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If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Nagel's Concealment and Exposure: A Review

Review: Review of Thomas Nagel, Concealment and Exposure" (PDF), by John Gardner for Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Book: Concealment and Exposure and Other Essays, by Thomas Nagel
Related: Papers by Nagel, nyu.edu

"In Concealment and Exposure, Thomas Nagel collects eighteen previously published essays of varying length and importance. Most are works of moral and political philosophy, although the final five (which I will not discuss) relate to his other main area of philosophical interest, the relationship between mind and reality. Among the papers in moral and political philosophy, a few might equally be classified as works of cultural commentary, and a couple perhaps even as works of social psychology. Five were published in scholarly books and journals, but the rest appeared in newsstand periodicals such as The New Republic and The London Review of Books [*](which gives us some reason to be more optimistic about public culture than Nagel is himself). More than half are review articles, mostly, but not only, discussing works by other philosophers."

(summary of chapters below)


----
From review of book by Michael Colson at Amazon:

"Ch 1: Nagel discusses topics that one can also find in Sam Scheffler's (Cal) excellent book, Boundaries and Allegiances (Oxford UP) on privacy and public life. Nagel delves into sex, secrecy, deception, mendacity and politeness, taboo, adultery/ Lewinsky case, scandal/ Clarence Thomas, and the language of cocktail parties. I laughed out loud when I read Nagel's footnote on Paul Grice (implicature): "Let's have lunch" means "I never want to see you again in my life." Excellent.
Ch 2: Loss of Public Privacy. More on C. Thomas, Lewinsky, Clinton, and conventions of civility.
Ch 3: Personal Rights and Public Space. N. discusses normative ethics and the 'paradox of rights'-- intrinsic vs. instrumental, highlighting the work of the late R. Nozick, Thomson, S. Scheffler, Kamm, and the late W. Quinn.
Ch. 4: Chastity. On Wendy Shalit's Return to Modesty. 2 pps.
Ch. 5: Nussbaum on Sexual Injustice.
Ch. 6: On Ray Monk's biography of Bertrand Russell, which talks about Russell's views on rationality and sexual freedom. N. notes that Monk's bio. is not an intellectual bio--doesn't engage R's philosophy, per se.

Part II:
Ch 7: On Rawls--a summary of some of Rawls's views, part iv and v is on T of J, and part vi is briefly on Law of the Peoples.
Ch 8: Rawls on Liberalism: on inequality of the classes, egalitarianism, taxation; part ii and iii is on R's Political Liberalism; part v is on T of J.
Ch 9: On G.A. Cohen's book, "If You're an Egalitarian..."
Ch 10: Justice and Nature. N. discusses deontology and inequity--part ii and iii is on rawls.
Ch 11: Raz on Liberty and Law
Ch 12: On Waldron's Dignity of Legislation
Ch 13: On Scanlon's What We Owe to Each Other--on contractualism and utilitarianism, in part discusses scanlon's 'relativism.'
Ch 14: On Rorty's Truth and Progress.
Ch 15: On Sokal's Fashionable Nonsense.
Ch 16: "Davidson's New Cogito," which is reprinted in the Hahn/Schlipp papers--Living Philosophers Series (open court).
Ch 17: Review of Barry Stroud's Quest for Reality (which is an excellent book)
Ch 18: "Psychophysical Nexus," which is reprinted in Boghossian and Peacocke: New Essays on the Apriori (Oxford UP). This is an excellent article on the mind-body problem since Kripke's functionalism (NN)."
Posted by adimantis on Friday 20 June 2003 - 00:21:06 | Read/Post Comment: 0 | |email to someone printer friendly create pdf of this news item ADD TO DEL.ICIO.US ADD TO SLASHDOT ADD TO DIGG STUMBLE IT ADD TO REDDIT

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