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In ''The View from Nowhere,'' Thomas Nagel argues for the thesis that no objective description of the world can be complete. An objective view of the world, Nagel argues, cannot account for who its subject is and it is consequently incomplete. The fact to be explained is presumably the fact that a particular person who is described in the objective view is the subject of it as well. Given that a scientific picture of the world is meant to be objective, an important point involved in this discussion is that subjectivity cannot be scientifically accounted for. I will try to reconstruct Nagel's argument for the incompatibility of objectivity and completeness and raise some objections to it. My intention is to show that Nagel's thesis owes its philosophical significance to an ambiguous notion of completeness Nagel is working with. I shall distinguish two plausible senses in which a picture of the world can be said to be incomplete, that I will call an ''epistemic'' and ''metaphysical'' sense. My suggestion will then be that either Nagel's reasons in support of his thesis are insufficient (under its metaphysical reading), or the thesis in question lacks most of the significance it initially seems to posses (if it is epistemologically read).
CS1-1.2. On the Search for the Neural Correlate of Consciousness: Some Caveats.
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