Nagel, Thomas (1937–)

1. Life

Thomas Nagel was born in 1937 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, becoming a naturalized US citizen in 1944. He was educated at Cornell University, Oxford University and Harvard University. His career began at the University of California, Berkeley, where he spent three years before moving to Princeton University in 1966 and then to New York University in 1980.

Nagel stands out among his contemporaries for the breadth of his work, which encompasses metaphysics, epistemology and moral philosophy, and for his development of a comprehensive realistic approach. He is also distinguished by the nontechnical nature of his argumentation, which is accessible to non-professionals.