Question

0. Thomas Nagel invites us to think about what it is like to be a bat. Frank Jackson invites us to think about a fictional scientist, Mary. Is the goal of Nagel’s bat example the same as, or different from, the goal of Jackson’s Mary example? To answer this question, you should do each of the following:

   (a) Explain the purpose of Nagel’s bat example. (4 marks)

   (b) Explain the purpose of Jackson’s Mary example. (4 marks)

   (c) Argue that the purposes are the same or different. (2 marks)

Answer 1

a) "what is it like to be a Bat" is the name of a philosophy paper written by Thomas Nagel in 1974.

Nagel argues that consciousness has a subjective aspect, and that understanding other mental states is difficult or impossible for those not able to experience those mental states. Nagel chose bats for a reason.

b) Frank Jackson formulates the intuition underlying his knowledge argument in a much cited passage using his famous example Mary: Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor.

The experiment is intended to argue against physicalism- the view that the universe, including all that is mental, is entirely physical.

c) Nagel makes argument so similar to Frank Jackson's knowledge argument.

In Nagel account, total physical knowledge of the bat's neurophysiology and interaction with the world leaves out what it is like to be a bat. In Jackson's, a neuroscientist named Mary with total physical knowledge of the world, still does not know what it is like to see color.