Review · 1974

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Thomas Nagel

Publisher

The Philosophical Review

Year

1974

Language

English

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Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable. Perhaps that is why current discussions of the problem give it little attention or get it obviously wrong. The recent wave of reductionist euphoria has produced several analyses of mental phenomena and mental concepts designed to explain the possibility of some variety of materialism, psychophysical identification, or reduction. But the problems dealt with are those common to this type of reduction and other types, and what makes the mind-body problem unique, and unlike the water-H2O problem or the Turing machine-IBM machine problem or the lightning-electrical discharge problem or the gene-DNA problem or the oak tree-hydrocarbon problem, is ignored.

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APA 7

Nagel, T. (1974). What Is It Like to Be a Bat?. https://doi.org/10.2307/2183914

MLA

Nagel, Thomas. "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?." 1974. https://doi.org/10.2307/2183914.

Chicago

Nagel, Thomas. 1974. "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?.". https://doi.org/10.2307/2183914.

Harvard

Nagel, T. 1974, What Is It Like to Be a Bat?, The Philosophical Review, available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/2183914 [Accessed 8 Aug. 2026].

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Resource details

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Title: What Is It Like to Be a Bat?

Author / contributors: Thomas Nagel

Publisher: The Philosophical Review

Publication year: 1974

Language: English

Subjects

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Contemporary philosophy; General interest; Philosophy; Epistemology