Ernest Nagel (; ; November 16, 1901 – September 20, 1985) was an American

philosopher of science Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. Suppes, Patrick (1999)
Biographical memoir of Ernest Nagel
In '' American National Biograph''y (Vol. 16, pp. 216-218). New York: Oxford University Press. uthor eprint, archived/ref> Along with

Rudolf Carnap Rudolf Carnap (; ; 18 May 1891 – 14 September 1970) was a German-language philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism. ...

Hans Reichenbach Hans Reichenbach (; ; September 26, 1891 – April 9, 1953) was a leading philosopher of science, educator, and proponent of logical empiricism. He was influential in the areas of science, education, and of logical empiricism. He founded the ''G ...

, and Carl Hempel, he is sometimes seen as one of the major figures of the

logical positivist Logical positivism, also known as logical empiricism or neo-positivism, was a philosophical movement, in the empiricist tradition, that sought to formulate a scientific philosophy in which philosophical discourse would be, in the perception of ...

movement. His 1961 book '' The Structure of Science'' is considered a foundational work in the logic of scientific explanation.

Life and career

Nagel was born in Nové Mesto nad Váhom (now in

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

, then Vágújhely and part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) to

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

parents. His mother, Frida Weiss, was from the nearby town of Vrbové (or Verbo). He emigrated to the United States at the age of 10 and became a U.S. citizen in 1919. He received a BSc from the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a Public university, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...

(CCNY) in 1923, and earned his PhD from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in 1931, with a dissertation titled ''On the Logic of Measurement''. Through the award of a Guggeheim Fellowship, he was able to spend a year in Europe (from August 1934 to July 1935) to learn about the new trends in philosophy on the continent. Except for one year (1966-1967) at

Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a Private university, private Medical research, biomedical Research university, research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and pro ...

, Nagel spent his entire academic career at Columbia. He became the first

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and Education reform, educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. The overridi ...

Professor of Philosophy there in 1955. And then University Professor from 1967 until his retirement in 1970, after which he continued to teach. In 1977, he was one of the few philosophers elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

. His work concerned the philosophy of mathematical fields such as

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

and

probability Probability is a branch of mathematics and statistics concerning events and numerical descriptions of how likely they are to occur. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1; the larger the probability, the more likely an e ...

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

, and the status of reductive and inductive theories of science. His book '' The Structure of Science'' (1961) practically inaugurated the field of analytic

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, ...

. He expounded the different kinds of explanation in different fields, and was sceptical about attempts to unify the nature of scientific laws or explanations. He was the first to propose that by positing analytic equivalencies (or "bridge laws") between the terms of different sciences, one could eliminate all ontological commitments except those required by the most basic science. He also upheld the view that

social sciences Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...

are scientific, and should adopt the same standards as

natural sciences Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...

. Nagel wrote ''An Introduction to Logic and the Scientific Method'' with Morris Raphael Cohen, his CCNY teacher in 1934. In 1958, he published with James R. Newman ''Gödel's proof'', a short book explicating

Gödel's incompleteness theorems Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic that are concerned with the limits of in formal axiomatic theories. These results, published by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the phi ...

to those not well trained in

mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of Logic#Formal logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory (also known as computability theory). Research in mathematical logic com ...

. He edited the ''

Journal of Philosophy ''The Journal of Philosophy'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal on philosophy, founded in 1904 at Columbia University. Its stated purpose is "To publish philosophical articles of current interest and encourage the interchange of ideas, es ...

'' (1939–1956) and the ''

Journal of Symbolic Logic The '' Journal of Symbolic Logic'' is a peer-reviewed mathematics journal published quarterly by Association for Symbolic Logic. It was established in 1936 and covers mathematical logic. The journal is indexed by '' Mathematical Reviews'', Zent ...

'' (1940-1946). As a public intellectual, he supported a skeptical approach to claims of the

paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...

, becoming one of the first sponsors and fellows of the

Committee for Skeptical Inquiry The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is a program within the U.S. non-profit organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to " ...

in 1976, along with 24 other notable philosophers like W. V. Quine. The committee posthumously inducted him into their "Pantheon of Skeptics" in recognition of Nagel's contributions to the cause of scientific skepticism. Nagel was an atheist. Nagel was an elected member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

(1962) and the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

(1981). He died in New York City. He had two sons, Alexander Nagel (professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin) and Sidney Nagel (professor of physics at the University of Chicago). Nagel's doctoral students include Morton White, Patrick Suppes, Henry Kyburg, Isaac Levi, and Kenneth Schaffner. A

festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

, '' Philosophy, Science and Method: Essays in Honor of Ernest Nagel,'' was published in 1969.

Select works

*''On The Logic of Measurement'' (1930) *'' An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method'' (with M. R. Cohen, 1934) * "The Formation of Modern Conceptions of Formal Logic in the Development of Geometry" (1939) * '' Principles of the Theory of Probability'' (1939) * "The Meaning of Reduction in the Natural Sciences" (1949) * '' Sovereign Reason'' (1954) * '' Logic without Metaphysics'' (1957) * * '' The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation'' (1961, second ed. 1979) * '' Observation and Theory in Science'' (with others, 1971) * '' Teleology Revisited and Other Essays in the Philosophy and History of Science'' (1979)

Life and career

Select works

References

Further reading