Summary Of What Does It All Mean By Thomas Nagel

In What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy, philosophy professor Thomas Nagel explores the possibility that the world exists in a subjective reality, where everything in the world was created by and exists solely in one’s mind. In support of this possibility, he suggests that the inside of your mind is the only thing you can know exists with certainty (Nagel, 8). Essentially, Nagel is suggesting that there is no way to definitively prove that an objective reality, or an external physical reality, exists outside of our own minds. Because an external reality cannot be definitively proven, it cannot be an absolute reality.