External World By Nagel Summary

The concern Nagel is bringing up early in his book is the problem of the existence of an External World. The problem simply states that the world outside of our mind does not exist and we are living in a dream from which we cannot wake up. As humans we are innately curious and that I one of the reasons that we why question the existence of an External World, simply because we are inquisitive beings. However there is a deeper reasoning. We take a lot of concepts from granted in our world. All of our conversations about these concepts are only on the basis of representations. This becomes a problem because we are bound by our sense to create these representations. We need certain justification to use language about these concepts, and to achieve
He is describing the lonely view of the Solipsist. A solipsist believes that their mind is the only thing that exists, that they are the only conscious being. Everything in the world would be a creation of their own mind and thus there would be no external world. This view can easily be broken down using the strategy of “Reductio ad absurdum” or to reduce to an absurdity. The solipsists make the clear distinction of appearances from reality. However if all the solipsist has are appearances created by his own mind then that is his reality. Thus the solipsist is trying to prove that is no external world or that his mind is the only one that exists with appearances. He is stuck in a circular argument and proved false. A milder form of this view is called skepticism. This is view that all you can truly know is your own experiences and impressions. There may be an external world, however there is no way to prove that this external world is one that is true to your impressions. It could be completely different yet you have no way of knowing because your cannot escape your own impressions. However the moderate skeptic believes there are other