Great paper that perfectly exemplifies what a "modern" philosopher does and thinks about on a daily basis. Unfortunately, it's also a paper that is often read o

Great paper that perfectly exemplifies what a "modern" philosopher does and thinks about on a daily basis. Unfortunately, it's also a paper that is often read only in lower-level philosophy courses. In my opinion, one needs to have a very deep understanding of the Philosophy of Mind corpus before being thrown into this paper because an uninitiated reader may be tempted to think that Nagel is obviously right on X or obviously wrong on Y, but his points are very nuanced. Nagel is also making some pretty big claims, specifically about the "private" nature of experience. Anscombe (whom I also loved reading) makes similar arguments. Philosophy of Mind was never my forte (I'm a logic and ethics guy), but reading Nagel was always a breath of fresh air in what I think is a subfield marred by unnecessary technicality and equivocation.