Introduction

Persons are subjects of thought and action; they live in a world that science has so successfully managed to understand. As subjects, persons have a very particular perspective on the world and their actions in it: call it the subjective perspective. Persons are also capable of transcending this subjective perspective and of thinking about the world and their behaviour in a detached manner. They are capable of viewing the world not just from here, and from the point of view of humanity, but also of viewing it from nowhere in particular. The View From Nowhere is a philosophical exploration of these perspectives: the subjective and the objective. It is Nagel's firm belief that both perspectives are real and that the truth about our world can only be gained through an understanding of how these two perspectives coexist in all that we think and do. He writes that if we could say how these standpoints or perspectives are related “it would amount to a world view” (p. 3).

Thus Nagel sets his reader up to think about some of the most abiding and difficult problems in philosophy: metaphysical problems about how to think about the mind in relation to the body; epistemological problems concerning a subject's knowledge of the world around her; ethical and political problems concerning how subjects are to conduct themselves in a world inhabited by other subjects; and, finally, some of the oldest of philosophical problems – how I am to think about my birth, my death and the meaning of my life.