Thomas Nagel's What It Is Like To Be A Bat

The mind body problem remains a problem in philosophy of mind and philosophy of science. What is the association amongst the physical domain and the mind or consciousness? Is the mind and body one substance as monism disputes? Alternatively, are the mind and body separate as dualism claims? These contrasting doctrines (monism and dualism) have come to an impasse many times. In an essay called What it is Like to be a Bat, the philosopher Thomas Nagel offers a thought experiment that materialist theories of mind neglect the vital element of consciousness. Nagel does this by demonstrating that there is something that it feels like to be a specific conscious being. In this essay, I will explain Nagel’s thought experiment regarding What it’s like to be a Bat. …show more content…
I will also discuss Kathleen Akin’s objection to Nagel’s essay called What it is like to be Boring and Myopic. Finally, I will conclude that Nagel’s thought experiment displays a problem for the doctrine of monism that needs to be resolved. Materialism is a form of monism, which emphasizes that matter is the principal substance, and that all phenomena are a product of material interaction. Materialism is analogous to physicalism, which claims everything in the world is physical. If materialism and or physicalism are factual, then how do we explain the conscious occurrences we and other animals possess? How can we reduce this consciousness to a material object? Reductionism claims that a complex entity is nothing but the quantity of its parts. For example, a physicalist may use reductionism and state that all mental thoughts can be reduced to the physical parts of the